Can you “train your brain” to age better? This clinic says you can

Despite being a child of the Singapore education system, I don’t love exams. I don’t always do badly on them, but I don’t like the idea of having my abilities tested in one event.

So I was decidedly nervous, standing in front of a machine called Brain Fit at clinic Chi Longevity. As health coach Karen Lee explains, Brain Fit is used to test a client’s cognitive health, which in turn, says a lot about where they are in terms of their “ageing health”. “Brain health plays a huge part in longevity,” says Karen.“[This] machine allows our clients to try doing single and dual tasks  – which is defined as physical and cognitive activity. This can be a sign of brain health and longevity studies show that a decline in your brain health can suggest one is susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases.” 

Balance and coordination are all tied to brain health – so it was not a test I wanted to “fail” at the ripe old age of 43. The machine comprises three rows of three images, and the games involve being able to spot which way an arrow is pointing, or which face is smiling – sometimes while hopping or dancing on the spot. As someone who can trip over nothing, I wasn’t expecting great results.

But as the story goes, your body can surprise you. I am pleased to say I have very good reflexes and (maybe unsurprisingly for a woman) am good at multitasking between cognitive and physical tasks.

Brain health and then some

Of course, that’s not the whole story when it comes to ageing healthily, a lot more must be analysed and assessed. Chi Longevity does this through “diagnostics day”, during which clients can spend up to five hours at the clinic doing physical and physiological testing, alongside interviews with the clinic’s doctors, dietitians and a psychologist. Using all that data, the clinic then comes up with an extensive plan, usually involving changes to diet and lifestyle. 

This isn’t about anti-ageing in an aesthetic sense, and it’s not about biohacking your way to a younger you. This is about taking the steps to ageing healthily and living a long, healthy life. Honestly, who wouldn’t want that? But lately, this type of science has been in the news, thanks to documentaries on Netflix like Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones and more directly Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, which have made longevity medicine and science more mainstream. Professor Andrea Maier, founder of Chi Longevity, was one of the scientists interviewed in Don’t Die, is one of the premier scientists in the field of longevity and healthy ageing.

One reason for the rising interest in this science seems connected to the general trend of slowing down and (wanting) to lead a more fulfilling life, or knowing what your life could become. In 2022, during his National Geographic series Limitless, actor Chris Hemsworth discovered that he had two copies of the gene APOE e4, which possibly makes him eight to ten times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s. Since then, he has opted to make changes to his lifestyle, including sleeping more and doing more cardio to keep himself healthy.

For myself, I can see the draw of healthy ageing. As a 43-year-old mum to two energetic toddlers, I often wonder what our future will look like. This is something Chi Longevity’s resident physician, Dr. Oh Eu Long has taken note of too, saying that many of their clients are older parents with young kids. 

As an older mum, I do feel like I’m at a crossroads when it comes to my health. No matter how young I think I am, my body says otherwise after carrying and birthing two children. At my age, there is also the added advent of perimenopause and menopause. Which, says Dr. Oh, should be a real concern, noting that these are both major factors in health changes. “The risk of cardiovascular disease in women goes up significantly after menopause, because the hormones that had protected you up until then start to fade,” says Dr. Oh. “While from a baseline, women are more protected than men prior to menopause, this changes after.” Great.

Making changes that stick (forever)

After a plan is formulated and discussed with the client, they will then begin to liaise with a health and wellness coach like Karen Lee. If you have ever wanted to make health and lifestyle changes but found you were unable to stick to your plans and goals, a health coach might be someone who can really help. “During [your] first health coaching session, clients share with me their values, their strengths, wellness vision, like the big picture,” shares Karen. 

Health coaching is really about empowerment and motivation. “We want to be able to empower clients to modify their current lifestyle, mainly in terms of sleep, exercising, stress and social connections,” explains Karen, who likes to begin by asking clients where they see themselves in 30 or 40 years, getting them into the habit of looking at their health in a long-term aspect. Together, she works with the client to set goals, called behaviour habits, that align with their wellness vision. She also makes them rate their confidence to achieve these goals on a scale of one to 10. “Because research has shown that if you select seven or even eight, the success of aligning with the behavior habit is higher versus below a seven.”

A visit to Chi Longevity is not designed to be a one-time thing, after all, longevity is long-term! While client packages often include checking in after six months, ideally this continues long into the future. After all, a longer, healthier life is not easy work.