New research shows that your brain’s “true age” can shift dramatically depending on how you live, with optimism, restorative sleep, stress management, and strong social support acting like powerful anti-aging tools. Using advanced MRI-based brain-age estimates, scientists found that people with multiple healthy lifestyle factors had brains up to eight years younger than expected — even among those living with chronic pain.
Your birth certificate may show 65, but your brain might be functioning as if it were ten years younger — or older — depending on the experiences and habits that shape your daily life.
A team at the University of Florida reports that optimism, regular high-quality sleep, strong social ties and similar positive influences are closely connected to healthier brain profiles. Their findings indicate that lifestyle choices and stress management can meaningfully affect the rate of brain aging, even among individuals who live with chronic pain.
The study tracked 128 adults in midlife and older adulthood, most of whom had chronic musculoskeletal pain related to or at risk of knee osteoarthritis. Over a period of two years, researchers used MRI scans processed through a machine learning model to estimate each participant’s “brain age” and compare it to their chronological age. The difference between the two, known as the brain age gap, offered a single measure of whole-brain health.
Certain hardships, including chronic pain, lower income, limited education and social disadvantages, were linked to brains that appeared older. However, those associations decreased over time. Instead, protective behaviors such as restorative sleep, healthy body weight, effective stress management, avoiding tobacco and maintaining supportive relationships showed a stronger and more lasting connection to younger appearing brains.
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