Five simple steps could help keep your brain “younger”, according to a new study. The findings suggest that sticking to these lifestyle habits could help keep your brain “eight years younger” than your actual age.

This was found to be the case among those living with chronic pain - which is typically linked to poorer cognitive health. The new study, which was published in Brain Communications journal, specifically whether daily habits impact brain ageing in people with chronic pain.

As reported by Medical News Today, the researchers found that people who had healthy lifestyle behaviours had a younger brain age. In certain cases, participants’ brain age was up to eight years younger than their actual age.

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As part of the research a team from three universities in the US analysed data from more than 100 adults ages 45 to 85 who were tracked for two years. These participants were already part of a larger observational study on pain and osteoarthritis risk.

Each participant’s chronic pain stage was assessed on a scale from one to five, with one being little to no chronic pain and five being severe chronic pain. Their lifestyle habits and psychological traits, including tobacco use, waist size, sleep quality, stress levels, and optimism were also evaluated.

This was used to determine a “protective score”. When the study began, people with a higher protective score, including those with chronic pain, had brain ages that were up to eight years younger than their chronological age.

However, people with lower protective scores had a brain age that was older than their actual age. After a period of two years, the participants with the healthiest lifestyle profiles continued to show younger brain ages.

This suggests that positive habits can have a long term impact on brain health. The five most important protective factors for brain age in people with chronic pain, were found to be:

• Maintaining a good sleep hygiene


• Maintaining a healthy body weight


• Avoiding tobacco


• Good stress management strategies


• Maintaining positive social ties

Study authors wrote: “Our results indicate that while chronic pain is correlated with overall brain structure, socioenvironmental and behavioural/psychosocial factors appear to play a more significant role. Given that the behavioural/psychosocial factors correlate with brain age over time and are potentially modifiable, the protective factors provide a set of potential clinical targets (e.g. sleep, smoking, social support) for interventions that might reduce brain ageing in middle and old age within and without the context of chronic pain.”

This is not the first time these factors have been linked to a healthy brain. A groundbreaking study, published in The Lancet, previously associated some of these with dementia risk.

Researchers named 14 lifestyle factors that could increase the risk of dementia in about 45 per cent of cases. These included:

• Smoking in midlife - a potential two per cent reduction in cases of dementia if this risk factor is eliminated


• Obesity in midlife - one per cent


• Social isolation in late life - five per cent

The other risk factors were less education in early life, hearing loss, high cholesterol, depression, traumatic brain injury, physical inactivity, diabetes, hypertension, excessive alcohol, air pollution, and visual loss.