Practical, Science-Backed Ways to Upskill Your Brain
Insights from Renowned Experts
People who are interested in optimizing quality of life will enjoy learnings from this series of dynamic, TEDx-style talks as well as a Tech Expo showcasing the latest discoveries and biosensor technology to track and monitor brain health.
Watch this 4-minute event highlight video to experience the energy and inspiration of Level Up.
How to use it
Reframe daily decisions about sleep, food, movement and social connection with proactive goals. For example, shift from the question "How do I avoid getting sick?" to "How do I stay sharp, engaged, and capable for as long as possible?"Why it's good for your brain
Brain health span is determined far more by daily habits than genetics or luck. Center for BrainHealth's research shows the gap between lifespan and brain health span is closeable — but only through intentional, sustained investment in brain health that starts now, not at retirement.📍 Watch this moment
Sandi Chapman, PhD, and her team at Center for BrainHealth draw a distinction that should change how you make daily decisions: The average person lives to about 80, and health span reaches about 65 — but brain health can start to decline in our 30s if we do nothing about it. That gap is not inevitable, and the choices you make starting today will influence your ability to thrive throughout your life.
How to use it
Living with purpose doesn't require a job title or a packed calendar. It means intentionally building a reason to engage each morning — a project, a person to call, a skill to learn, a problem to help solve. Write it down the night before. Make it specific. Even retirees and empty-nesters can structure daily purpose into their routines through volunteering, mentorship, creative projects, or community involvement.Why it's good for your brain
Purpose activates the brain's higher-order thinking systems and is one of the most robustly protective factors against cognitive decline identified in long-term research. A brain with somewhere to go every morning is a brain that keeps building.📍 Watch this moment
Admiral William McRaven shares an inspiring lesson from Admiral Bobby Inman — still chairing boards at 84, still teaching at 93. When asked his secret, he credited one habit above all others: "I get up every day with something to do."
How to use it
Start by identifying two or three moments in your typical day where you could add five minutes of movement, and build from there — think stairs vs. elevator. Consistency across the week matters far more than intensity on any single day.Why it's good for your brain
Physical activity is the one intervention that research shows can slow or reverse every biological hallmark of aging — and the dose-response relationship is cumulative. Small movements add up. The brain responds to movement as movement, regardless of whether it comes in a structured workout or scattered throughout your day.📍 Watch this moment
Tommy Wood, MD, PhD, makes this refreshingly simple: You don't need a gym membership, a trainer, or an hour blocked out to meaningfully protect your brain through movement. Every time you get up from your chair, take the stairs, walk to a colleague's desk instead of sending an email, or choose to park further away, you are making a real cognitive investment.
How to use it
Dim lights after 9pm. Put your phone in another room. Keep your wake-up time consistent even on weekends — and stop scheduling demanding cognitive tasks like emails, tough conversations, or financial decisions in the last hour before bed. These aren't indulgences. They are evidence-based brain protection habits.Why it's good for your brain
During deep sleep, the brain consolidates memories, clears metabolic waste, and repairs cellular damage. Working against your circadian biology — looking at screens trying to lull yourself to sleep, keeping irregular schedules, or chronic undersleeping — accumulates cognitive costs that compound over years into measurable decline.📍 Watch this moment
Oxford's Russell Foster, PhD, FRS, CBE, makes the case that the quality of your sleep directly defines the quality of your waking consciousness. Concretely, this means treating your wind-down routine with the same seriousness you give your morning routine.
How to use it
Aim to eat 30 different plant-based foods per week — vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains. Then add one fermented food daily — yogurt, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha. Cut back on ultra-processed foods, which research consistently shows disrupt the gut microbiome.Why it's good for your brain
The gut microbiome regulates mood, stress responses, and cognitive function through a direct communication pathway to the brain. A well-nourished microbiome supports emotional stability, sharper thinking, and reduced anxiety — all of which compound into better cognitive health as you age.📍 Watch this moment
Based on two decades of microbiome research, John Cryan, PhD, has landed on a practical daily action: Diversify what you eat, and favor foods that nourish your gut bacteria. These aren't exotic interventions; they're small, sustainable daily shifts that have outsized effects on the gut-brain axis.
How to use it
The lifestyle prescription here is simple but perhaps countercultural: whenever you have a choice between a human interaction and an automated one, choose the human. Talk to the cashier. Call instead of text. Meet a friend for coffee. Say yes to the invitation you'd normally skip. These micro-decisions accumulate into a social life that nourishes your brain.Why it's good for your brain
The brain has dedicated neural systems for processing human relationships, and those systems need regular, in-person activation. Meaningful social connection is one of the most powerful predictors of cognitive longevity — and its absence carries health risks comparable to smoking.📍 Watch this moment
Ben Rein, PhD, makes some confessions that resonate immediately: he chose the self-checkout over the human cashier. He ordered groceries for delivery instead of going to the store. He used the digital hotel key instead of speaking to the concierge. Sound familiar?
