And welcome back to the Wellness Paradox podcast . I'm so grateful that you can join us on this journey towards greater human flourishing . As always , I'm your host , michael Stack , an exercise physiologist by training and a health educator and health entrepreneur by trade , and I'm fascinated by a phenomenon I call the wellness paradox .
This paradox , as I view it , is the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between fitness professionals and our medical community . This podcast is all about closing off that gap by disseminating the latest , most evidence-based and most engaged information in the health sciences . And to do that , in episode 121 , we're joined by Sarah Lentz-Lock .
She's with AARP and I'm sure many of you have heard of AARP before , although probably a lot of us think of AARP as a card in a magazine . But , as Sarah is going to tell us in this episode , they do so much more . And this episode is around exercise and brain health .
Now we've talked about this before on episode 94 with Ryan Glatt , and I encourage you to go back to that episode to dive into more of kind of the frontline tactical aspects , which is kind of how Ryan works through things . In this episode , sarah's going to talk more about the work that the AARP is doing , kind of how Ryan works through things .
In this episode , sarah is going to talk more about the work that the AARP is doing kind of on a higher policy and systems level , but she's also going to talk about some great resources that you can access free , resources that can help you more effectively work with the aging adult population . We've talked about this opportunity many times in the podcast .
I'm sure it's going to come up many times in the future . As I've often said times on the podcast , I'm sure it's going to come up many times in the future . As I've often said , the aging adult population is either underserved or completely not served in some communities by exercise professionals and by the fitness industry . So this is such an amazing opportunity .
As people live longer , exercise and fitness and wellness professionals can help them live better . Any information we'd like to share with you from today's episode , such as those resources Sarah's going to mention , can be found on the show notes page , that's by going to wellnessparadoxpodcom . Forward slash episode 121 .
Please enjoy this conversation with Sarah Lentz Locke Today . We're delighted to be joined by Sarah Lentz Locke . Sarah , thank you so much for joining us on the Wellness Paradox .
It's great to be here , michael . It's a pleasure and a real opportunity for us to talk with exercise professionals that listen to your podcast from everywhere , because it's such an important community to help inspire people to move and get exercise .
Yeah , thank you . I'm very excited to have you here , as I said , and a shout out to our good friend , vicki Shepard . That connected us , as we were talking about before we came on the air Seems like Vicki knows everyone and connect you .
Tell our audience a little bit more about you , your background and what you do , just to provide some context for the conversation .
Sure , I am the senior vice president of policy and brain health at AARP . Aarp is the largest nonprofit , nonpartisan membership organization working on behalf of people 50 and older , and our mission is to empower people to choose how they will live as they age . You can't do that unless you're physically fit and mentally fit .
So that's one of the reasons I think you're talking to me , and one of the things that I do is try to relate physical body well-being to your health and your brain health , and that's really important across the lifespan right you don't just start , wake up at 50 and try to fix your body and your brain .
It's a real lifespan approach , so the sooner you start the better . That's why we're interested in people of all ages . One of the other things that I do is I work as the executive director for the Global Council on Brain Health .
That is an independent organization of people who are experts in issues relating to brain health , and we can talk a little bit more about that .
Yeah , I mean there is so much to cover here and we're going to talk about a lot here . I do also want to point our audience back to Episode 94 when we interviewed Ryan Glatt on brain health . Ryan is a frontline exercise professional .
So I think this is going to be an interesting contrast to that discussion , because you're kind of working on the higher policy and systems level work . Ryan is working on the frontline with the aging adult to help them improve their brain health through exercise . So I think both of these podcasts provide a really good bookends to the discussion .
So just before we dive into this , let's go a layer deeper on AARP , because I'm going to venture to say most of our audience has heard of AARP but they may not realize all the things that AARP does in the context of the health and well-being of aging adults .
So can you just touch really briefly on that so people have an understanding a little bit more about what AARP is doing broadly ?
Well , thank you for that opportunity . Really , I've been at AARP for many years now and the breadth and the depth of the work that AARP does still amazes me .
