Absurdly Simple Tips for Keeping Your Brain Sharp As You Age

Don’t fall for pricey supplements or biohacking gimmicks claiming to stave off cognitive decline. Keep it simple instead.

Anna Medaris

Updated March 03, 2026

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel in front of a background of ice cream

Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel

AARP (Courtesy Office of Emanuel, Getty Images)

When Ezekiel Emanuel first took up artisanal honey-making, he wasn’t particularly good at it. He bought the wrong honey extractor. He moved too erratically around the bees. “You have to be very gentle,” he learned. “That's not my nature — I'm not a go-slow kind of guy.”

But, as a part of his yearly pledge to try something new, Emanuel — an oncologist who’s better known as a world leader in health policy and bioethics than a beekeeper — stuck with it. And just this January, he learned his batch was named a finalist in the Good Food Awards. “It’s a very floral honey — very special,” says Emanuel, author of the new book “Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life.”

The point isn’t to invest in honeybees to become more like Emanuel, a sharp 68-year-old who earned medical and doctoral degrees from Harvard University, holds multiple positions at the University of Pennsylvania and just published his eighth popular-press book. The takeaway from Emanuel’s sweet pursuit is to keep learning — be it how to bake sourdough, how to speak Dutch or how to play pickleball — to stave off cognitive decline as you age.

Dr. Ayesha Sherzai puts it this way: “Don’t retire — rewire.” The neurologist and co-director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University says, “Your brain needs challenge. It doesn’t need silence. It needs complex and challenging activities to stay resilient.”

Indeed, one 2020 report in the journal Psychology and Aging found that people who tend to give up on difficult goals are more likely to see steeper memory decline than their peers who remain employed.

Yet, when a different group of adults ages 58 to 88 took three to five simultaneous classes in topics like Spanish, photography and iPad proficiency, their cognitive abilities improved in just a month and a half — to levels similar to a group of adults 30 years younger, in a study published in 2023 in The Journals of Gerontology.

“Staying engaged in life is super, super important,” Emanuel says. Here’s what else is important — and simple — for brain health and cognition as you age. No pricey supplements or biohacking gimmicks required.

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1. Ditch ultra-processed foods

Looking at the diets of more than 10,000 Brazilians ages 35 to 74, researchers found that those who ate the most ultra-processed foods — meaning at least 20 percent of their daily calories came from foods like frozen dinners and packaged pastries — mentally declined 28 percent faster over the study’s six to 10 years than those who ate fewer such foods. This study showed an association only. The results were based on participants’ completion of food frequency questionnaires and success in various mental tasks, such as word recall tests, that they completed up to three times every four years. Those who ate the most ultra-processed-foods also experienced a 25 percent faster rate of decline in executive function, which includes decision-making and problem-solving, according to the study reported in 2022 in JAMA Neurology.

Sherzai says that aging is most influenced by the health of your blood vessels, so it makes sense that things like ultra-processed foods — which are recognized as being bad for your heart health —are also bad for your brain. “Your blood vessels are key for better brain health … and longevity,” she says.

2. Strike up a conversation

When Emanuel recently boarded a plane, he asked his seatmate an obvious question: “Why are you going to Boston?” The inquiry sparked a conversation about the woman’s successful efforts to bring more flowers to her town’s public spaces. “It was fascinating how she went about doing it and made it an institution in her city,” Emanuel says.

His curiosity paid off for both parties’ brains, since research shows that social engagement is linked to better cognitive health among people with or at risk for Alzheimer’s and related dementias. And it’s not just deep connections that matter; chit-chat with a stranger is valuable for well-being too, other research shows. As Emanuel’s father taught him, “Just come up with a question and then the conversation will go [from there]. Focus on the conversation — don’t focus on your phone.”

3. Take a walk

Just like a healthy diet helps keep your blood vessels, and therefore your brain, nimble, so too does regular physical activity. One meta-analysis including 10 studies reported in 2023 found that aerobic or resistance exercise improved older adults’ cognitive ability and mild cognitive impairment.

“Your muscles are a brain-protective organ,” Sherzai says. Letting them wither depletes brain-derived neurotrophic factors, or chemicals that “make connections between brain cells,” Sherzai says. “Those are created when you actually build muscle.”

So while a mix between resistance and aerobic exercise is ideal, if your first step is a literal one, that’s great, says biologist Steven Austad, a distinguished professor at the University of Alabama and scientific director of the American Federation for Aging Research. “Good, brisk walking seems to be just as good for preventing dementia as running marathons.”

4. Set your alarm

Sherzai says getting restorative sleep is often the most difficult habit for people to nail. But it’s critical for cognition over time. “When we get a deep restorative sleep, your brain essentially goes through cleaning cycles, and short sleep or poor sleep or sleep disorders interrupt that process,” she says. As a result of insufficient shut-eye, metabolic waste linked to diseases like Alzheimer’s can build up.

Rather than being alarmed, set your alarm, Sherzai advises. “Forget about all of those things you are doing,” she says, like popping melatonin or tinkering with a sleep-tracking app. Instead, get up at the same time each morning. If you do so, “your body will cycle through that circadian rhythm, where you will fall asleep a little earlier over time, you feel tired if you don’t … and your body will adjust.”

As with any new habit for brain health, “consistency beats intensity after 50. Any small daily habit outperforms occasional big efforts,” she says. “The best habit is the one you’ll still be doing in 10 years.”