8 Steps To Prevent Early Aging & Cognitive Decline

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I’ve been trying to create healthy habits for the past 10+ years, but over the past few the reason behind those habits has changed. I used to be obsessed with “looking good” and “feeling young forever.” Now I want to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, cognitive decline, and the aches and pains of early aging. 

Why the change?

My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s several years ago and I’ve watched her make the slow decline.  Alzheimer’s tends to run in families, and it scares me that I might be looking at my future. 

Her diagnosis has also helped me put into perspective what I value in life and what I’d like to get out of the life I live. For me, it’s boiled down to enjoying the time I have with my family, building a life and family with my husband, and getting to experience the beauty of the earth God created with all of them. If I develop Alzheimer’s or even arthritis in my late 30’s, I won’t be able to fully appreciate those things because some part of me will always be caught up fighting the disease and aging process.

This brings me to what I’d like to share with you today. 

In my work as a Wholistic Wellness Coach and Functional Brain Health Specialist, I help create personalized plans to create health and prevent and reverse chronic disease. While every plan is different, most address the same key components.

Let’s get into those key components.

The Cause Of Early Aging And Cognitive Decline

Something you may not know is that the underlying biochemical processes involved in chronic disease and early aging typically begin fifteen to twenty years before any diagnosis is made. That means that diseases that typically show up in your 60’s (such as cognitive decline or osteoporosis) begin in your 40’s and those that show up in your 40’s (arthritis or high blood pressure) begin in your 20’s. 

These biochemical processes are actually protective mechanisms in response to things going on inside of you or within your environment. These threats may include inflammation (from infection, diet, stress, or other causes), suboptimal levels of nutrients (including vitamins, minerals, hormones, and other brain and body-supporting molecules), or even toxic exposures (such as metals or mold toxins). 

Fun fact. Have you ever heard of amyloid-beta or amyloid plaques being the cause of Alzheimer’s disease? Well, making amyloid is actually the brain’s response to the above threats. Those plaques that everyone is scared of are actually there to protect you! It can even bind toxins to keep them from damaging your neurons. Without it, cognitive decline would happen much, much faster.

Anyway, our bodies were designed to handle many of these things. However, the problem comes when the threats are chronic, numerous, continual, and intense. Your body’s defenses also then become chronic, numerous, continual, and intense, to the point of causing harm to your own body. If this is left unchecked, you’ll eventually begin to experience symptoms followed by a disease diagnosis.

How To Prevent Early Aging And Cognitive Decline

If the causes of early aging and cognitive decline are things such as inflammation, want of nutrients, and toxicity, doesn’t it make sense to address these instead of treating their downstream effects such as joint pain, memory issues, and brain fog?

To prevent early aging and cognitive decline, you must identify which of the various potential threats your body is defending you from, remove them, and help your body oppose the remaining ones.  

Your overarching goal should be to prevent and reduce inflammation, optimize your hormones, trophic factors, and nutrients, and eliminate toxins.

Below I have outlined 8 steps to get you started.

The 8 Steps To Preventing Early Aging And Cognitive Decline

1. Prioritize an anti-inflammatory diet and mild ketosis

Food is one thing we expose ourselves to on a daily basis, and can therefore easily cause harm if you expose your body to inflammatory foods. Some of the most inflammatory foods identified thus far include trans fats, sugar, gluten, dairy, and grains. At least one of these is usually found in just about any processed food you can think of. If it has a label that lists ingredients, it’s processed. Processing can introduce damaging molecules to a food that you then eat. Such molecules can include high fructose corn syrup and dyes.

So, to transition to a more anti-inflammatory diet, a good place to start would be to avoid processed foods in favor of whole foods. 

The next step would be to avoid the combination of simple carbs, saturated fats, and lack of fiber. Things that fit this bill include cheeseburgers, fries, and soft drinks. Fiber usually slows the absorption of carbs into the bloodstream, so when there is no fiber the carbs get absorbed right away causing a spike in blood sugar, a rise in insulin, and (you guessed it) inflammation. If you plan to eat carbs, eat a vegetable first to get that fiber in! 

Saturated fats alone are not a bad thing, and can actually help induce ketosis (more on that in a minute). However, when saturated fats are combined with simple carbs and lack of fiber, it’s the perfect combination to produce things like cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance (that leads to diabetes), and cognitive decline.

