Play Your Way to a

Younger, Smarter Brain in

JUST 15 MINUTES A DAY
By Al Sears, MD, CNS
America’s #1 Anti-Aging Doctor
 © 2018 by Wellness Research & Consulting Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
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Published by:
Al Sears, MD
11905 Southern Blvd.,
Royal Palm Beach, FL 33411
561-784-7852
www.AlSearsMD.com
Dr. Al Sears wrote this report to provide information in regard to the subject matter covered.
It is offered with the understanding that the publisher and the author are not liable for any
misconception or misuse of the information provided. Every effort has been made to make
this report as complete and accurate as possible. The purpose of this report is to educate. The
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information contained in this report. The information presented herein is in no way intended as a
substitute for medical counseling or medical attention.
 Al Sears, MD
Al Sears, MD is America’s #1 anti-aging
doctor. He’s made it his life’s work to
challenge conventional medical beliefs and
bring his patients the latest breakthroughs
in natural cures and remedies to diseases
once thought to be “incurable.”

Dr. Sears takes a fresh, novel approach to patient health and wellness. Our environment has
changed for the worse — and it’s affecting your health. He helps patients escape accelerated aging
caused by modern toxins, chemicals and other hormonal threats you unknowingly face every day.

Every year, he travels over 20,000 miles to the most remote regions of the world searching for
natural healing secrets unknown or ignored by mainstream medicine.

Since 1999, Dr. Sears has published 35 books and reports on health and wellness. He has millions
of loyal readers spread over 163 countries.

Today he writes and publishes two monthly e-Newsletters, Confidential Cures and Anti-Aging
Confidential for Women, and a daily email broadcast, Doctor’s House Call, with more than
500,000 subscribers. He has also appeared on more than 50 national radio programs, ABC News,
CNN and ESPN.

Dr. Sears was one of the first to be board-certified by the American Academy of Anti-Aging
Medicine (A4M). More than 25,000 patients travel from all around the world to visit him at the
Sears Institute for Anti-Aging Medicine in beautiful Royal Palm Beach, Florida.

Recently, Dr. Sears proved you can affect the way you age by controlling the length of your
telomeres. He made history as the first MD to introduce the Nobel prize-winning, anti-aging
breakthrough of our time, telomere DNA therapy, to the general public. And now he’s working
with the leading scientists in the field of telomere biology to further define how this incredible
technology will shape the future of anti-aging medicine.

www.AlSearsMD.com 3 3
 Table of Contents

Put Your Brain Back on Top.................................................................................. Page 5

Your Brain is Like a Muscle… Use It or Lose It...................................................... Page 6

Lower Your Stress Hormone for Deeper Relaxation............................................ Page 7

Train Your Brain for More Mental Might............................................................. Page 8

Whip Your Mind into Shape with 4 Simple Brain Exercises................................. Page 8

Give Your Brain the Power to Get Better While Everyone Else Gets Older........ Page 11

References.........................................................................................................Page 12
 Play Your Way to a
Younger, Smarter Brain in
JUST 15 MINUTES A DAY
If your doctor says mental decline is simply a part of aging, I’m here to say think again. While it may
not be possible to completely prevent memory lapses, you can hold on to a quick and sharp mind as
you get older.

When you’re young, your mind is sharp, you’re quick-thinking, you’ve got clarity and focus… you
feel like you’re “on top” of every situation. As you get older, your mental functions decline… your
thinking and reaction time is slow.

But you don’t have to become one of those slow-lane drivers just because you’re “getting older.” In
fact, despite what you may have heard, cognitive decline is not inevitable.

You can improve your memory, mental focus and clarity starting today, and I’m going to show you
how.

The good news is, it has little to do with genetics, and even less to do with drugs.

You can boost your mental performance and have a sharper, more agile mind by doing one simple
thing: Exercising your brain.

The best part is, you can do it in just 15 minutes a day.

In this report, I’m going to show you how to preserve and promote your brainpower. Many of these
simple exercises take just minutes a day. They’re easy to understand and easy to do.

I’ll show you:

• Tools you can use to reverse cognitive decline

• How to beat the brain-destroying effects of cortisol
• The best way to protect yourself from dreaded Alzheimer’s disease

Put Your Brain Back on Top

When you were very small, you couldn’t do a whole lot of things. You couldn’t add numbers
together, tie your shoes or even walk. But you had the ability to learn those things.

That’s because your brain has millions of cells called neurons. And they all have tiny branches
coming off of them just waiting to connect to other neurons.

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 When you’re born, most of them are not connected to each other. But when you learn things, the
messages travel from one neuron to another, creating connective pathways called synapses. The more
of these connections, or synapses, you can develop between brain cells, the better your brain will
perform.

And, if you can keep the connections you have, and constantly create new pathways, you’ll activate
your mind and boost your brain performance no matter your age.

So, how do you do it?

One way is to keep your mind challenged — keep it guessing — and create your own mental
exercise program.

The Seattle Longitudinal Study of Adult Intelligence has followed more than 5,000 people since
1956, reporting on their cognitive abilities every seven years. The findings are remarkable.