But in particular , I talked about our mission and the importance of healthy aging , because if you want to live a full and engaging life , it's critically important that your health and wellbeing are maintained . And you know there's this idea and AARP . You asked one of the things that AARP does .
We do amazing amounts of deep research on people and their lifespan and what happens to them as they age . As a matter of fact , we have a great partnership with the University of Michigan .
We've been working on the Healthy Aging Poll for I don't know decades now , but it is part of our DNA to get out there and ask people and get their input so that we can meet folks' needs right . So one of the things that we've done is research around . Do people think that cognitive aging is inevitable ? Is research around ?
Do people think that cognitive aging is inevitable ? And , shockingly , 60% of people believe that cognitive aging is inevitable . As you get older and the younger you are , the more likely you are to believe that by the time that you reach a certain age and you realize , oh , I still got it .
You then realize not everybody is going to live with cognitive decline , but what's important about that is that you have to take the steps to maintain your health as you age , and so one of the things that we focus on is brain health , and that's what my department specifically does .
And AARP has created a new strategic enterprise priority on brain health because we know it's so important to people . So of course , aarp is big into preserving Medicare and social security , health and financial security for folks . You may have heard some of the work we do around Fraud Watch and bringing down the cost of prescription drugs , support for health care .
There's just not much AARP doesn't get into . Frankly .
Yeah , get into frankly , yeah , and that's why I kind of wanted you to talk about it a little bit , because I feel like the average person out there views it as a card and a magazine , and that's about the extent of it .
But the policy and the research work that AARP does and all those things are so important to the holistic aging as we age as a population .
I mean I say this quite a bit Modern medicine is phenomenal in that it gives us the opportunity to live longer , but it doesn't necessarily give us the opportunity to live better for longer if we don't take the right steps to preserve our physical and our mental and our cognitive health . And that's really where this conversation is centered around .
So I find your position at AARP and the specificity of it very , very interesting and exciting . So how are you and your position in AARP broadly thinking about brain health for the aging adult ? What are you focusing on right now ?
Well , there are three things that we are focusing on when it comes to brain health . One is reducing risk , or prevention , and I think that might resonate a lot with your audience , because what we're really trying to do is help people manage and maintain their health , and their brain health in particular . So one is risk reduction .
The second is improving care for people living with dementia and other brain health disorders and their caregivers , and their caregivers is not just a tagline for us , it's a really important element .
It's something that AARP focuses on because so many people are caring for people that they love spouses , parents , aunts and uncles , friends and neighbors so caregiving is a big part of that .
But the reducing risk and care are very much aligned , and that's because the exact same things you do to reduce your risk for cognitive decline are the same things that you do to maintain quality of life for people when they should have some kind of disorder , and really teasing apart the difference between what's normal aging and what is disease causing right .
So prevention is one , care is another . And then the final and third area is improving innovation towards a cure . At AARP , we are not medical scientists . We are not coming up with the cure or doing the research around that , but what we're doing is trying to seed the field to .
We can take researchers' data , create a platform , work with partners , make it more easily available so that people can continue to exploit that research and that data so that we can get to a cure faster .
That's great and ultimately , that is the goal . That's the moonshot as far as aging goes . I want to double click on those first two because I feel like that's where our audience can most engage and , as you said , they are very much two sides of the same coin .
So , from your perspective , talk about some of the things that you were thinking about and doing tactically as the AARP to work on prevention and care and I think you said it very well care for both the aging adult and their caregivers , because those are very much intrinsically tied . So talk about that .
Sure . So I mentioned the Global Council on Brain Health , and the reason that I did is we wanted to make sure that we were following the latest science , rigorous evidence about what actually works and what doesn't , because remember I mentioned how much research we did 98% of people think that their brain health is really important and they want to know what works .
The barriers to implementing brain health turn out to be not knowing what works and those around them . So , on the not knowing what works part , we wanted to make sure we were giving first class evidence about what worked .
And so the global council has created many different reports on all the different issues that people care about , whether that's diet , exercise , nutrition supplements , you name it . The Global Council has done a deep dive into the state of the evidence so that we use that as a platform from okay , now we know what works .
