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Speaker 1: Job mission with Jones and Amanda.

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Speaker 2: Well, our next guest is one of the country's most

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Speaker 2: trusted and respected health professionals. So we heard you had

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Speaker 2: a new book out on how to keep your brain young,

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Speaker 2: the Benjamin Button of the brain. That's what I'm after.

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Speaker 2: We thought, you know what I want some of what

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Speaker 2: she's having. Professor Karen Phelps Hello, Hello.

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Speaker 3: Very well, can I apologize we're playing doctor Doctor is

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Speaker 3: your intro? But you're not a doctor anymore. You're a professor.

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Speaker 3: But there was no sign that actually has professor in it.

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Speaker 1: Always a doctor.

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Speaker 2: How do you get to be a professor? What does

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Speaker 2: that mean?

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Speaker 1: Well, it's an association. It's an honor conferred by a

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Speaker 1: university based on work that you do or have done

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Speaker 1: with for the university. So my min is a conjoint

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Speaker 1: professorship with the University of Western Sydney at the Nikhim

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Speaker 1: Health Research Institute.

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Speaker 3: So you don't have to go back to union, get

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Speaker 3: out the beakers or anything like that.

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Speaker 2: Just study to be a professor, Always studying, always studying.

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Speaker 2: Actually we're just talking on our pub test there about

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Speaker 2: accelerating the roadmap out and how we feel about that.

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Speaker 2: How do you feel about that.

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Speaker 1: I'm very concerned about it because I think that we

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Speaker 1: need to base any political decisions on very firm scientific

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Speaker 1: and health advice, and most of the science and health

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Speaker 1: based people that I speak to are very concerned about

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Speaker 1: some of the aspects of this, So, for example, removing

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Speaker 1: the requirement to wear masks indoors in offices and indoor spaces,

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Speaker 1: particularly where there is poor ventilation of the places where

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Speaker 1: you're most likely to transmit COVID. So I think a

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Speaker 1: lot of businesses and a lot of individuals will take

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Speaker 1: it upon themselves to put in place whatever precautions they

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Speaker 1: need to be safe themselves. And so really I think

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Speaker 1: businesses will be taking that medical advice I think, and

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Speaker 1: making defeats about how to keep their staff and their

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Speaker 1: clients safe. I think it's a concern about not having

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Speaker 1: masks in schools and not having the ventilation and air

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Speaker 1: filtration already set up in schools to make those spaces safe.

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Speaker 1: And I know that there are a lot of teachers

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Speaker 1: and a lot of parents who are concerned about going

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Speaker 1: back to school feeling unprepared for what might be coming.

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Speaker 2: I know also you were talking about how when we

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Speaker 2: get the information and we hear that people have lost

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Speaker 2: their lives to COVID when they say they had underlying

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Speaker 2: health conditions, we all are able to dismiss that because

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Speaker 2: we think of few they were really, really ill. But

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Speaker 2: you're saying underlying health conditions is pretty much so many

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Speaker 2: of us. Yeah, it's not someone who's just chronically ill.

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Speaker 1: I got all protective about this one because when I

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Speaker 1: was listening to the press conference the then premiere and

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Speaker 1: health officials, and they talk about the numbers of people

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Speaker 1: who had died and their vaccination status, and then they

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Speaker 1: add this curious expression underlying health condition. I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: hang on a second. A half of the population have

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Speaker 1: an underlying health condition, and it can be anything from

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Speaker 1: heart disease or hypertension or asthma, or a whole range

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Speaker 1: of different conditions that people live with and can expect

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Speaker 1: to live long and productive lives. And to almost dismiss

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Speaker 1: them as having an underlying health condition and that was

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Speaker 1: some excuse for why it was somehow different that they

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Speaker 1: died from COVID felt to me like it was disrespectful

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Speaker 1: to those people and unnecessary. And the thing is that

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Speaker 1: even people who don't have an underlying health condition can

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Speaker 1: become very ill or die from COVID. So I felt

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Speaker 1: it was very unhelpful and very non specific information that

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Speaker 1: we were being given, almost as a way of excusing

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Speaker 1: the death rate.

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Speaker 3: I guess in a way, they're just trying to make

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Speaker 3: everyone feel better about it, because in these uncertain times,

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Speaker 3: you don't want to be the bearer of bad news

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Speaker 3: all the time.

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Speaker 1: So I guess the only way to feel better about

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Speaker 1: it is to not have deaths from COVID public health measures.

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Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about how to keep your brain young.

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Speaker 2: What can we be doing as of today.

