A neuroscientist and psychiatrist shares 4 simple habits to protect brain aging

Throughout a long career in researching the brain and Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Gary Small picked up a few longevity habits of his own.

"When you're in this field for so many years, it's hard to resist following your own advice," Small, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist based in Los Angeles, told Business Insider.

Small, who has a psychiatry practice focusing on memory loss and is a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, said that age is the biggest risk factor in developing Alzheimer's.

"Thanks to modern medicine, we're living longer," he said. "The rub is that our brains weren't engineered to function well that long."

Still, he said lifestyle factors play a significant role in decreasing your risk of cognitive decline. Particularly, the ones that reduce obesity in midlife decrease your risk for Alzheimer's and dementia in late life.

Small, who is also the director of behavioral health breakthrough therapies such as developing a psychedelic treatment for depression at Hackensack Meridian Health, shared a few of the habits he follows to protect his brain as he ages.

Besides being beneficial to your overall health, he said, frequent movement also elevates your mood from the endorphins. Exercise may also increase levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein involved in the survival and growth of nerve cells.

Small, who has a gym in his house, focuses on cycling for his cardio and simple strength training with resistance bands and dumbbells.

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Additionally, he incorporates more walking into his day. When he lived in New Jersey, he'd take the stairs to his office or purposefully park a longer distance away. Now that he lives in Santa Monica, he and his wife love that they can walk to restaurants or run errands.

He also prioritizes improving his balance. "As you get older, if you trip and fall, that's not going to be good," he said, risking potential fractures affecting the brain. "Anything you can do to strengthen your glutes is really important as you age." He personally incorporates movements such as lunges and standing on one foot with his eyes closed.

He keeps it simple: "With every meal, I try to have a healthy protein and a healthy carbohydrate," he said, to feel fuller for longer. He also tries to snack on whole foods over ultraprocessed ones, as higher consumption of the latter is associated with a risk of quicker cognitive decline.