Brain ageing is a complicated process, unlikely to have a single cause. But scientists think they may have found a key piece in the puzzle: protein FTL1.

A study published in Nature Ageing looked at how the brains of mice changed as they aged. They wanted to see what might drive the processes that can slow down our mental activity and impair our memory over the years.

They found that the protein seemed to be the only consistent difference between younger and older mice minds – and they think they know how to counter it.

In older mice, FLT1 levels were higher. They had fewer connections in a part of the brain called the hippocampus (which is responsible for learning and memory), and their cognitive abilities weren’t as high as those of the younger mice.

To investigate whether the protein itself was causing that change, the scientists gave younger mice more of the protein than their bodies naturally made. When they did that, the younger mice had “synaptic changes and cognitive impairments indicative of hippocampal ageing”.

In other words, their brain and behaviours began to mimic those of older mice.

But when they did the inverse – reduced the amount of FLT1 in the brains of older mice – the opposite happened.

They had more connections between nerve cells and performed better on cognitive tests: they seemed, in short, “younger”.

FLT1 slowed metabolism in the hippocampus of older mice. But by giving them a treatment to speed their metabolism up, the scientists were able to prevent that from happening.

They’re hopeful that this might lead to ways to block the effects of the protein in the brain.

In mice, changing FTL1 levels made a bigger difference than just managing the effects of ageing.

Speaking to the University of California, San Francisco, the paper’s senior author, Dr Saul Villeda, said: “It is truly a reversal of impairments. It’s much more than merely delaying or preventing symptoms.”

Though more research is needed to get even close to something like this for humans, Dr Villeda added, “We’re seeing more opportunities to alleviate the worst consequences of old age. It’s a hopeful time to be working on the biology of ageing.”

Many people’s vitamin D levels do not fall within a healthy range, which can cause muscle weakness, fatigue, depression, bone pain and lower immune function. In fact, an estimated 60% of the world is vitamin D deficient and needs a supplement, Dr. Michael Holick, a professor of medicine, pharmacology, physiology & biophysics and molecular medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, previously told HuffPost.

But if that alone isn’t enough to convince you to prioritise getting vitamin D, which you can do through foods like salmon, tuna, and milk, new research published in the journal Neurology this month may do the trick. The study suggests that people with high vitamin D levels in their 30s and 40s have lower dementia risk factors later in life.

The study investigates the potential impact of vitamin D levels in early midlife by examining the prevalence of tau protein and amyloid protein in the brain, “which are key hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Thomas M. Holland, physician-scientist and assistant professor at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told HuffPost via email. Holland is not affiliated with the study.

Researchers followed 793 people in their 30s and 40s with an average age of 39 over 16 years. Vitamin D levels were tested at the beginning of the study; those with levels below 30 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) were categorised as having low vitamin D; anything above was considered high.

After a follow-up at the end of the study, it was determined that participants in the high-vitamin D group were more likely to have lower tau levels in their brains.

“Researchers looked at two different types of scans of the brain called PET scans,” said Dr. David Gill, chief of the division of cognitive and behavioural neurology at the University of Rochester in New York. Gill is not affiliated with the study. “One looks at the amyloid protein [prevalence], and one looked at the tau protein [prevalence].”

Even though tau protein levels were lower in participants with high vitamin D, researchers found that those elevated levels did not impact levels of amyloid in the brain. This indicates someone with high vitamin D could still have elevated levels of amyloid protein, which, as mentioned above, is a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.

This study does have a “major limitation,” Dr. Jagan Pillai, a Cleveland Clinic neurologist and director of the Cleveland Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, told HuffPost via email. Vitamin D levels were measured once at the beginning of the study “and after that PET scans were completed 15 or more years later,” said Pillai, who was not associated with the study..

“So, we don’t have any information in between,” Pillai added. It’s unknown if participants took supplements or followed a healthy lifestyle that helped them maintain healthy vitamin D levels, he noted. Because vitamin D levels were only measured once, it’s also unclear if someone shifted from having healthy levels to unhealthy levels (or the opposite) during the study’s time period.

While this study has solid data, it does not prove that vitamin D levels directly affect dementia risk, according to Gill. There are many studies on this topic, and they’re conflicting.

“Specifically, there’s been some studies to show that giving vitamin D might help improve memory a little bit, but those are also conflicting. There’s been all of this information out there without a firm understanding of whether there’s a real connection between low vitamin D and Alzheimer’s disease,” Gill said. “I don’t know this [study] answers that question, but it helps move us forward.”

