Cognitive health is at the core of human well-being and our ability to thrive throughout life.

It encompasses our capacity to think clearly, communicate effectively, learn, remember, and adapt to new situations. Maintaining high levels of cognitive performance into old age is possible by investing in our health early on. Proactively taking care of your brain health, keeping mentally stimulated, managing your stress and engaging in daily brain training, especially neurofeedback, can help extend cognitive healthspan the number of years lived with good cognitive function.

At the heart of human wellbeing and our capacity to thrive in life is our Cognitive Health.

Of the domains of health that I teach about, this is the one the majority of people care about most as they enter mid-life. Whilst heart disease remains the number cause of death world-wide and cancer remains a concern for many, it’s a deterioration in cognitive health and the possibility of dementia that most people I talk to worry about most.

Whilst some decline in specific cognitive functions does happen with age, if you emerge into your sixties in good health and with a high level of cognitive performance it is absolutely possible to maintain this until the end of your life.

Investing in your health now, pays dividends later.

So, what specifically is cognitive health and why does it matter? What does happen to cognition as age? And, how can you extend your cognitive healthspan, the number of years lived with good cognitive function? How does neurofeedback support cognitive health?

Defining Cognitive Health

A helpful definition of Cognitive Health is the ability to think clearly, communicate effectively, learn, remember, and adapt to new situations. Underlying each of these activities are multiple, interdependent processes involving our brain, biology, mind and environment that enable us to experience and navigate life effectively. If we cease to think or communicate clearly, remember accurately or respond adaptively our ability to survive, and certainly thrive, becomes compromised.

Before you proceed I recommend you re-read the definition of cognitive health once more. As you do so slowly reflect on how each facet of cognitive health is for you currently.

• How is the clarity of your thinking?
• Your ability to communicate coherently and fluidly?
• Your ability to learn, remember and retrieve information?
• Your ability to adapt effectively to situations?

What is the trend of these overtime? Are these facets stable, deteriorating and/or improving?

Being honest about reality (what is), is the first step to taking action to improve what is. This is why the process of self-reflection is so important.Now, think back to a time when you had an infection, and your cognition was compromised. Perhaps you had brain fog, difficulty focusing or found it hard to find the right word or speak coherently?

How challenging was it for you to engage life fully and perform at your best? I anticipate most people say it was impossible or really hard and took gargantuan amounts of effort. Fortunately for some this dip in cognitive function is temporary. We emerge from it, feeling grateful to have our cognitive faculties back online.

Now imagine if that mental clarity, ability to communicate and memory don’t return. This is how it is for hundreds of millions of people whose cognitive health is compromised. The underlying reasons why are many and varied. They include, but are not limited to: chronic infections, brain inflammation, sleep deprivation, genetic inheritance, high glucose levels, medication side effects, compromised blood flow, toxicity, trauma, chronic stress, allergies and damage to mitochondria, our biological energy generators. Addressing the underlying causes of low cognitive health is where functional, nutritional and integrative medicine can excel. I cover this here.

Cognitive Health is at the heart of what it is to be an independent, effective and engaged human being.

Your ability to relate to others, take care of yourself (and others), manage your financial and work situation and explore all of what life has to offer is dependent on your cognition. Cognitive health requires numerous cognitive capacities to work harmoniously together.

Capacity 1: Reasoning
Includes the ability to think logically, make sound decisions and solve problems. This includes inductive reasoning (drawing general conclusions from specific observations) and deductive reasoning (applying general principles to specific cases). This is what gets trained and prioritized within most educational systems.

Capacity 2: Language
Includes the ability to understand, produce and use language effectively. This covers comprehension, speaking, writing and reading and verbal communication skills, including verbal fluency and vocabulary. The latter can continue to improve with age.

Capacity 3: Attention
The ability to focus whilst ignoring distractions. This covers being able to sustain attention for long periods, selectively attend by tuning out irrelevant/unwanted information and shift attention to manage multiple tasks. In our attention grabbing age, this is a challenge for many people.

Capacity 4: Perception
The process by which our brains interpret sensory information from the environment. This involves recognizing and making sense of visual, auditory, tactile, and other sensory inputs. As we age, perceptual abilities can decline. Vision may deteriorate due to conditions like cataracts or macular degeneration, hearing loss becomes more common, and the sense of touch can diminish.