Two-thirds of the people following any kind of mental exercise program showed significant

improvement in brain performance. And 40% returned to pre-decline cognitive performance levels.
What’s more, they maintained these benefits indefinitely.1

Improving your brain’s abilities can be as simple as playing games. It’s true. Games aren’t just fun…
many are just the kind of mental exercises that keep your brain young.

Take crossword puzzles, which are a favorite of mine. Even the simple ones get you thinking about
people, places and things you may not ever think of, or even try to remember. Other good mental
exercises include word and math games.

The Internet and your local library are filled with articles, books and exercises that can help you
use numbers, math, logic and puzzles so you can constantly create new synapses and keep your brain
performance humming along.

In a minute, I’ll share my favorite brain games that keep your mind moving no matter any age. But
first, how can some elders keep their brain sharp while others slip into dementia? The answer has little
to do with genes or luck…

Your Brain is Like a Muscle… Use It or Lose It

Your brain is a dynamic, adaptable system. Its neurons respond to environmental factors and mental
stimulation. Like any muscle, you have to strengthen it. By stimulating your mind, you preserve your
memory. What’s more, you can even restore the clarity you had in your youth!

If your brain cells sit idle, without mental stimulation and without a constant fresh supply of
nutrients, they die.

Plain and simple. And the longer it goes on, the greater your chances are of suffering not just
forgetfulness but neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.

But there’s good news. You can help maintain your brain function if you keep your brain active.

That means doing two things. One is to get more blood flowing to your brain. Better circulation
keeps your brain cells supplied with nutrients and oxygen.

6 Play Your Way to a Younger, Smarter Brain in Just 15 Minutes A Day

 The second is to use those brain cells.

If that seems a bit simple, it is.

It’s the onslaught of bad health information coming from institutionalized medicine that’s made it seem
more complicated. They’ve convinced everyone there’s a complex and inevitable process of decline, and
that any problems can only be cured by drugs.

But that’s not backed up by real science.

Contrary to what the medical establishment tells you, my 30-plus years as a board-certified anti-aging
doctor and extensive research shows our brains keep most of their structural and functional plasticity
— the ability to grow and form new connections — throughout adulthood and even into our later
years.2

How?

Challenging your brain with mental exercise. The best way to do this is to create your own “brain-
boosting program.” But first, there’s one more step to repair your aging brain.

Lower Your Stress Hormone for Deeper Relaxation

When it comes to your brain, relaxation is as vital for maintaining memory and cognitive
abilities as mental exercises. You see, if you’re wound up too tight all the time, you’re actually
killing brain cells.

Stress is a leading cause of mental deterioration as you age. Here’s why: when you’re feeling
stressed, your body produces the hormone cortisol. In moderate amounts, cortisol is not that big
of a deal. But in larger amounts, it becomes toxic to your brain cells.

Stress-induced cortisol ruins your brain’s “biochemical integrity” causing the mental
haziness, forgetfulness, and confusion that often comes with aging.

Cortisol threatens your mental health as you age. Almost all hormone levels fall as you age,
but cortisol is one of the very few exceptions. Cortisol levels increase as you grow older.

To preserve a youthful mind, you must actively work to lower your cortisol. You can do this
simply by reducing your stress level. Set aside a block of time every day, even if it’s only a couple
of minutes, for practicing and enjoying relaxation. Here are some of my favorite stress-reducing
strategies:

 Treat yourself to a massage — frequently.

 Do some of your favorite things every day.

 Focus on your breathing for the sole purpose of relaxation.

 Stop holding it in: Don’t isolate yourself with your worries. Let it out and talk it over.

 Meditate: Meditation is proven to reduce cortisol.

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 Train Your Brain for More Mental Might
Education is one of the best forms of protection against brain diseases like Alzheimer’s. In fact, a
Mayo Clinic study showed that 25% of those with an eighth grade education or less had mild cognitive
impairment, which leads to Alzheimer’s.3

Evaluate your habits and start using your opposite hand and foot for more activities. For example, if
you’re right-handed, start brushing your teeth, combing your hair, or using a calculator with your left hand.

It will seem odd at first, but even performing these types of tasks once starts improving brain function.

In fact, a study I read showed that two-thirds of the people following a “mental education program”
showed significant improvement, and 40% returned to pre-decline cognitive performance levels.

What’s more, they maintained these benefits indefinitely.

Regular mental stimulation offers another plus: it can protect from mind-robbing diseases.

Your mind benefits from an active social life that includes games, lecture series, and stimulating
conversation. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health discovered evidence that the memories of
elderly people with active social lives may decline at a slower rate.

Gathering data from memory assessments conducted every two years from 1998 to 2004, researchers
found that individuals who were most integrated in their community had the slowest rate of memory
decline.

Marital status, volunteer activities, and contact with parents, children and neighbors were the factors
in assessment of social integration. What’s more, the findings were independent of factors such as age,
gender and race.4

Scientists are finding exciting new evidence of the brain’s tremendous capacity to repair itself. No
matter how old you are, the brain can modify its structure, staving off age-related decline. When one
network of neurons dies, the brain can sprout brand-new connections and create another network.