So, does this mean having healthy vitamin D levels in your 30s and 40s will protect you from dementia? Not necessarily. But having healthy vitamin D levels can bolster many systems in your body, including the brain. And as research emerges about vitamin D and dementia risk, there are other changes you can make to take care of your cognition.

Holland said the amyloid and tau brain proteins associated with dementia begin accumulating “15 to 20 years before the clinical symptoms of dementia or cognitive decline are detected.”

Anything we can do in midlife to support cognitive function and reduce the risk of dementia will “benefit us later in life,” Holland added. “We know that low vitamin D levels and other nutrient deficiencies are associated with neuroinflammation and potentially oxidative stress.” All of that can take a toll on your brain.

Throughout your life, you should work with your doctor to correct any vitamin deficiencies, whether that’s vitamin D, vitamin B12 or something else, according to Pillai.

Eating a nutrient-dense diet is also protective for the brain.

″For vitamin D specifically, adding in healthy protein sources, particularly fatty fish such as tuna, salmon, sardines and mackerel, can be beneficial,” Holland said.

“For overall brain health, incorporating foods such as dark leafy greens (i.e., kale, romaine lettuce, and spinach), berries (such as blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries), whole grains (like oatmeal, brown rice, and quinoa) and extra virgin olive oil is helpful, as these foods provide beneficial fatty acids and a wide range of supportive nutrients,” Holland continued.

Additionally, “we should be as physically active as possible,” Gill said.

This doesn’t mean signing up for a marathon, but can instead mean going for frequent walks in your neighbourhood.

“We should be doing things that challenge us mentally to keep ourselves mentally active,” Gill added.

For older folks, staying challenged can be tough — working is one of the easiest ways to stay mentally active, Gill said. For those who no longer work, taking a class, playing cards with friends, volunteering or joining a book club are all good options.

“Really, anything that you enjoy that engages your brain can be a good thing,” Gill said.

Socialising is also important.

“Being social is important for a number of reasons. We know the opposite, being lonely, is bad for our memory over time. And so being social is good for us because it keeps our brain active, but also avoids loneliness,” Gill said.

Finally, you should address any issues you have that could lead to dementia down the line.

“We should treat the medical problems that can increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Gill, noting that “the things that increase the risk of heart disease tend to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.” Diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking and high cholesterol are all issues that you should work with your doctor to treat, Gill said.

If you’ve ever left the house only to wonder whether you turned off the stove or unplugged your curling tongs, you’re not alone. However, this uncertainty doesn’t have to be your destiny.

In Japan, railway operators use a simple but powerful technique to avoid mistakes. And this method might be exactly what you need to stay focused on everyday tasks. It’s called “shisa kanko”.

“Shisa kanko essentially means ‘pointing and calling,’ which is used to improve attentiveness and accuracy,” said Joy Gallon, a licensed therapist with Thriveworks. “It was developed as a method of ensuring safety on the Japanese railway system. Operators are trained to focus on and point at an object such as a signal or stopping point and verbally ‘call out’ the name of the object.”

Research by Japan’s Railway Technical Research Institute in 1994 found that the practice of shisa kanko reduced incidents of human error by almost 85%.

“Because the practice uses eyes, hands, mouth and ears, it actively engages the senses,” Gallon said. “Studies have shown that it increases the blood flow to the frontal lobes, which is where our reasoning, logic and ability to see future consequences of current actions lie.”

In other words, it’s a multimodal system for attention and memory.

“The brain has to see something, say something and do something, so we are using our visual system, our motor system and our auditory system,” said therapist Rachael Bloom. “This reduces error because if one ‘system’ fails, there are two backup systems that have the same information.”

This approach is important for high-stakes daily tasks such as operating a train system – as well as smaller, mundane things like using a curling iron.

“Our brains are built for survival, so we spend a lot of time operating based on habit,” said time management coach Anna Dearmon Kornick. “When we take actions based in habit, we expend less cognitive energy, which allows us to preserve energy.”

Daily routine tasks like curling your hair tend to happen in autopilot or default mode, which means you don’t tend to remember them as clearly. That’s why so many people end up with uncertainty around questions like “Did I unplug my curling iron?” or “Did I turn off the stove?”

“Introducing something that is not part of the default mode helps you remember it,” Dearmon Kornick said. “A non-default mode action could be making a weird sound, snapping your fingers, clapping your hands or singing a song, which helps you stay more conscious.”

So while it might feel silly to point and make a sound at once, the shisa kanko method can be incredibly effective by bringing greater awareness to consequential tasks.