Now on to ketosis. Mild ketosis is optimal for cognitive function and the self-cleaning function known as autophagy. Autophagy is one of the major biochemical processes that helps keep the body feeling young and functioning optimally. A diet low in simple carbs (such as sugars, breads, white potatoes, white rice, soft drinks, alcohol, candy, cakes, and processed food), high in non-starchy vegetables, and full of healthy fats (such as olive oil, avocados, and nuts) as well as color is the cornerstone of promoting ketosis. 

Fun fact. Our bodies are only designed to be able to handle about 15 g of sugars per day. The average American consumes 77 g of sugars per day. Since excess sugar contributes to inflammation, is it really a surprise then that chronic inflammatory diseases (like diabetes and cognitive decline) are on the rise? I think not.

If you are a meat-eater like me, eating fish, poultry, and other meat is perfectly fine (and healthy), but the majority of what you eat should still be from plants.

If preventing early aging (and especially cognitive decline) is your goal, avoiding gluten and dairy as much as possible is also important. Gluten can damage the gut lining in most people, causing leaky gut and chronic inflammation. Dairy, too, causes inflammation. Although many of us can tolerate it, dairy does still contribute to the overall level of inflammation in your body, and we want to address as many potential threats as possible. 

This way of eating not only takes away many of the contributors of inflammation, but also introduces many foods that help to decrease inflammation and can even help prevent further damage to the gut.

This brings me to step #2.

2. Ensure a healthy gut

An unhealthy gut is a major source of inflammation in most people I see. There are many signs of a leaky gut, but the ones I see most often are food sensitivities, autoimmunity, bloating, constipation, brain fog, and loose stools.

Healing a leaky gut will help reduce your level of inflammation, improve how your body absorbs nutrients from your food, enhance your immune system, and support an optimal microbiome (the balance of microbes in your gut that help your body function properly, including making several hormones and vitamins).

First thing first, you’ve got to remove, or at least minimize, the potential triggers for a leaky, malfunctioning gut. The specifics will be different for everyone but can include sugar, sensitivities to food (most commonly gluten, dairy, and other grains), sensitivities to chemicals (such as the ones found in processed foods – artificial sweeteners, preservatives, dyes, binders, etc.), herbicides, pesticides, GMO foods, alcohol, antibiotics (whether you take them or your food did), anti-inflammatory medications (like aspirin, other NSAIDs, and steroids), and, last but not least, stress.

Then, eat an anti-inflammatory diet as outlined above to promote gut healing.

Some general supplements that can help aid the gut healing process include Omega-3 fatty acids to further help reduce inflammation, L-glutamine to feed your healthy gut cells, and a highly absorbable form of Magnesium to help the needed energy molecules get to your gut cells. 

• To check out my favorite Omega-3 supplement, click here.
• For my favorite L-glutamine powder, click here.
• To find my favorite Magnesium supplement, click here.

You may also want to include bone broth to boost the gut healing process. You can either make your own if you use meats that include the bones, or you can purchase pre-made versions that are sourced from organic, pastured animals or wild-caught fish. One of my favorite brands is Kettle & Fire. You can check them out by clicking here.

There are other supplements that help promote gut healing, however, I recommend these on a case-by-case basis depending on your specific situation.

If you are doing all of the above, it should only take about 1 month for your gut lining to begin to heal. Only at this point, do I recommend adding additional probiotics and prebiotics to begin balancing the microbiome. It is best to get these from your diet, but you can take them as supplements to get you started if you wish. Probiotics are found in fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kimchi while prebiotics are found in foods like jicama, onions, leeks, and garlic. If you would like the additional supplemental support, my favorite probiotic (that also contains prebiotics) can be found here.

Once the gut is healed and you have balanced your microbiome, you should not experiences bloating, constipation, or diarrhea. 

Fun fact. You will also eliminate toxins better, which comes in to play later.

3. Fast at least 12 hours 

Fasting is consuming no food or drink, other than water, plain coffee, or plain tea, for an extended period of time.

Fasting helps promote the mild ketosis I talked about earlier. It has been linked to helping reverse insulin resistance, improve cognitive function, and promote autophagy (the cell recycling and renewal process). 