In one study, doctors compared the memories of people in their 20s with those in their 70s. Each group
looked at 16 words and tried to remember them. The researchers found that with practice the older group
performed just as well as the younger people.5

But here’s the most surprising finding: as they performed this mental task, brain scans showed the
younger people used their frontal lobes (the normal area for memory), but the older group used a different
part of the brain — the area associated with vision.

For my patients, I also recommend challenging your brain by learning something new. Whether it be a
skill, a new language or a new hobby, this is a great way to keep your mind sharp. But that’s not all you can
do.

Whip Your Mind into Shape with 4 Simple Brain Exercises

You can develop your own mental exercise program to keep your brain sharp with age. But here are my
4 favorite brain exercises to get you started.

8 Play Your Way to a Younger, Smarter Brain in Just 15 Minutes A Day

 1. Workout your mind with visual brain teasers. Take advantage of new technology. With today’s
technology, working out your brain can be as easy as opening an app on your phone or
computer.

You can download brain teaser apps or visit websites like Lumosity, CogniFit Brain Fitness or
Personal Zen.

When you first play, it will give you a series of tests in order to determine your brain age, and then it
will track your progression so you can keep track of how well you’re doing. Here’s one:

How many triangles can you find in this hexagonal pattern?

The answer is 72!

2. Stimulate the connections or associations between words in your temporal lobe. If you are
right-handed, your language is stored mostly in your left temporal lobe. If you are left-handed,
you are not so lateralized and your language is stored a bit on both sides of your brain, in the
temporal lobes.

Also, words that are often heard together (such as salt and pepper) or words that share some
meaning (such as nurse and doctor) are connected or associated in the brain. Once you hear
one, the other is often activated. Here’s a great word association game:

You will see pairs of words, and your goal is to find a third word that is connected or associated
with both of these two words.

For example, the first pair is PIANO and LOCK. The answer is KEY. The word key is connected
with both the word piano and the word lock: there are KEYS on a piano and you use a KEY to
lock doors. Key is what is called a homograph: a word that has more than one meaning but is
always spelled the same.

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Questions Answers
1. LOCK — PIANO KEY
2. SHIP — CARD Deck
3. TREE — CAR Trunk
4. SCHOOL — EYE Pupil (Exam and Private are also possible)
5. PILLOW — COURT Case
6. RIVER — MONEY Bank (Flow is also possible)
7. BED — PAPER Sheet
8. ARMY — WATER Tank
9. TENNIS — NOISE Racket
10. EGYPTIAN — MOTHER Mummy
11. SMOKER — PLUMBER Pipe

3. Test your mental vitality and flexibility. This next exercise is called the Stroop Test. It’s used
in neuropsychological evaluations to measure mental vitality and flexibility. This test requires
strong attention, inhibition and self-regulation capability.

Quick — say aloud what color you see in every word, NOT the word you read.

Go from left to right, from top to down.

red white green black

green red black white
white black green red
red white green black
black green white red
white black red green
green white black red
red black green white

10 Play Your Way to a Younger, Smarter Brain in Just 15 Minutes A Day

 4. Gain mental clarity by solving riddles. Riddles are statements or questions having a double or
veiled meaning.

A riddle is of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical
or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and
conundrums, which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or
the answer.

Here’s one you can try: The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 must be put in the square below,
replacing the “x” in such a way that the sums of the numbers in each row, column, and diagonal
are equal. How should the numbers be arranged in the square? 

X X X

X X X

X X X

Here’s the answer:

All lines are equal to 15 even diagonally.

8 1 6

3 5 7

4 9 2

Give Your Brain the Power to Get Better While Everyone Else Gets Older
Games aren’t just fun, many are wonderful mental exercises.

Don’t wait for noticeable cognitive decline to set in. Try one of these memory games today — and
make it a habit to do at least one every day.

They won’t take you longer than 15 minutes or so. You can even play them with your spouse or
with your friends and family. The sooner you get going, the better chance you’ll have to preserve a
youthful mental capacity and clarity for all your life.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD, CNS

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 REFERENCES
1. Schaie, K. Warner 1998. The Seattle Longitudinal Studies of adult intelligence. In M. Powell
Lawton & Timothy A. Salthouse (eds) Essential papers on the psychology of aging.NY: NY Univ Pr.
Pp263-271.
2. Korol D, Gold P, Scavuzzo C. “Use it and boost it with physical and mental activity.” Hippocampus.
2013 Aug 31.
3. Kelley, Brendan J., and Ronald C. Petersen. “Alzheimer’s Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment.”
Neurologic clinics 25.3 (2007): 577–v. PMC. Web. 8 June 2018.
4. “Active Social Life May Delay Memory Loss Among U.S. Elderly Population,” Harvard School of
Public Health (http://www.hsph. harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2008-releases/active-social-
life-delay-memory-loss-us-elderly.html), May 29, 2008.
5. “The Latest Research on How the Brain Compensates for Age” Neurobiology of Aging Information
American Foundation for Aging Research: http://www.healthandage.com/html/min/afar/
content/other6_4.htm, August 2004.

12 Play Your Way to a Younger, Smarter Brain in Just 15 Minutes A Day