How are we going to get people to integrate it in their lives to sustain these healthy behaviors ?
And so that's what we're really beginning to focus on now , and I'm very excited to talk to your audience , because we're launching a national movement that we're calling Brain Health Action , and the point of it is is to get everybody to take those steps to sustain brain health across the lifespan , and so when we talk about what are the actions that people take ,
maybe we can dig into those a little more , but we are basing them on what we're calling the six pillars of brain health . Those are modifiable lifestyle factors that people can engage in that can make a real difference in their brain health across their life .
That's great . So what are those evidence-based factors ? Because I think it's really important that we look at this holistically before we start to drill into what's within the scope of an exercise . Professional's responsibilities . Okay , let's go there , so I'll save exercise maybe for last , then We'll save the best for last , in my very biased opinion .
There we go . Well , that's not too far off , right , because we have the most evidence about how exercise works and it really does improve the brain . And if there's only going to be one recommendation , you and I would agree that it should be exercise , but there are other things that people should be doing , and we'll go through those .
The first might surprise you , which is be social , because the social connections that people have are incredibly important to brain health , and , of course , we have a report on this uh for the global council , and you can always go there to get more . But we've found that if you are lonely and isolated , that can increase your risk for dementia by up to 50% .
That's kind of crazy , isn't it ? And so there's this move of it . You've maybe been hearing about it from the Surgeon General and others , but there's an epidemic of loneliness and that leads to poor health . So staying socially connected is an incredibly important part of it and , as we'll talk about , it's kind of interwoven in all of the other pillars .
Right , staying social helps you integrate these other things in your life in a really positive way .
You know , I mentioned that , the two barriers to brain health being not knowing what works and what others around you are doing , if your neighbors , your friends , your family members are going out for walks or they're eating well or they're doing staying cognitively engaged . Your social interaction inspires you to do that too . It makes it easier to sustain it .
Action inspires you to do that too . It makes it easier to sustain it . So being social is what is one of the six pillars of brain health . So engage your brain that I've got this mnemonic that helps me remember called be more so be social is the first e is for engage your brain .
It's it's important to stay cognitively stimulated as your body , and so engaging your brain in things like challenging reading , fun hobbies , things that make you think a good job , a terrific volunteer purpose in life . Engaging your brain so that you're actually using your brain like you'd use any other muscle in your body , keeping it engaged is incredibly important .
So the oh that let's see . Uh , let's talk about sleep . Sleep , we call it restorative sleep . It's not just any kind of sleep . So we recommend seven to eight hours a day , and it doesn't , interestingly , have to be all at once , just getting enough quality sleep in a 24 hour period .
You know , I don't know how you feel about this , but I was just in London for the World Dementia Council in San Francisco so I was jet lagged terribly and my brain just wasn't working . So just over the weekend getting a little more sleep , okay , I can pull it back together .
Yeah everybody kind of knows that sleep is important , but they don't make it the priority that they should .
Right , right , yeah , I'm with you . I uh time zone travel and me don't get along very well . Whenever I go to the West coast , I feel very challenged . I've never had to do the the transatlantic to the West coast time zone change . That that's . That's tough .
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Well , that was rough but it was good . It was only one flight , 11 hours , but anyway I'm still paying for it a little bit , but anyway , I'm still paying for it a little bit . So we talked about being social , sleep , engaging your brain .
The other is your diet , and I don't know , but maybe some of your professionals also besides physical exercise , think about the calories in as well as the calories out . Yes , exercise , think about the calories in as well as the calories out .
Yes , um , and a healthy diet with leafy green vegetables , um , emphasizing a heart healthy diet is , uh , that we can talk a little bit more about the details . That's , frankly , everybody's favorite .
It's most popular report of the global council is what should be we be eating , and , um , the big buckets are foods to encourage , foods to eat in moderation and then foods to discourage . Not any one food , but rather your overall dietary pattern is what we're talking about there .