To get these amazing benefits from fasting, you only need to hit the 12-hour mark. The vast majority of people who fast include their sleeping time as part of that fast. As you’ll see below, ideally that means that 8 out of your 12 hours of fasting is when you’re asleep and not thinking about eating anyway! 

It is also best to stop eating 3 hours before bedtime. What this does is keep your blood sugar and insulin from spiking (and causing inflammation) right before bed. Sleep is when the body processes stress and cleans up after the day’s activities. If you eat within the 3 hours before bedtime, your body is fighting inflammation instead of going through that restorative process. In addition, blood sugar and insulin spikes are interpreted as a stressor by the body, causing a release in cortisol (the stress hormone) and suppression of its opposite, melatonin (the sleep hormone). All of this means eating close to bedtime inhibits good, restorative sleep, so I recommend beginning your fast after your last meal of the day.

If you are able to stop eating 3 hours before bed and sleep for 8 hours, you’re already at the 11 hour mark! That means you only need to fast for 1 more hour when you wake up to reach the 12 hour minimum. If you’d like to fast longer than that, feel free. I personally fast for 16 hours every day.

4. Move your body

Exercising isn’t just a way to look good anymore. We’ve done so much research on it over the years that we now know that exercise helps reduce insulin resistance, increases ketosis and the size of the hippocampus (both contributing to better brain function), improves the function of your blood vessels, reduces stress, improves sleep, and improves mood. 

As a pharmacist, I don’t know of any drug that can do all that. 

On top of everything, we also now know that sitting can actually harm cognitive and physical health. Sitting is the new smoking!

To get the most bang for your exercise buck, you’ll want to aim for 45 to 60 minutes total each day, 4 to 5 days out of the week, and include both aerobic exercise and weight training. 

If you currently do not exercise, please do not jump right in to the above recommendation! You will shock and potentially injure your body. Instead, work up slowly, perhaps in 10 minute increments, and adding days as you go.

I currently do 3 full-body weight training workouts and 2 to 3 cardio or yoga sessions every week. If you’re interested in seeing more specifics on my workout routine, let me know in the comments below.

5. Get real, restorative sleep

Sleep is the body’s reset button, clean up crew, and battery charger all rolled into one. You can think of sleep as the body’s natural antidote to stress. So when we don’t get enough sleep or good sleep (or, gasp, both), we end up with a negative baseline for the next day.

Some of my top tips for better sleep are:

• Try to get as close to 8 hours of sleep every night as possible.
• Try not to use sleeping pills because they can compromise cognitive function.
• Exercise early in the day so your adrenaline surge calms down before sleep.
• Avoid blue light at night since it turns off your body’s normal production of melatonin (the sleep hormone).
  • My favorite way to do this is to wear blue-light blocking glasses from dinner time until bedtime. To check out my favorite pair, click here.
• Go to bed before midnight if possible since attempting to sleep in late to make up for a late bedtime are often bested by noises, light, and other disruptions.
• Wind down prior to going to sleep.
  • This may include meditation, breathing exercises, active relaxation techniques, or reading.
• Keep your room dark, quiet, and cool.
• Keep the television out of your bedroom.
• Avoid stimulant medications and caffeine after early afternoon.
• Avoid heavy evening meals.
• Stay hydrated (but not so hydrated that you get up in the middle of the night to run to the bathroom).

Some people may find they benefit from physiological doses of melatonin. This is only about 0.5 mg of melatonin, but you can take up to 20 mg. When you take the right dose for your body, you should wake up feeling refreshed. You may also notice some increased dreaming. If you take too much, however, it can actually cause you to wake up in the middle of the night and prevent you from falling asleep again. If this happens to you, reduce the dose you’re taking.

6. Reduce your stress

The body doesn’t just interpret mental and emotional stress as stress. It also responds to blood sugar imbalance, lack of quality sleep, and inflammation in the same way.

We were made to handle intermittent stress, not constant stress. In fact, I don’t believe we were meant to lead the lives many of us (including myself) lead. The typical American eats a sugar-laden diet (affectionally referred to as the Standard American Diet, or SAD; yes, that spells sad), stays up late at night thanks to all the lights in our homes, experiences constant anxiety about work, has poor sleep, poor nutrition, and is exposed to hundreds of toxic chemicals every day. That’s a lot of stress for the body to handle!