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Speaker 1: Well, there are things that we can be doing every

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Speaker 1: day and that can be from any age as well

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Speaker 1: and being a GP for a very long time. Now,

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Speaker 1: I see a lot of people very concerned about their

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Speaker 1: brain function. And if they start to, for example, forget

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Speaker 1: a detail, forget a name, find it difficult to problem

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Speaker 1: solve in particular circumstances, they start to worry is this

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Speaker 1: the first sign of Alzheimer's or dementia? And it's a

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Speaker 1: particular worry for people who might know somebody or have

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Speaker 1: somebody in their family who has dementia. And so I

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Speaker 1: started looking at the research behind what you could actually

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Speaker 1: do to preserve your brain function and in fact improve

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Speaker 1: your brain function through every life stage. And so you know,

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Speaker 1: every habit, good habit, starts from the beginning. And so

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Speaker 1: I look right back to what parents can do to

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Speaker 1: help build their child's intellectual and cognitive capacity, and it's

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Speaker 1: things like making sure that they're moving their bodies regularly,

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Speaker 1: that they exercise, that nutrition is focused on, that blood

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Speaker 1: sugar is controlled, that cholesterol is controlled. I look at

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Speaker 1: aspects like gut health and its relationship with the brain,

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Speaker 1: making sure that blood pressure is kept normal. And then

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Speaker 1: there are these other things like building social networks and

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Speaker 1: social connections very important to not only emotional health, but

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Speaker 1: also to cognitive or thinking ability, how you sleep, how

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Speaker 1: you stimulate your mind, things like brain training, taking care

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Speaker 1: of your emotions, and looking at relationships and whether they're

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Speaker 1: toxic for you, preventing brain injury, avoiding illicit drugs, not

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Speaker 1: over using alcohol, not smoking. So you see, there's a whole,

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Speaker 1: pretty much a whole of lifestyle approach. But what I

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Speaker 1: do is look at the evidence behind the detail of

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Speaker 1: what type of exercise you can do, what nutritional elements

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Speaker 1: that you need to include, how to get a better

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Speaker 1: night sleep, how to stimulate your mind. So it ended

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Speaker 1: up really looking at the whole of life and how

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Speaker 1: you can build brain capacity and then maintain it.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's how to do the so doko, that's what. Well,

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Speaker 3: I kind of do it like I look at it.

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Speaker 3: I don't even understand it, Do you do?

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Speaker 1: Think? Yes, I do. I quite enjoy it. And that's

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Speaker 1: one aspect. There are lots of different things you can

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Speaker 1: do that you can perhaps enjoy more than one one

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Speaker 1: particular type of brain training or another you can you

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Speaker 1: can find one that you do enjoy, and it might

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Speaker 1: be something like playing chess or playing bridge, or learning

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Speaker 1: a language. Learning a musical instrument is really powerful for

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Speaker 1: mine building because it involves taking an abstract concept, which

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Speaker 1: is kind of squiggles on a page, and then translating

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Speaker 1: those to what your fingers need to do on a keyboard,

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Speaker 1: and then you have auditory feedback for that. So there's

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Speaker 1: a whole lot of areas of your brain that are

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Speaker 1: lit up when you learn a musical instrument. And the

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Speaker 1: other thing about learning a new skill is that it

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Speaker 1: does actually fire up new parts of your brain. And

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Speaker 1: one of the really interesting things that we now know

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Speaker 1: about the brain which is fairly recent knowledge, is that

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Speaker 1: you can actually develop new brain cells throughout your life.

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Speaker 1: It's a process called adult neurogenesis, and this can happen.

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Speaker 1: We now know in about three parts of the brain

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Speaker 1: and a couple of those parts of the brain where

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Speaker 1: you can have adult neurogenesis areas that are responsible for memory.

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Speaker 1: So you can actually build your capacity for memory throughout life.

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Speaker 1: And the book is all about harnessing that ability for

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Speaker 1: what we can call neuroplasticity, or being able to adjust

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Speaker 1: the brain's function and even structure throughout life through doing

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Speaker 1: all sorts of different activities.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's amazing. Just teaching Amanda how to do daylight

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Speaker 3: saving has been enough for everyone.

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Speaker 2: My brain fired up. That only fed up against six

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Speaker 2: months ago.

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Speaker 3: Professor, it is always great to talk to you. How

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Speaker 3: to Keep your Brain Young by Professor Slash Doctor Karen Phelps.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us, Nice to talk to you.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Jonesy, Thanks Amanda Jonesy and Amanda's