Has anyone else noticed the surging number of people writing in public? In London, where I walk beside the River Thames every day, I’ve become increasingly aware of people sitting on benches, writing. Not playing with their phones or ipads, but writing by hand in note books and on paper. I began lamenting the loss…
EAT MORE GARLIC AND KEEP MAP-READING
Yes an odd combination, but both of the above could help preserve our memories. And both are easy enough to do. We all love the convenience and effortlessness of Google maps and any other digital map app or satellite navigation system we might be using. But a growing body of research suggests we may have…
How diet boosts brain power: the science
Annabel and I read hundreds of research articles each month to keep up to date with the latest findings on healthy longevity. We’ve learned to decode the different methodologies to understand which are the most meaningful, and relevant, to The Age-Well Project. There’s such a broad span of research methods, from investigating the insides of…
HOW TO AGE HAPPILY IN 2020
Happy New Year from The Age-Well Project! We hope that you’re looking at the year, and the decade, ahead with optimism. Optimism is a great tool for health and happiness. Research published last summer assessed the optimism levels of almost 70,000 people in the US. It found that the most optimistic individuals lived between…
THREE SIMPLE BOOSTS FOR GUT HEALTH
Are you good to your gut? We do hope so. The link between gut health and longevity is key to our Age-Well Project, so we’re excited about THREE new pieces of research providing simple ways to boost both. A quick refresher: when we say ‘gut health’ we mean the variety, quality and quantity of our…
COFFEE AND YOUR HEALTH: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
This is me, about to take – I kid you not – my first sip of coffee in 20 years. I gave up when living in California in 1999 (my body was a temple, and all that). The withdrawal symptoms were so debilitating (like a 10-day flu bug) I vowed never to go back. But…..20…
ENHANCING MEMORY, AND AN ICE CREAM TO HELP YOU SLEEP!
Why did nobody tell me that midlife would be a constant battle to get enough sleep?! I took sleep for granted until I had children, but since then it’s been a scarce commodity. The broken nights of early parenthood have given way to the broken nights of middle age, menopause and beyond. A steady stream…
HOW TO BE HAPPY: GET HEALTHY, GET MARRIED AND GO OUT FOR DINNER
It turns out – as if we didn’t know – that health really is wealth. A report on personal wellbeing published by the ONS (Office of National Statistics) this week reveals we rate good health as the key to happiness. What the research doesn’t answer is what comes first: do we feel good because we…
IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY BY WALKING BACKWARDS, THROWING PARTIES AND OTHER THINGS BESIDES…
One of the questions we’re often asked is: How can I improve my memory? Few of us beyond mid-life can claim to have a perfect in-our-twenties memory. But is this natural ageing or can we do something about it? After I hit my head on a London pavement and cracked my skull, my memory disappeared…
EAT MORE MUSHROOMS: ITALIAN MUSHROOM SALAD
A study in last month’s Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease had me googling frenziedly for several hours. Could I really reduce my chances of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by 50% merely from eating a few more mushrooms? There are moments when I’m quite sure I already have mild cognitive impairment (MCI, defined as the stage between…