“It requires you to make two or more physical ‘checks’ or confirmations of your actions,” said Rashelle Isip, a productivity coach at The Order Expert. “These checks shift your thoughts into the realm of physical action, which requires more effort. This might mean pointing, picking up an item or speaking aloud.”

In addition to improving safety in different industries, shisa kanko can help with personal focus or error prevention.

“I’ve used aspects of this method to help me improve my focus or anchor myself during the day while performing everyday tasks like making phone calls, exercising or getting ready for the day,” Isip said.

It’s another way to engage in mindfulness overall.

“When we are present, or mindful, we notice our surroundings better, are able to see the potential for error and course correct,” Gallon said. “Shisa kanko involves literally pointing at the object and naming it, which essentially grounds us in that moment.”

A method like shisa kanko could be particularly helpful for people with ADHD or other forms of neurodivergence that impact focus and memory.

“When the ADHD brain finds stimulation, it also finds regulation,” said Billy Roberts, a therapist at Focused Mind ADHD Counselling. “By engaging multiple senses, the ADHD brain can become more engaged in that behaviour. Think of it as a form of active listening. If a person with ADHD repeats what was just said, the words will be encoded better due to repetition.”

Terry Matlen, a psychotherapist and ADHD consultant, noted that some of her clients with ADHD sing a short verse of a song to help them remember certain things. For example, they might take the tune of “London Bridge Is Falling Down” and sing “Need to turn the oven off, oven off, oven off ….”

“Executive function is impaired to some degree in everyone with ADHD – planning, organising, initiating, memory,” Matlen said. “So simply thinking to yourself, ‘I need to remember to turn off the stove after I finish cooking,’ just might not be enough.”

“I often talk out loud when needing to remember something – i.e., ‘call back Susan, call back Susan,’” she added. ”You can add another modality to saying things out loud, like tapping your wrist while saying it. Or in the case of traditional shisa kanko, pointing and verbalising.”

The experts who spoke to HuffPost agreed that shisa kanko helps people with ADHD by increasing conscious attention. Some noted that dopamine may play a supporting role as well, though more research is needed to fully explore that.

“Vocal stimming – like humming or singing – can increase dopamine and enhance focus for some people with ADHD,” Roberts said. “Humming and singing can be grounding when a person feels overwhelmed or anxious.”

Experts emphasised that it’s not just about making noise but what that action represents or accomplishes – for example, self-soothing.

“Self-stimulatory behaviours, including vocal stims, can release dopamine because they work with the part of the brain that deals with reward – but not simply because someone is ‘making a sound,’” Bloom noted.

In this sense, making a particular vocal expression is more about calming down your nervous system, self-regulating, self-motivating or breaking out of boredom. But a dopamine release related to shisa kanko might also simply be associated with accomplishing a task.

“Every time we knock even something small off our to-do list, we get a hit of dopamine and feel really good,” Dearmon Kornick said. “So if you decide to make a weird noise as you unplug your straightener, you might get the dopamine release of ‘Woo! I did what I said I was going to do.’”

There are ways to incorporate the method or even the spirit of shisa kanko into your everyday life.

“Try using this technique to reinforce the importance of information or actions in your daily routine,” Isip suggested. “Maybe you don’t want to forget your glasses before you leave for work or you don’t want to ignore an important letter on your desk. That might mean speaking aloud, picking up an object, handwriting a note, snapping your fingers or adding a reminder to a notetaking app.”

You can experiment with different approaches and find which ones work for you.

“Someone with ADHD could apply this to virtually everything they frequently forget to do – taking medication, packing what they need for the day, remembering daily tasks,” Bloom said.

“People with ADHD are most likely to forget or make mistakes on tasks that are repetitive, mundane and non-urgent, so using strategies that disrupt autopilot to ensure accuracy with this type of task makes a lot of sense.”

It can be as simple as pointing at your door handle and saying, “I’ve locked the door,” or at the light switch and saying, “I’ve turned off the lights,” as you leave the house. Or maybe you point at your keys and wallet and say “keys” and “wallet” to remember to bring them with you.

“Another option is to use it whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, frustrated or stressed,” Isip said. “You probably already use some form of this technique in your daily life to help you refocus your attention and balance your thoughts. That might look like saying aloud, ‘Take a deep breath and relax,’ ‘You’ve got this!,’ ‘Time to get back on track,’ ‘OK, where were we?’ or ‘Let’s take it from the top.’”

Bringing mindfulness to these moments helps you regain a sense of calm, focus and agency.

“Use a meditation involving noticing and naming objects in the environment around you, combined with a reinforcing phrase and/or gesture to help manage negative thoughts and improve concentration,” Gallon said.