When the body perceives stress, it releases cortisol (the stress hormone). At high levels, cortisol is toxic to the brain, increases blood sugar levels, increases body fat and risk for obesity, gives you cravings for carbohydrates (hello potato chips), causes leaky gut, as well as increases the resulting inflammation, leaky brain (it’s a thing), risk of cardiovascular disease, and decreases nerve growth as well as maintenance of the neurons involved in memory formation (making cognitive decline worse). 

Whew! To be blunt, stress sucks.

In fact, the onset of many people’s symptoms often coincides with a period of high stress.

To say the least, stress reduction is crucial. What that looks like, however, can be different for everyone. Some of the more common ways to reduce stress that I’ve seen work are: 

• Meditation
• Yoga
• Belly breathing
• Getting a massage
• Laughing
• Listening to music
• Moving your body, whether that is exercising, taking a walk, hiking, or dancing like no one is watching
• Doing something you simply enjoy such as crafting, cooking, or cuddling with your fur baby (I do this regularly and here are my fur babies, Nokomis and Selu)

7. Reduce toxin exposure

There are so many different toxins that can contribute to early aging and cognitive decline, it can be overwhelming and depressing. I’d like you to remember that our bodies were designed to be able to handle and detoxify many substances. It is simply the overall load of our current exposures that are causing a problem. Therefore, all you need to do is address those that you can control. Don’t worry about what is outside your control because, well, you can’t control them.

Toxins can include medications, chemicals, heavy metals, and even biotoxins from microbes such as mold.

It is best to identify the sources of toxins and remove them, but sometimes we aren’t aware of all the sources. That’s okay and you’ll become aware of more as time goes on. Some may even require talking to a functional medicine practitioner, like myself, to identify.

My top tips for reducing toxin exposures are:

• Eat organic, non-GMO produce and organic, pastured meat and eggs as well as wild-caught fish.
• Avoid processed food.
• Evaluate how much and how often you eat high mercury fish, such as tuna, swordfish, or shark.
• Drink filtered water, at least 32 ounces a day.
  • The top filtration systems I recommend can be found here.
• Eliminate as much plastic from your house as you can.
  • I recommend beginning with your food storage containers since your food can absorb some of the chemicals from plastic containers. It’s better to use inert materials such as glass or ceramic. To check out some of my favorite food storage solutions, click here to see some of the brands I love and use.
• Use HEPA filters in your air vents or use a mobile one.
  • You can find my favorites here, under Personal-Care Items.
• Keep an eye out for visible mold.
  • Any visible amount may indicate a larger, unseen problem. You may then want to get a visual inspection done.
• Sweat!
  • Exercising is a great way to do this, but you can also use a sauna or sauna blanket for this purpose. Sauna blankets are significantly cheaper than an entire sauna. Click here to see the one I recommend. Either way, just make sure you are wiping off the sweat and showering afterwards so you don’t reabsorb the toxins you just sweated out.
• Evaluate how much alcohol you drink.
• Look for cleaner options of personal care products such as makeup, hair spray, and antiperspirant.
  • I’m still working through each type of personal care product myself. Some of my favorites can be found by clicking here and scrolling to the Personal-Care section.

Finally, you can also eat certain foods that help eliminate toxins from your body. They include cilantro, cruciferous vegetables (such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, and bok choy), avocados, artichokes, beets, garlic, ginger, grapefruit (ask your pharmacist whether it’s safe to eat with your medications), lemons, olive oil, and seaweed. Detoxification is delicious!

8. Train your brain

The brain is a muscle, and needs to be exercised just like the rest of them. There are many companies that have focused on working out the brain. Some good ones include Posit Science (who made Brain HQ and Hawkeye) and Lumosity.

It is recommended to aim to train the brain for a total of 90 to 100 minutes per week. To easily break that down, aim for 30 minutes three times a week or 10 to 20 minutes five days a week.

Please understand that all of these programs (and other programs like these) are designed to continue challenging you. They will become more difficult over time. If it’s too stressful for you, cut back on the time.

Please remember that these steps are just the beginning if you truly wish to prevent early aging and cognitive decline. For further testing and more personalized recommendations, I suggest working with someone to discuss your goals. I’d be happy to be your go-to Brain Health Specialist and Wholistic Wellness Coach to help set you on the right path the first go round!

If a personalized road map is what you’re looking for, let’s hop on a call together and figure out what that could look like for you. To book a call, simply click the button below.

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