What actually keeps a brain healthy?
Six everyday habits health experts link to a healthy brain, and the three you can start this week without spending anything.
Health experts keep coming back to six everyday habits: moving, learning new things, eating well, seeing people, sleeping, and looking after your health, from blood pressure to smoking. Three of them cost nothing to start this week. Go for a walk, call a friend, and get to bed a little earlier.
Why is everyone talking about brain health?
In July 2026 the World Health Organization published a new edition of its guidance on lowering the risk of dementia, its first update since 2019. The figure that made the news: across whole populations, up to 45% of dementia risk can be put down to things that can be changed. The risk factors the WHO's announcement names are smoking, alcohol, inactivity, social isolation, air pollution and long-term illnesses.
That 45% describes millions of people, and it makes no promise about any one of them. Some of it, like the air you breathe, is out of your hands. Much of the rest is about how you live day to day, and Cleveland Clinic sorts that side into six pillars of brain health.
What are the six pillars?
Moving
Walking, cycling and dancing all belong here. How much exercise your brain needs, and whether your daily walk counts.
Learning something new
Picking up an instrument, taking a class, cooking a dish you have never made, doing the crossword. What a puzzle habit can and can't do for the rest of your thinking.
Eating well
A healthy diet is part of the WHO's new dementia guidance. Can a named diet such as MIND change your memory?
Seeing people
Time with other people, in whatever form suits you. What does a social life do for your brain?
Sleeping
Sleep counts twice over: how long you sleep, and how well. An earlier bedtime is the simplest way to get more of the first.
Looking after your health
Keeping blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes under control is part of the WHO's guidance. Weight, depression, smoking and drinking belong here too. If your hearing is fading, ask about hearing aids: the WHO's new guidance includes them.
What is a good first step?
Call someone you have been meaning to see and suggest a walk together. It costs nothing, and it covers moving and seeing people in one go.
Sources
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