7 Easy Steps to Help Keep Your Heart (and Brain!) Healthy

You probably know that taking certain healthy measures can keep your ticker in tip top shape, but according to a new advisory from the American Heart Association (AHA), the very same steps that protect your heart may also foster optimal brain function.

Because your brain and your heart both rely on a healthy flow of blood, your vessels need to be clear and healthy. But with age, your vessels can become narrow or blocked— a condition known as atherosclerosis that can lead to a heart attack or stroke. The good news: modifying a short list of lifestyle factors that the AHA dubs “Life’s Simple 7” can significantly cut your risk for atherosclerosis, helping stave off not only major cardiovascular events, but reduces the risk of the cognitive decline that’s seen in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, too.

“For a long time, we’ve made the association, and we now have pretty strong epidemiologic evidence that the same simple seven factors play into cognition,” says vascular neurologist Philip Gorelick, M.D., M.P.H., the chair of the advisory’s writing group and executive medical director of Mercy Health Hauenstein Neurosciences. “It’s turned on its head the concept that Alzheimer’s is just a neurodegenerative disease; it seems to be far more complex. I’ve spent 25 years talking about this, and here we are—it’s finally happening.”

The 7 Simple Steps You Can Take Now

The reason these seven simple steps can have such a major impact on your cognitive health is because problems like elevated blood pressure and high cholesterol can damage your blood vessels and reduce the amount of blood that flows to your brain. Without enough blood flow, your brain can begin to have trouble performing basic functions like communicating, making decisions, learning, and remembering.

Over the years, Gorelick and his team have been able to identify that the same seven steps that can lower the risk of stroke can also help prevent Alzheimer’s and possibly some other neurodegenerative disorders. By pulling data from multiple studies, the researchers were able to create a list of seven action items that can be measured, modified, and monitored so doctors can keep an eye on progress and help patients reach their goals.

“One of the messages I give in my office when I see patients or speak to groups is, ‘we have good news for you!’” Gorelick says. “‘Not only can we help prevent heart attacks and strokes by following a healthy behavioral program, but we may also be able to slow or prevent cognitive impairment as we age.’”

Here are the seven things you can take control of today:

1. Manage your blood pressure.
2. Control your cholesterol.
3. Keep your blood sugar in a normal range.
4. Incorporate exercise.
5. Eat a healthy diet.
6. Lose extra weight.
7. Quit (or don’t start!) smoking.

It’s Never Too Late (Or Too Early!) to Improve Brain Health

While you may think of cognitive decline as something you shouldn’t worry about until the far off future, Gorelick says true prevention means getting an early start. “This is going to be a lifelong continuum, but right now, we have solid epidemiologic data that midlife is when the switch may begin to flip in the wrong direction toward cognitive impairment and we should intensify our efforts,” he says. “I believe midlife is a great place to start, but also pushing the curve even further along into childhood and even in-utero because factors there probably set the stage for problems in midlife, which set the stage for later problems in the golden years.”

And if you haven’t been abiding by the heart and brain-protecting steps listed in LIfe’s Simple 7, don’t worry—according to Gorelick, the evidence is clear that making positive changes at any point in time can make a big difference. Take fitness for example: “A lot of the literature on physical activity shows that if you exercised when you were youthful, that seems to give protection later in life,” he says. “That observation is something for people to grasp onto and say, ‘it’s not too late to start exercising now.’”

Michelle Konstantinovsky

Michelle Konstantinovsky is a contributing Health & Wellness Editor for Fitbit. Michelle is a San Francisco-based journalist, marketing specialist, ghostwriter, manatee enthusiast, and pop culture fiend. She was born and raised in San Francisco and earned a master’s degree at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She covers health, nutrition, fitness, sexual health, chronic conditions, and more, and her work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Slate, SPIN, Entrepreneur, SF Weekly, 7×7 Magazine, The Huffington Post, WebMD, and California Home + Design Magazine, among others.