Deborah Howell (Host): As we age, it's really important to keep our minds active and engaged. Welcome. I'm Deborah Howell. And in this podcast, Roneet Cooper, an LCSW community-based social worker at Saddleback Medical Center, will talk about practicing neurobics and how brain games can help seniors stay mentally sharp by creating new neural pathways. Roneet will share some practical tips and activities that boost cognitive function and overall well being, and I can't wait. Welcome, Roneet.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me join you today.

Host: Oh, we all need you so much. First off, can you explain why keeping the brain active is so important for seniors and what techniques they can do at home to help promote brain health?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Absolutely. It's so interesting because we all think about our body as muscles, and we all know that we should exercise our muscles, but yet we don't think about our brain being a muscle, and it is. It is the biggest muscle of all, and we need to keep those muscles active and agile to prevent any decline in our cognitive abilities like our memory and our reasoning and our problem solving as we age. There are so many brain games out there, but it's so important to engage your brain just like you want to engage your muscles on your physical body.

Host: All right. You've convinced me. So, you specialize in neurobics, which is a unique form of brain exercise. Can you tell us a little bit more about neurobics?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: For sure. So Dr. Lawrence Katz, a former Duke University Professor of Neurobiology, is said to be the Father of Neurobics, meaning aerobics for our neurons. So just like we talked about, we all have neural pathways in our brain and we want to keep our brain active and create new neural pathways. Think about it this way, if we do routine and do things that we do every single day, then it just creates our neural pathways to be deeper and darker. But if we want to create new neural pathways, then we have to enhance the brain's natural drive to form associations between different types of information.

Host: So, what are some of the common brain games you do with seniors to help them stay sharp and make these new neural pathways?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: That's a great question. I love encouraging people to brush their teeth or their hair with their non-dominant hand. Let's try that right now. Take that motion. I'm a righty, so I'm going to use my left. So, my left hand, and if you put it over your hair, like you're brushing your hair, it feels odd, it feels weird. That is the new neural pathway being created, because we usually use our right hand to brush our hair and we don't even think about it. But when you brush your hair with your non-dominant hand and that awkward feeling that you have is creating new narrow pathways. Some of the games that we think about is brushing your hair, brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand, using a blindfold or closing your eyes to pick out change out of your wallet or your coin purse without looking at it and trying to figure out which coin you picked up. Is it a quarter? Is it a dime? Is it a nickel? It's only because we know by sight what a quarter is, that we say, "Oh, this is a quarter." But if you have to take time to feel the ridges and to feel the thickness of the coin and how big the coin is, you're creating new neural pathways with everyday items that we all have.

Host: You know, I'm a pickleballer, and I'm actually left-handed in real life, but I always did sports, you know, racquet sports with my right hand. And people are like, "You really need to switch to your left hand because you'd have such an advantage." So, I've been trying a little bit. I'm like, "Why is this so hard?" And now I know why, because I'm having to make brand new neural pathways.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Absolutely.

Host: Interesting. Now, how does mindfulness complement brain exercises and why is it so beneficial for cognitive health, especially for seniors?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: So, it's so interesting because neurobics uses the five senses to enhance the brain's natural drive to form association between different types of information, as I said before, like putting a name together with a face or putting a smell with a food. But let's look at it a little bit more.

There's three rules, right? We use our senses in an unusual way, is rule number one. So, an example, we want to read a book, which uses one sense. Reading a book while listening to music uses two of our senses. Reading a book while listening to music and smelling an aroma, like a scented candle, or even your coffee, uses three senses. The second rule is investing our full concentration, even just for a few minutes. That's where the mindfulness comes in. We want to concentrate completely on the task at hand. We're all so used to looking at our phones and to be focused on multitasking. We all talk about, well, it's good to multitask, but it's really not, because we're taking away the neural pathways. We're not allowing our brain to rejuvenate the neural pathways and create new ones. So if you take a picture or a clock or a calendar and turn it upside down, even for five minutes a day, it forces your brain to focus on that picture or on the clock differently than you normally would if the picture was just sitting straight up.

To drill this down even a little bit more, do you remember a time that you drove home from work, Deborah, that you don't remember how you got there?

Host: Yes.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: You sit in the driveway and you think, "Wait, I'm home. I don't remember passing the store. And I don't remember passing that school that I always pass."

Host: Right.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: That's because we're not engaging our brains in doing things that we normally do. They're routine. And that's what we really want to drill down here is the routine is so deadening to our brain. And we want to engage our brains in every activity that we're doing, including pickleball or including reading.