So we've talked about diet , sleep , cognitively stimulating activities and being social . One , two , three , four and exercise . We're saving for last , indeed . So the last one , before exercise , is managing stress , and that's an interesting one .
That's really about not eliminating stress from your life because , frankly , it's impossible , but really about how do you manage stress ? Having a little bit of stress is actually good for you . It can be motivating in a variety of ways , but too much anxiety or depression , of course , is not good for you .
And figuring out how to create a stable schedule not globetrotting all over the place , but regular hours tends to help people manage their stress better . And many of the other pillars relate to managing stress , in that exercise , diet , sleep all these other things help you effectively manage your stress .
So then let's talk about the last one , which I'm guessing is your favorite .
Yes , we've already established that We've been waiting .
Okay , so exercise , why is exercise one of the six pillars of brain health ? It's because , fundamentally , pillars of brain health . It's because , fundamentally , your body supports your brain .
It's kind of put there to get the oxygen in your brain , get the nutrients in your brain , and if your body isn't working appropriately , it's not going , your brain's not going to work .
And so exercise and the three different areas one of the most interesting elements of the exercise report to me with the global council was not just the recommendations around aerobic exercises .
It has been very interesting to me that the basis of the recommendations for physical activity really center around the heart health and the heart science , and so it won't come as any surprise to your listeners that 150 minutes a week , 20 minutes a day , however you break it up , is one of the key recommendations for not only your heart health but brain health .
The two other areas that I thought were particularly interesting , that is , not just getting your heart pumping , but strength training and moving throughout the day .
That those other two factors I think are the sleeper cells when it comes to brain health , and that a lot of people may not be as aware that it is important to have those two factors in your brain or in your routine , so that you're optimizing chances for for better brain health .
And so strength training twice a day or twice a week is important and your exercise physiologists are going to know this because you have to keep your strength and as you age it is very normal for you to lose muscle mass or strength or make it a little bit more challenging to rebuild muscle .
So if you're not , if you're not working on your strength training , you're not setting yourself up for success . Keep your bones and your muscles strong . It's really important to keep a little strength training in your exercise and I know I struggle to do that .
It's easier for me to hop on the bike or go for a walk or do those things , and I really have to be very conscious about the strength training element of it so that I'm able to carry around my body and carry around my brain as I age . And then sitting have you been talking about sitting and non-activity as sort of a silent enemy , or how do you ?
address that you know sitting is the new smoking that you know . Non-exercise activity time is a very , very interesting and , I think , high mileage area for people to consider when they're talking about improving not just their brain health but their cardiometabolic health and just their overall well-being .
And I think that figuring out little tricks to keep moving throughout the day is important Setting little alarms or creating patterns in your day so that you're remembering . If you've got a dog , it's a little easier .
You're up because you've got to take care of the dog , but if you don't , you can start to sit and let your blood pool in your ankles and creakiness starts to set in . What are some of the tricks that you have for moving throughout the day ?
You did mention one of them , which is the setting the alarm . I think a lot of us that have the wearables . You know I often laugh when my watch tells me in the middle of a meeting that I need to get up and move . But those are very , very , you know , powerful tools that we can use .
I often also remind people that it doesn't mean you got to get up and walk around the building , that it could literally just be getting up and stretching in your office space doing some chores , spacing them out throughout the course of the day .
I think you kind of hit the nail on the head when you said , hey , everything kind of counts with this when you're trying to accumulate movement during the course of the week .
So any way that you can incorporate movement into your day , no matter if it's , you know , doing the laundry or if it's if it is walking around the block all of that adds up to getting us to that that all important 150 minutes .
Well , you know , like one of Michael , one of the things that I have started to do is I give a lot of talks to people in various places . I start to build in stretch breaks in the middle of the talk . It's good for me because I get to move , but it's also good for the audience and they start to pay more attention .
So it's interesting that these little tricks of getting your body and you notice oh , you know you're going to sleep here after a little bit and you've been listening to me drone on , stand up everybody , if you're me . Drone on , stand up everybody . If you're listening to this , stand up and move around so that you can take advantage of it .
