news
An Interview with Mike Studer
Our Live Better, Longer series (a thought-provoking interview series that takes a deep dive into longevity) is back with our third interview! Our host Kelly Stranburg, interviewed Mike Studer, a board-certified Neurological Clinical Specialist, renowned Physical Therapist and international speaker. Mike’s passion and knowledge on how to live better longer, the intricacies of physical-cognitive interplay™ and how it all translates to each and every one of us is something you do not want to miss. Here are some selections from Mike’s interview (be sure to watch the video for the full interview!):
Question (Kelly): Mike, why are you so passionate about brain health and neuroplasticity (and you might need to define neuroplasticity just to make sure we level set for our audience)?
Answer (Mike): I would say the most fascinating part of the human body is the amount that we don't know about the nervous system. And maybe that's why for the last 33 years of my career, I've continued to be engaged by what's happening with the brain functionally, anatomically, and this understanding that it's plastic, it's dynamic, it's changeable, I mean, no pun intended, but it’s really mind-blowing to know that we have an organ that can reinvent itself if the demands are supplied in a manner that causes a stimulus. And that's really what neuroplasticity is. Every attribute of learning requires new connections so that a memory - be that a fact, be that an event in our life, or a movement (we have those three types of memories) it takes neuroplasticity to be able to functionally support the learning. And plasticity means we're making new connections physically, we're reinforcing connections so that they're easier to access, and really replacing functions that have been lost after injury. Plasticity, brand new learning or relearning, is available and viable.
Question (Kelly): When you think about what exercise does for the brain, how can we really start to further promote, and connect those dots, so people understand the value in neuroplasticity - not just as young people but in those formative years, but for our entire life, regardless of how old we grow to be?
Answer (Mike): - Let’s time stamp this as what we know as of February 2024, because it would be different if I did this for you last year. So, how do we engage an older adult? What is so beautiful about your question, let's say four words in when you said “engage” is that we understand that the opportunities are not limitless but they are much more prolific than we used to think because we thought the brain was done growing, done changing and we were going to succumb to sarcopenia (loss of muscle), dementia, cognitive changes and reaction speed changes. And we thought all of that was going to happen with aging. And what we know now is exactly how I would frame the answer back to your question.
There are many different avenues in which the brain and body interact. And getting the body more active helps the brain receive blood flow, positive chemicals, and also signals chemicals that cause the brain to make changes. When we exert ourselves heavily, even if only briefly, our brain receives a fertilizer that helps it stay, if not improve. If I stopped right there, it's simple enough, it's packageable, and then we also understand the real crux of your question, how do we engage? And what we've learned is that we have to find out what motivates this person. You have several options.
You have gamification over here - a person that might be willing to engage because they see themselves improving or they see that they are winning against what's expected for a person at their age and gender. You have loss aversion - How do I keep from losing? Loss aversion is another way of motivating individuals: “I don't want to fall. I don't want to lose my memory. I don't want to not be able to react fast enough in the exercise class when I'm watching Jeopardy.” etc. etc. All of those things are plausible.
And then we think about a couple of other very quick items that can help to engage someone. We make things easy. We make things really obvious. We make them satisfying. We make them attractive (and that's borrowing from James Clear's Atomic Habits book). So, we try to make it easy to do things briefly that are stimulating.
And the final thing is, we don't have to shape everything in terms of exercise. Because in this generation, some individuals see exercise as a misuse of human energies. We have to reframe it as physical activity. Whatever physical activity you could name I could figure out a way to make it strength, to make it balance, to make it high intensity interval, to make it reaction speed, to make it dual task. So, we come to the person, we give them a prescription that is easy, defined and attractive for them.
Question (Kelly): Thank you for that. I love that. Those are really good points to carry forward when you think about how to engage anybody when it comes to their own personal brain health and well -being. I want to get your take on this because I've been asked this a lot over the years and I have my opinion, but you're way more the expert than I am, Mike. So, when somebody says to you “Mike, but I do crossword puzzles and Sudoku.” What's your take on that?
Answer (Mike): I think the evidence is pretty clear on this. If we rehearse memories that we already have, and pull up facts that we already have, there is a degree of stimulus that's beneficial there. So, trivia and reminiscing over past events and history in my life that I could sit down at a table in an assisted living facility and talk about those stories of my life with individuals, there's a degree of benefit in just harvesting those things back up. The same is true, and can be said for crossword puzzles and Sudoku puzzles, so that I'm looking at something that causes me to actually pull up on my showcase, my lexicon, my library of memories that I already have. If we're not learning new information, then we don't have a stimulus (which we call a demand) that provides a supply in the form of neuroplasticity. We think about supply and demand in reverse. If there's no demand for anything new, there's no supply for a new connection (i.e. learning or neuroplasticity). If I'm not learning a new word in Spanish or French, not learning how to read music, not learning a new attribute of world history, then I shouldn't be stimulating neuroplasticity. So that a crossword puzzle (i.e. movie that starred Clark Gable) well, that's already actually in my trivia bank. “Gone with the Wind” doesn't actually create new learning. It's better than nothing, but it does not stimulate new learning.
