Celebrating brain health
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Attendees at Brain health event
Zibiah Loakthar, our Cuimhne Coordinator writes:
Thank you to everyone who supported an inspiring evening of learning about Brain Health kindly hosted by the Irish Embassy on 7 May. Over 100 people from different organisations and walks of life came together to celebrate the launch of “100 Days to A Younger Brain”, Dr Sabina Brennan’s best–selling book about brain health.
With ideas for how to maximise your memory, boost brain health and defy dementia, this book has a clear and positive message for everyone: we can all take simple actions to boost our brain power whatever our age. The book itself is presented in a very accessible way, with clear text in an easy read font, is enjoyable and useful to read and comes highly recommended by Irish in Britain’s Cuimhne team!
One of Sabina’s recommendations is to smile five times a day and make sure to share one of these smiles to spread happiness and brain health.
People arriving at the Embassy were greeted by Irish in Britain Cuimhne team members on a welcome desk and asked to pause and share something that had made them smile that day, an activity which itself generated much good humour.
Smile post messages
After short speeches from the Ambassador and a representative for Sabina’s publisher, Irish in Britain Cuimhne Patron, Dr Mary Tilki, engaged Sabina in lively conversation about brain health, giving everyone much food for thought.
Sabina surprised everyone by asking if we planned to brush our teeth at the end of evening. There was general agreement that time spent now each day brushing our teeth reaps benefits with everyone agreeing on the importance of action for dental health. The question of how many of people in the room had intentionally spent any time doing something during the day about their brain gained a very different response! And yet, Sabina observed, our life choices influence how resilient our brain can be in the face of injury and disease.
Why is it that we do not invest in the same way in brain capital? Isn’t it a no–brainer not to invest in our brain–health too?
Sabina explained that the idea for the book came about when she was a doctoral student at Trinity Institute of Neuroscience. She was struck by people talking to each other about brain science at niche conferences, while the general public appeared shut out from the discussion. Academic writing is essentially another language. The belief that the general public, who after all are funding science education through taxes, deserve to know about the latest brain science research fuelled Sabina’s passionate drive to write an accessible book in ordinary language.
The book raises awareness of the extent to which poor sleep could contribute to dementia. Indeed, the World Health Organisation has declared a sleep loss epidemic. It is not just the number of hours of sleep that are important but also the quality and the type. Sabina explains how sleep enables memories to be filtered and then embedded in brain and how important sleep is in the later part of night enabling memories and new information to be integrated in our brain. Neuroscience, says Sabina, supports the old adage of the value of sleeping on a problem.
The brain has to work hard in the daytime and without sleep cannot keep pace with clearing toxins from metabolic waste and its biproducts.
Changing our sleep habits need not cost us anything! A regular sleep pattern is important as the brain doesn’t care whether it is Saturday or Monday. When we get older, we wake earlier in the morning and feel tired earlier but many of us resist going to bed. Napping in front of the telly clears the pressure we feel to sleep but for our brain health we would be much better off trying to sleep regularly rather than replacing good evening sleep with an evening nap.
Sabina underscored how social engagement is critical for brain health. Just as feeling hungry motivates us to eat, feeling lonely can be a signal to get connected. Where we ignore feelings of loneliness, we may become more fearful, less empathetic and distrustful of others. People may even lose the capacity to open the door, and social isolation can mean people start losing the social skills they had. In western cultures, there is a common tendency to socialise only with our age peers but inter–generational contact is very important, especially so when we reach an older age and find our peers dying off.
Social isolation is not age related and has an impact on our physical health and our cognitive function; engaging with someone socially is a stimulating cognitive activity.
In Britain, we may find ourselves living in an ageist society where shops sell creams that help us not look like ourselves! And yet, Sabina notes, studies suggest that people may actually live longer in societies where there is a less negative attitude taken to ageing.
Sabina made everyone smile by joking how here in the west, we have a tendency to measure success by how big a box we can isolate ourselves in! In fact, we could really learn from communities that promote social interaction—contact with other people may itself enrich networks in our brain.
Sabina inspired everyone with her message that our neuroplastic brain has an amazing ability to change. It is not too late for us to do something for ourselves to support our own brain health. Living a healthy life and minimising our risk of the onset of dementia is something we can all take action about.
As Dementia Action Week (20–26 May 2019) approaches, our Cuimhne team encourages everyone to step up and take action. Whether that might be organising a social event or an inter–generational activity for a community group or looking after your own individual well–being by practising a positive mindset and five+ smiles a day, don’t procrastinate or simply make a pledge. Let’s use this year’s Dementia Action Week as a catalyst for action!