Yeah . So the principles are very interesting and those are things we'll link up to in the show notes page so our audience has a chance to actually dive into some of the research .
I guess where I want to take this before we bring this to a close is how would you recommend that the exercise professionals that are listening work to engage the aging adult population ? I feel like this is AARP does a tremendous job of engaging aging adults through all their various media and channels .
The exercise profession has tend to we tend to skew younger in terms of who we employ . We tend to skew younger in terms of who we serve .
I would say that the aging adult is underserved in many cases , in some cases not served well at all in certain communities , and I feel like in part , that's because our younger professionals don't know how to engage effectively with the aging adults .
So , from your perspective and AARP's perspective and everything that they know , what are some best practices that you can give around engagement , actually taking all of this great information you just gave us and helping the professionals that are listening , integrate it into the lives of people so it can make a difference .
That is a great question , michael , and so I'll say that three things come to mind . One is understand how powerful brain health is as a motivator for people who are aging . It really was kind of stunning to us actually to understand how important brain health is to people and making the link that you can do something about your brain health .
Probably the best thing you can do is start with exercise , so knowing that that relationship is there , that that's so important and powerful , and that you can make a difference .
And the second is I would invite everybody to join Brain Health Action as a member of Brain Health Action as part of a collaborative , we're inviting businesses , professionals , to join us , share their resources on Brain Health Action .
There are tons of materials from AARP , but from all of our partners providing local and national information about brain health things that they're doing . So join . A challenge that is part of it is , by joining the movement for brain health , to change the narrative about the inevitability of aging as one of only decline . It's not true .
I mean , just look at Diana Nyad In her 60s . How old was this 67 ? She figured out . She just kept on trying . Wow , what a powerful motivation that is . She can swim from Cuba to Florida . I can get up in the middle of my Zoom calls right , thinking about what are the actions and actually incorporating brain health as part of the motivator .
So and then the third one I would say is make it fun .
You were saying that a lot of the professionals are younger people who are working in the field and kind of curious about how to get older people to do stuff the exact same things that's fun for you is going to be fun for this other person , maybe a little older , and intergenerational connections can be super fun . Lots to learn both ways .
Generational connections can be super fun . Lots to learn both ways . But by having conversations with your person that you're trying to motivate about what is fun for you , you might find that you share common interests . But that fun element can't be overemphasized .
Nobody wants to do a lot making it fun , usually having some element of social engagement and then , finally , having accountability .
Now recommend that they exercise with someone , that they make a date so that they're going to let somebody down if they don't show up at a certain point in a certain time , scheduling it like they would a doctor's appointment , but schedule the exercise with friends and encourage their clients to put play dates , if you will on their calendars so that it's a regular
part of their routine and their schedule .
Yeah , I'm so glad you brought it back to the social interaction piece because we are I mean the statistics , as you mentioned increased risk of 50% of dementia from social isolation . That's almost mind-boggling to think of it and I think we all found out during the pandemic with all the isolation that occurred .
The one thing and I think Peloton is great I think a lot of these home-based exercise modalities are great and a great way to get people moving in an environment they're comfortable . But the one thing that we lost out on was the social connection from being in a place with other people and that bringing more meaning to the movement that people were doing .
So I'm so glad we connected those things at the end , because I think that's the thing we often don't realize that exercise professionals do is that they do foster those environments of social connection , which really was the foundation to everything we started talking about in this conversation .
That's right , and it turns out that that's fun .
Most people really like to do that , and so if you do something that's fun and socially engaging , you're more likely to keep it up and you know you don't have to jump from zero to 60 immediately , simply talking to your neighbor and going for a walk with your neighbor if you don't have lots of connections already , or exercise people , um , somebody's usually out
walking a dog . You know , even if you don't have a dog , walk the dog with your , your neighbor , or making a date with your spouse , um , instead of to go out to eat , to go play pickleball , you know , actually that's a really fun thing . I'd like to mention AARP is a sponsor of the Pickleball Tour , and why it's ?
Because it's fun , it's exercise and it's social . And you know it's fun that that's sweeping the nation . I don't know if that's something that you've been playing or have you picked it up .