Capacity 5: Processing Speed
The rate at which we perceive, interpret and respond to information. For most people (not all), their brain’s processing speed peaks late teens / early 20’s and tends to decline thereafter. However the rate of decline can be significantly reduced, especially with learning, brain training and cognitive stimulation.

Capacity 6: Memory
The ability to store, retain and recall information. This is the cognitive ability that worries people, especially as it is one of the hallmarks of dementia and its precursor Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Short-term memory (STM) is the ability to store a small amount of information (typically around seven items at once) for 20–30 seconds or so. STM typically keeps improving to the age of 25, remains stable to age 35 and starts declining thereafter. In contrast, long-term memory (LTM) which involves storing information over time) and working memory, working with information in real-time, do not necessarily decline over-time.

Capacity 7: Emotional intelligence (EI)
Emotional intelligence can be developed and improved upon throughout a lifetime. At the heart of EI is the ability to recognize, understand, manage and use emotions effectively. Unless you experienced secure attachment to your caregivers and had healthy emotional regulation mirrored back to you, chances are you emerged into adulthood with undeveloped EI.

Capacity 8: Executive Functioning
Involves cognitive processes that regulate and control behavior. These are some of the hallmarks of a maturing and developing brain. They include planning, organizing, initiating tasks, problem-solving, decision-making, flexible thinking and adapting to changing circumstances. At the heart of executive functioning is the ability to monitor and modify your impulses, mindstate (way of being), emotions and behavior.

What Happens to Your Brain as You Age?

As you age, certain cognitive capacities typically decline, whilst others can improve. In the graph below we see a decline in the natural speed of processing and memory with aging. This is not however inevitable. Keeping mentally active, engaging in memory training, neurofeedback training, effective stress management and improving brain health can all help mitigate these declines.

Image courtesy ResearchGate

With aging there is also a decrease in Fluid Intelligence.

Fluid Intelligence is the innate capability of the brain to analyze novel problems, employ logic in unfamiliar scenarios, and discern patterns without relying on acquired knowledge. It is essential for tasks that require quick, abstract thinking and decision-making, and it supports complex problem-solving and logical reasoning abilities. Although fluid intelligence is known to peak during early adulthood, it tends to diminish with age.

In contrast, as we age, our Crystallized Intelligence typically increases.

Crystallized intelligence is deeply rooted in learning and experience. It includes the accumulation of worldy knowledge, mastery of vocabulary, and a sophisticated repository of experiential wisdom. This type of intelligence grows as we age, and is at the heart of tasks that require expertise, cultural knowledge, or the application of known solutions to problems.

This is why elders and mentors are essential in life.

Whilst people in their 60s, 70s and 80’s might have brains that aren’t as quick and sharp as some younger people, their accumulated lifetime wisdom and the ability to convey that wisdom makes them the foundational and integral members of society. All healthy societies place the elderly and their wisdom, and the care of those elderly, at the center of their structure. Western societies still have much to learn.

How to assess your cognitive health

If you are now convinced about the importance of cognitive health, the next step is to assess your current cognitive performance. Whilst it’s perhaps tempting to skip this process, please don’t because:

Neural changes in individuals who go on to develop dementia occur up to 2 decades before the onset of cognitive symptoms. 1

You read that correctly. The precursor events at a nerve cell level that subsequently lead to dementia start to happen 20 years before the appearance of cognition related issues. Put another way the root changes for dementia can start in your forties (and possibly earlier). It’s time to take an assessment.

Online Assessments
Dr Dale Bredesen, a pioneer in the field of functional medicine approaches to cognitive health has a free Cognitive Assessment, called Cq. It takes around 15-minutes to complete and is designed to detect early signs of neurological degeneration. The Cq Assessment includes an abbreviated CNS Vital Signs assessment that evaluates executive function, speed processing, verbal and visual memory. Your Cq score is a percentile based on how well you perform compared to age-matched peers.

Another excellent assessment is The Cognitive Function (CFT) test from the Food for the Brain Foundation. It is also free and takes 15-minutes. In a study, the CFT, which measures the three aspects of memory and cognition that decline in Alzheimer’s (episodic memory, executive function and processing speed) was compared and comparable to the best paper and pencil tests currently used to diagnose mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Brain Processing Speed Assessment.
A validated way to assess aspects of cognitive function is with the measurement of Event Related Potentials (ERP’s). These mathematical measurements provide results of the brain’s timing in response to a defined test (specifically audio and visual stimulus and response). ERPs are measured using electroencephalography (EEG), which involves recording electrical activity from the scalp. When your brain processes an event (like a sound, a light, or a thought), it produces electrical signals. Those signals, when associated with the event, are known as ERPs. They represent the changes in brain activity in response to the specific event.