How to use it
Get genuinely curious about the SuperAgers in your community: How do they spend their time? What do they eat? How do they manage stress? Who do they spend time with? What gives them purpose? Use their life as a living case study and let their example set your expectations for what's possible.Why it's good for your brain
The expectations we hold about our own aging directly influence the biological trajectory we follow. Research shows that people with more positive beliefs about aging live measurably longer and with better cognitive function. A real-life SuperAger in your world makes the possibility concrete, not abstract.📍 Watch this moment
SuperAger research conducted by Emily Rogalski, PhD, started with a simple but powerful question: we all know someone in their 80s or 90s who is sharper than people half their age — so what are they actually doing? Identify that person in your own life. It might be a grandparent, a neighbor, a mentor, or a community elder.
How to use it
Start with practical steps: Eat regular meals, prioritize protein and healthy fats that sustain steady energy, and treat midday nutrition as a cognitive performance decision, not just a hunger fix.Why it's good for your brain
When the body's metabolic terrain destabilizes, the brain is the first to feel it — attention softens, decision-making quality drops, and emotional regulation frays. Building nutritional habits that keep your system stable throughout the day is one of the most immediate and tangible ways to protect daily cognitive performance.📍 Watch this moment
Jane Wigginton, MD, argues you should reframe every food decision you make based on this single fact: Your brain is only 2% of your body weight, but it consumes 20% of your energy — and unlike your muscles, it has almost no ability to store that fuel. This means that blood sugar crashes, skipped meals, and ultra-processed food that spikes and drops your glucose aren't just bad for your waistline — they directly degrade your attention, clarity, and mood in real time.
How to use it
Sleep consistently. Move daily. Eat real food. Maintain human relationships. Engage your mind on purpose. When you feel tempted by a shortcut, ask yourself: is there peer-reviewed evidence behind this like there is for brain health, or is it just another example of compelling marketing?Why it's good for your brain
Chasing shortcuts doesn't just waste time and money — it actively crowds out the habits that work. Center for BrainHealth research consistently shows that the brains that age best belong to people who committed early and consistently to unglamorous fundamentals, not to those who found the perfect supplement stack.📍 Watch this moment
Geoff Ling, MD, PhD, is refreshingly blunt: The 20-year increase in human life expectancy didn't come from any supplement, trend or biohack. It came from disciplined science applied consistently over time. The daily implication for you is this — stop being seduced by the next promising thing and double down on the fundamentals that the research actually supports.
How to use it
The daily habit here is a mental reframe as much as a physical one — stop categorizing movement as "exercise" that either happens or doesn't, and start seeing every moment of physical activity as a direct deposit into your cognitive health account. Set a reminder to stand and move for two minutes every hour. Walk while you take phone calls. Stretch between tasks.Why it's good for your brain
Physical activity drives neuroplasticity, reduces neuroinflammation, and supports the growth of new brain cells — and these benefits accumulate with every moment of movement, however brief. Research shows that people who move frequently throughout their day, even at low intensity, show significantly better cognitive outcomes than those who are sedentary — regardless of whether they exercise formally.📍 Watch this moment
Tommy Wood, PhD, presents dose-response data with a liberating implication: There is no minimum effective dose of movement that's too small to matter. Every time you stand up, every short walk, every flight of stairs climbs the graph.
How to use it
Draft your own email before asking AI to improve it. Form your own takeaways before asking AI to summarize the debate. Sketch your own plan before asking AI to build it. Then use the AI response to challenge, refine, and expand your thinking — not to replace cognitive effort. This single habit preserves the very neural pathways that AI adoption, used passively, quietly erodes.Why it's good for your brain
Cognitive engagement — effortful thinking, problem-solving, reasoning through complexity — is one of the strongest drivers of neuroplasticity and cognitive reserve. In a world where AI can do more and more of our thinking for us, choosing to keep doing it ourselves is increasingly one of the most important brain health decisions we make every day.📍 Watch this moment
This "sustainable intelligence" framework shared by Sarah Baldeo, MBA, PhD(c) has a direct daily application: Before you hand a "thinking task" to an AI tool, do it yourself first.
Flex Your Frontal Lobe
Memory consolidation requires active repetition and connection to existing knowledge — it doesn't happen automatically. Be intentional about simple knowledge retention habits:
- After any learning experience spend five minutes writing down the three ideas that most resonated with you.
- Review those notes one week later.
- Share one insight with someone else within 24 hours.
Watch this 3-minute video as Center for BrainHealth's Lori Cook, PhD, and Jennifer Zientz share why creating takeaways and action items is important and how science-based SMART™ Brain Training strategies can help.
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