(Kelly): Thank you for that. To your point, it's almost like muscle memory. You're practicing, and that’s not a bad thing, that's a great thing to apply in our daily life, but there's not that new growth. And, over the years, maybe some of our audiences have heard the term cognitive reserve and that if you do build these new neurons, if there is maybe some type of dementia, that maybe you can stave off some of the physical effects that come with dementia because you have built all these neurons out and it's always that new learning, the movement (people don't like to hear exercise supports the brain) but y 'all need oxygen to the brain!
(Mike): You brought up a couple of really big points there that should be highlighted, Kelly.
Number one, you talked about cognitive reserve. Now, we've got approximately 83 billion neurons in the brain alone, sparring the peripheral nervous system and spinal cord. Guess what happens when we stimulate and we create more cognitive reserve because I have spoken another language, I've become an expert on another facet of information, I learned a new skill? We don't create new neurons. We make more connections. And guess how many connections an average neuron makes? The range is between
5,000 connections and 100,000 connections. So, guess what I can do as I improve my cognitive faculties? I can get closer to 100,000 connections across those 83 billion neurons as compared to 5,000 connections. So, if I lose some of those neurons they're connected to, I have redundancy. That's where cognitive reserve comes from - you have so many more different pathways and connections when you have redundancy.
The other thing is, and I really want to touch on this last part, something that's brand new that we've learned is not only do we have those fertilizers that I talked about, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), so that fertilizes the brain if we engage in high-intensity exercise, but also vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The brain circulation improves with exercise, but wait, there's more! Remember that nasty byproduct of spending energy, which we call lactate, that we used to think, oh, that causes muscle soreness. We now know that it's a signaling molecule to actually cause the brain to do two things: feed and reinforce the brain through the glial cells but also increase the stability and accuracy of the blood brain barrier keeping molecules out of the brain that aren't supposed to be in the brain if we produce lactate. That only happens if we exert ourselves in high intensity. I could go on about this, I know we have brief time, but it's massive!
Question (Kelly): When you think about the current state of longevity in our society what would you like to see change or shift or improve?
Answer (Mike): Number one would be not shaming people that don't choose to exercise because physical activity is it. It doesn't have to be exercise. Exercise is a sub-component of physical activity (that just means structured resistance training, endurance training, etc.). But when you prescribe something, if it doesn't end, and it's not going to be easy to do and available or attractive, it's not going to get done. So, the best prescription of exercise can be lost and the best prescription of physical activity is consistent with what this person prefers. This is how I move, because guess what? You can actually get a stimulus by going out and raking leaves aggressively for intervals and easily for intervals. And no one can tell you that that's any better than going on an elliptical machine for eight minutes of high intensity interval training. So, number one is don't shame if there's not a desire to exercise.
Number two is probably the notion that we can improve the brain's capacities better if we dual task. Dual tasking is something I've literally worked on since 1991. And that is not multitasking, not overwhelming the brain, not causing the brain to see how many plates it can possibly spin in, but combining cognitive and motor together because that's what we do in real life.
And the last point on this, when we combine the two together, the motor can be more easily stored as movement in the background, which that's something I've been working on again for three and a half decades. Being able to reach out, grab a movement that is automatized, that I don't need my full concentration on, is what the highest level of athletes can do, but also the individuals that are negotiating in the dark need to be able to do at night.
Question (Kelly): What is a simple tip that you can give to our audience that they could easily embrace or adopt for themselves to help with how they live better longer or for individuals they may work with?
Answer (Mike): Probably the simplest tip that we haven't covered today is “exercise snacks”. We all go to parties and we're not hungry but there's an open bowl of nuts or chips or something and we're going to snack on it because it's available, it's right there - we call that a nudge (proximity and availability). An exercise snack is probably the easiest tip to recommend that answers your question. An example: I just stood up from sitting on the couch for an hour and 15 minutes because I watched an episode of “fill in the blank”. Rather than standing up once, I stand up five times. Maybe I sit down every single time with my eyes closed. Maybe I put my feet together. Maybe three of the times I don't use my hands. All of that is a massive exercise snack that works on my balance, to some degree my power (depending on how fast I try to stand up), my strength, all of that! So, exercise snacks just means, inside your day, do something that benefits you. When I walk to the mailbox, I'm going to turn my head side to side. When I brush my teeth, I'm going to stand on just one leg. All of those exercise snacks, I can just reach over, grab a handful of health.
(Kelly): I love that! Can I start saying exercise snacks?
(Mike): You absolutely can. I didn't actually even make that up. I'll have to look up to see who made that up but we're all using that now. It's part and parcel with behavioral economics - it's just a nudge, it just makes it present, real and available.
(Kelly): Well Mike, that's all we have for you today. I thank you so much for sharing your expertise, your passion, your insights. The team at Dividat brings this podcast series to you called Live Better Longer, because there are so many amazing people just like Mike Studer here today, who are out there impacting the world in an amazing way, and dropping exercise snacks on all of us to help us live better longer. Tune in next month. We'll have another incredible guest to share with you all.
For more insights and tips from experts and thought leaders in the health and wellness industry, be sure to check out our interviews with Eric Levitan of Vivo and Tony Galvan of Vi Living.