ERPs are typically time-locked to the event, meaning they occur at approximately the same time relative to the event each time it happens. Whilst this test only used to be available in a lab, it is now available as part of the Sens.ai 5-in-1 brain training system. Not only does it allow you to make an assessment of your brain performance, but you can track it over time and improve brain processing speed using Sens.ai’s neurofeedback brain training protocols.

7 Ways to Extend Cognitive Healthspan

Cognitive healthspan is the number of years lived with good cognitive function.

• Identify 3 reasons why you want to maintain a high-level of cognitive health as you age. Be clear about your why’s.
• What will you start doing, and what will you stop doing today (and every day thereafter) that will move you towards better cognitive health?
• When in the next 48 hours will you assess your brain function? Don’t put this off. Take either Apollo Health Cq assessment or The Cognitive Function (CFT) test. Repeat at least once a year.
• Educate yourself on how to optimize and maintain the health of your brain by reading my blog article here. It takes just 10 minutes.
• Enhance and maintain optimal cognitive function, with Sens.ai, the 5-in-1 brain training system. Its synergistic combination of brain training (neurofeedback), heart-brain training (HRV biofeedback) and brain stimulation (transcranial photobiomodulation), along with tech-assisted meditation training and brain performance assessment, makes it the world’s most comprehensive brain system training available for home use.
• Chronic unmanaged stress is a significant driver of cognitive dysfunction and an unhealthy lifestyle. Discover how to reduce stress, build resilience and manage your emotions here.
• Brain fog is common. If you experience fuzzy or clouded thinking read my blog article entitled Reclaim Your Mental Clarity: An Integrative Approach to Clearing Brain Fog.

How Neurofeedback Extends Cognitive Healthspan

Neurofeedback is a highly effective way to train your brain and take control of your state. It is the number one tech I recommend to clients who want to enhance their cognitive health.

Here is how it works. A headset with cushioned high-fidelity sensors picks up the brainwave frequency patterns of your brain and in real-time presents them back to you as sounds and images (on an app). When the desired brainwave patterns (based on the outcome you want) are present the system rewards you with a satisfying change in sound and visual imagery. By doing so, and when repeated overtime, you can positively reshape both the function and structure of your brain.

We, the team at Sens.ai, hypothesize that regularly use of Sens.ai, and especially the neurofeedback component, supports cognitive healthspan in the following ways:

Reduces Decline in Fluid Intelligence
Studies have found that neurofeedback training, especially SMR (low beta) and alpha training enhance cognitive intelligence, which includes aspects like attention, memory, executive function, and processing speed. Studies have found the changes in brain circuitry can positively enhance speed of thinking, memory, reaction time and your ability to focus and pay attention. These effects can last hours to months after training.

Extends Cognitive Longevity
Many people as they age experience a decline in cognitive functions such as memory, speed of thinking and problem solving abilities. Peak Alpha Frequency (PAF), the frequency within the alpha band where the maximum power of the alpha rhythm occurs, is a valuable biomarker for cognitive health and performance. Neurofeedback training can help maintain a high PAF and may extend cognitive longevity — the period of life in which cognitive functions are operating well.

Enhances Performance
SMR neurofeedback training, a specific type of brain training targeting the 12–15 Hz frequency range, can help improve sports performance. Specifically, it can help train for, and access on-demand the ability to be physically still, but mentally alert, focused and non-distracted. Studies on golfers, college athletes, swimmers and dancers, have found NFT can support cognitive function and sport performance.

Improves Sleep
Consistent high quality of sleep and quantity of sleep is essential for maintaining cognitive intelligence and healthspan. Yet insufficient sleep is the reality for many people. An abundance of evidence points to a major cause of insomnia being a central nervous system that is hyper-aroused and a brain that has become dysregulated. Neurofeedback training has been found in numerous studies to help the brain become more regulated and to help improve sleep duration and quality. A pilot study with Sens.ai users and reported in this white paper found that 77% of participants using the Sens.ai Sleep Nirvana Mission Protocol reported enhanced sleep quality.