Host: This is just fascinating. So, you've mentioned a few, but besides games, are there other activities that promote similar cognitive benefits?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Yes, for sure. So there's learning a new skill, like a musical instrument, or a language, as you talked about, pickleball. A lot of the seniors tell me that they learn Mahjong, or they do ping pong. So, when you do an activity and it's new and you're fumbling over it, it's great because that is creating the new neural pathways. But once you've mastered that skill, it is no longer a neurobic exercise. It's just good exercise. It's fun.

Host: Ah, I see.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: But now, we need to shake up the routine again, and we need to learn a new skill or a new language.

Host: And you've mentioned the importance of switching things up when it comes to brain health. Can you give some examples of how seniors can switch up their daily routines and how that can benefit them?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Absolutely. So, I always start with when you sit in a lecture, right? Or you go to an activity, at a senior center or if you're living in assisted living and you go to an activity, sit in a different seat than you normally sit. It forces your brain to look at the speaker and to focus your information that's coming at you a different way. And it's easy because you're just changing where you sit. I have a six-year-old, and I helped my six-year-old brush her teeth. I was doing the same routine, you know, the left side, the middle, the bottom, the right. And I realized, once I started teaching neurobics, that that doesn't help me to remember which side I've done. So now, I do brushing roulette. So, we start, and we have to figure out, "Oh, did we do that side already, or did we not do that side already?"

Host: That might put me in a tailspin. I don't know.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: And I always tell people, take a different route home from work, or take a different route to the store.

Host: Or just say, I'm not going to Chipotle again today. I'm going somewhere else.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Try a new cuisine that you normally don't have. Exactly. That's exactly it.

Host: So, what benefits have you seen brain games and neurobics have on seniors who regularly engage in them over time?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Just as cross training helps you maintain overall physical fitness, neurobics can help you take charge of your overall mental fitness. Neurobics aims to help you maintain a continuing level of mental fitness, strength, and flexibility as we age. The findings suggest that neurobic exercise program is effective intervention in improving memory and reducing depression.

 Think about that for a minute, Deborah. Memory and depression. A lot of people ask me why memory and depression? Why are they connected? And if we think about it, when we start to forget where we put our keys, or we start to forget a name of a person, subconsciously we start to berate ourselves, and we get angry, and it starts to create depression in us, and we start to isolate ourselves, because we don't want people to think that we no longer can remember things.

Host: So, what advice would you give to seniors who find it hard to stay motivated or struggle to start cognitive exercises?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: First of all, let's not call it exercise. Let's change the name. Let's reframe it to brain games.

Host: Oh, there you go.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: We love to play games, but all of us dread exercising. Find a game that is fun to you. Like I said, learn a new language, go to a dance class, learn how to play a new card game. Anything that you fumble over and that is awkward is a neurobic exercise. So, keep at it. Try something over again. And if it sticks, great. If not, then keep trying something new.

Host: Okay. After this podcast, I'm going to go juggle some eggs.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Let me know how that works for you.

Host: Will do. All right. What advice would you give to caregivers or family members of seniors who want to help their loved ones stay mentally sharp? And how can they support them in incorporating brain games into their daily routines?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: I highly encourage people to get out and to socialize. We really learned during COVID that isolation is the epitome of causing depression. If we don't get out, and we're isolating ourselves, that we no longer want to get out and socialize. So, the more that we encourage people to get out and to go and socialize, the better off that they are mentally. And then, play games with them. the coin game is a great one. I also love to do, at the end of my first, I break up the neurobics program into a two-part series. And at the end of the first part, I ask for volunteers and I blindfold them and I give them five different foods. And by taste and by smell and by feel, they have to figure out which food is which. And it's really a lot of fun, and it really gets the senses being used.

Host: I love all these things and they do sound like fun and once you get engaged in them, I mean, you know, you go to senior centers and you see them playing volleyball with balloons and you know what? It's not just a silly game. They're creating new neural pathways. This is science in action.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Absolutely. I also encourage the caregivers or the family members to take them out to a different restaurant. Don't always go to the Chipotle. Like you said, go to a different restaurant and encourage them to take something else off the menu that they don't normally eat.

Host: Right.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Go to a Middle Eastern grocery store and smell the spices and try to name the spices that you're smelling. These are all great ways that you can use everyday items to make new neural pathways.

Host: I love it. Do something new every day. Is there anything else you'd like to add to our conversation before we wrap up?

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: No, I mean, if you want to learn more about the neurological services offered through Memorial Care Saddleback Medical Center, please visit www.memorialcare.org/smcneuro.

Host: Perfect. Thank you so much, Roneet, for your time and your expertise today. I'm going to go juggle those eggs. We enjoyed having you on the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

Roneet Cooper, LCSW: Thank you so much for having me today.

Host: And for more information or to listen to a podcast of this show, please go to www.memorialcare.org. That's all for this time. I'm Deborah Howell. Have yourself a terrific day.