She noted that many therapists recommend a grounding strategy that guides you to name five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can hear.

“Shisa kanko has been touted as a ‘habit hack’ for fighting bad habits such as doomscrolling, which we know can be very detrimental to a person’s mental health,” Gallon added.

Of course, it takes practice and time to successfully implement any strategy to the fullest. So be patient as you explore this method.

“You can make use of elements of shisa kanko in everyday life by using it to confirm, reinforce or anchor either a habit, information or skill,” Isip said. “Try using it when starting or ending your workday, transitioning between tasks, confirming appointment details, paying for goods and services or even motivating yourself to act.”

She suggested saying phrases aloud along the lines of “Time to get to work,” “The appointment is April 16th at 10 AM” or “Let’s have a good workout session!”

Shisa kanko can be useful for avoidance-ridden behaviours, Matlen noted. People with ADHD in particular tend to struggle to start a task, stay on task and/or finish the task.

“An adult with ADHD who is facing an unpleasant task causing them angst and anxiety – say, de-cluttering their desk at work – might point to one piece of paper falling off a pile of reports and say aloud, ‘I’m going to put that page into that folder in that file cabinet.’ Then continue from there, perhaps setting a timer for 15 minutes,” she explained.

Thus, the system can help alleviate procrastination, avoidance and stress. Make sure to change things up periodically, however.

“If you start singing the same song or doing the same snaps or making the same weird sound every time, eventually that sound is going to become a part of the default experience, and you’re not going to remember if you made the sound because you always do,” Dearmon Kornick warned.

Ultimately, shisa kanko is a dynamic approach. The method might not be right for you, but it doesn’t hurt to try it out.

“Every ADHD brain is different,” Roberts noted. “What works for some might not work for others. It is critical to understand that if a skill works, keep it. But if a skill doesn’t work, then maybe you and that skill aren’t a good fit. It’s fine to leave it be and find another!”

Actor Aubrey Plaza is expecting a baby with her partner, actor Christopher Abbott, according to her representative.

But instead of sharing congratulations, many people on social media are responding with judgment about how soon Plaza should be moving forward as a grieving widow. In 2025, Plaza’s husband, Jeff Baena, died by suicide.

“She should’ve at least waited a few years,” one popular X post reads, while another commenter remarked that having a new partner one year after your previous partner dies “seems a little weird.”

This backlash is all too common. There is still an outdated idea that widows should have a long, formal mourning period, even though there is no single correct or certain timeline about how a grieving person should date or find love again.

“Society thinks you shouldn’t do anything for a year. You’re supposed to mourn a full season of cycles,” grief counsellor Jill Cohen told HuffPost. “What’s important to remember is that we never know what’s behind the story” of why people do or don’t want to have sex and find love again after loss, she said.

Anita Coyle, a widow and co-host of the Widow We Do Now? podcast, said young widows are especially damned if they date, damned if they don’t.

“People want to make it a litmus about the kind of relationship you had with your late partner. If you date too early, then it must mean that you didn’t love them. And then if you don’t date soon enough, then you’re ‘stuck’ in your grief,” Coyle said. “No matter what you do, people who aren’t in your situation are going to judge you.”

Coyle knows this firsthand. Coyle’s husband died in 2019, and she has not dated since. Coyle said she got the opposite reaction from what Plaza is experiencing, such as questions like “Are you stuck? Are you not moving on?”

In response to judgment, “I think a lot of widows probably just want to yell at the people, like, ‘It’s none of your business,’” Coyle said.

How one’s partner dies also adds to the kind of judgment the surviving partner faces going forward.

Plaza and Baena had been separated for four months before Baena died by suicide, according to a report from the Los Angeles County medical examiner.

Elishia Durrett Johnson, a widow and licensed clinical counselor who specializes in grief, said people whose partners die a stigmatized death like suicide face unfair judgment about how they should move forward because their partner’s death is “not considered natural.”

“Anytime during that, I extend grace and I implore others to be quiet,” Durrett Johnson said. “You don’t know what life is going to afford you later. The very thing that you’re complaining or criticizing one person about, you have no idea how you would handle that.”

People policing other people’s grief “is the awfulness” of mourning, she added: “That’s the thing that we should not do.”

Widows also face more stigma than widowers for dating and repartnering after their partner dies. “Men get a little bit more leeway in moving forward quickly,” Coyle said. People give men more grace if they find a new partner soon after their loss because they believe “he needs a wife,” Cohen said.

But the truth is, grief is hard on everyone. “We normalize men moving forward with other women,” Durrett Johnson said. But for both widows and widowers, “it is just as hard as finding your forward.”