I've played a little bit , but it is everywhere . They're building a new pickleball center here in Ann Arbor . It is everywhere now .
That is super cool . The next time I come to Ann Arbor , I'm going to want to ask you to play pickleball Perfect .
Perfect , sarah . So , as we're bringing this to a close , we talked about a lot of great resources and , just to direct our audience there again , there are a couple of great places to go to find out about the work AARP is doing and some of the organizations you're associated with .
Can you again kind of point us in that direction and we'll link up to all those on the show notes page .
Thank you for doing that and asking To make it very simple . Aarp has collected all our brain health resources in one spot , so you can go to aarporg slash brain health and you can find anything that we've got that's related to brain health , whether it's Staying Sharp , which is our digital platform that helps people implement the six pillars of brain health .
I love that , and now actually this year's the the first time it's absolutely free . All you have to do is sign up on arporg uh and then you can get access to uh , the digital platform that helps people with behavior change and sustaining the six pillars of brain health . That's one thing . So ARPorg slash brain health , you can get to staying sharp .
That way , you can get to our music . I didn't get to really talk too much about music and brain health , but that's a motivator for movement , and so it's an important element , and so I encourage people to check out our music and brain health resources . They can get that at ARporg slash brain health .
And then I mentioned this building of movement that's specifically targeted at healthcare professionals , people who are working in the field , who have the ability to help others move and maintain their brain health , and that's brainhealthactionorg , and you can find all the resources designed for professionals and built for other people who can help others to maintain their
brain health .
Great resources and what an amazing both of those amazing resources , but it sounds like the AARP platform is pretty robust and the fact that that's now essentially a free resource . I'm sure our audience will want to take advantage of that .
We've been having a lot of conversations in the past year about how to effectively work with the aging adult , and I think our role as a podcast is to just make sure professionals get connected with the resources , so I'm very excited that we'll be able to share those with our audience .
So , sarah , before I let you go , I'm going to end the podcast on the question I always end the podcast on , which is relating to the wellness paradox .
I view the wellness paradox as the trust and interaction and communication gap that exists between exercise professionals and the broader medical community From your perspective as someone who's really not in either of those communities . So I always like this perspective of someone who's looking in from above .
If you could give the exercise professionals one piece of advice about how to close off that gap , what would that piece of advice be ?
I think that that's a really great question because that's sort of the heart of our challenge right To help people understand that maintaining their health is the most important thing that they can do in order to reduce their risk for all of these kinds of things that can really hamper a person as they age . So the wellness community is the number one tool .
Instead of necessarily looking to the healthcare sector as the answer for healthy aging , looking to the wellness community is the place right To get that support to sustain those healthy behaviors . But you know , we hear a lot about how healthcare professionals don't have enough time to give this information right .
They're too busy checking out the electronic medical records , going through the science about what works , and their go-to answer oftentimes is what will these people do ? That's really simple and easy I'll write a prescription . But if instead they did social prescription to the wellness folks so that the wellness community can work with the people ?
That's most effective , least side effects , most fun and guaranteed to work across all of your healthcare systems . So that healthcare paradox is pointing people both ways .
Sometimes you need the healthcare sector to say , hey , validate what the wellness folks are telling you and create a framework to put it in , but I guess , from the advice point of view for the wellness professional , telling them that what they're doing is sustaining health and sustaining society frankly , because , as with an aging demographic , making sure that folks as
they age are given the tools to sustain healthy behaviors is key . Indeed , that's what they're doing .
It is the tools . Sarah Lentz-Lock , thank you so much for joining us on the Wellness Paradox .
Thank you , michael , it's been a great honor .
Well , I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Sarah as much as I did . If you found it insightful and informative , please share with your friends and colleagues . Those shares make a big difference for us . Any information we'd like to share with you from today's episode can be found on the show notes page , that's by going to wellnessparadoxpodcom .
Forward slash episode 121 . Please be on the lookout for our next episode when it drops in two weeks , and don't forget to subscribe through your favorite podcast platform . Until we chat again next , please be well .