That’s why widows say the best answer to hearing about a grieving person falling in love again is to congratulate them. In Plaza’s case, “she’s experienced this horrendous thing in her life, and she deserves to have a next chapter that makes her happy, and whatever that looks like for her and for everybody is up to them to determine,” Coyle said.

Plaza has shared that the “awfulness” of her grief over Baena is “always there.”

“There’s, like, a giant ocean of just awfulness that’s like right there, and I can, like, see it,” she said on former co-star Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast last August. “Sometimes, I just want to just dive into it and just, like, be in it. And then sometimes, I just look at it, and then sometimes, I just try to get away from it. But it’s always there.”

Durett Johnson said Plaza’s metaphor of an ocean of awfulness is apt and is why it’s remarkable when grieving widows and widowers find new love.

“If you find someone that is going to help you in that move forward, that understands that awful ocean that you’re dealing with, that’s powerful,” Durrett Johnson said about why she congratulates Plaza on finding a partner again. “That’s just as rare as finding the love of your life.”

Are you hydrating enough?

There are now so many ways to get and track your fluids – from customisable Stanley tumblers to in-home IV services to apps that remind you to chug a few extra ounces every hour – that it’s easy to worry you’re not getting enough.

But is it possible to be too hydrated? And what happens if you are?

That’s what Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost’s Am I Doing It Wrong? podcast, asked Colleen Muñoz, director and co-founder of Hydration Health Center at the University of Hartford.

“[Drinking too much water] is a real thing,” Muñoz, who is also an associate professor of health sciences at University of Hartford, said. “[It doesn’t happen] as often as you would think, relative to somebody who is underhydrated – that’s definitely a more common scenario – but it’s something we need to pay attention to.”

The main issue with ingesting too much water or other fluids is that it can dilute the electrolyte content of our blood. Electrolytes (in this case we’re mostly talking about sodium, but also potassium, magnesium, chloride and calcium) must remain “in balance in order to maintain healthy blood, heart rhythm, muscle function and other important functions.”

When these electrolytes “get out of whack,” it can cause nausea, vomiting, headaches, muscle cramps and even death.

“If they get too dilute, we start to have some pretty severe ramifications, largely related to our nervous system … [including] brain swelling, coma, [and then] death … and pretty quick,” Muñoz warned.

This happened to a woman in Los Angeles in 2007.

“It was pretty soon after the first Nintendo Wii came out and one of the radio stations had some competition – I think it was called like ‘Pee for a Wii’ or ‘Wee for a Wii’ – and unfortunately they didn’t consult anybody before they did this,” Muñoz said. “Whoever could drink the most amount of water in one day won the Nintendo Wii and a woman died.”

However, Muñoz noted that overhydration is less common in the general population and typically more worrisome for athletes.

“[It’s happened to some athletes and] it’s scary. It happens quickly and it’s not always easily detectable. So, a lot of times, unfortunately, they keep drinking water thinking that they collapsed due to dehydration,” she said.

It’s also a risk for recreational exercisers, like marathon or triathlon participants.

“[These people] might not actually be working out as intensely as they might suspect, and they haven’t really done a lot of homework into an individualised hydration plan, so they just assume, like, the more water the better,” Muñoz said.

“They’re actually not sweating that much, you know, or they’re not losing as much salt as they think, so they start chugging water and that’s a lot of times when this happens, unfortunately.”

Muñoz said that most people need between 2 and 4 litres of water a day depending on body size, activity level, and other personal factors, like how much someone sweats, but checking in with your doctor or a medical professional about your specific needs is always a good idea.

She also noted that it’s possible to achieve proper hydration by drinking fluids other than plain water – including coffee, tea, sports drinks, juice and seltzer – and through the foods we eat.

One good way to tell if you’re properly hydrated is easy and free: take a look at the colour of your urine.

“I’m not saying that that’s a perfect marker, but it’s a very easily accessible one and it actually gives us a lot of good information,” Muñoz said. “We’re normally looking for, like, a light yellow colour – like lemonade or a straw kind of colour.”

Despite what you might think, completely clear urine is not necessarily a good thing because it can mean you’re overhydrated.

“That’s one of those things that I still have a lot of people tell me,” she said. “People who are well educated in biology will tell me, like, ‘My urine was clear today, so that’s good, right?’ I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ You know, there is such a thing as drinking too much water.”

For lots more hydration tips and tricks, listen to the full episode here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have a question or need some help with something you’ve been doing wrong? Email us at AmIDoingItWrong@HuffPost.com, and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.