Mumbai: Think twice before you skip sleep again or keep your earphones blasting at full volume. Leading neurologists are sounding the alarm: several common lifestyle habits are silently killing brain cells and accelerating cognitive decline.
Dr Anurag Saxena, senior consultant neurosurgeon at Manipal Hospitals, Delhi, reveals that chronic sleep deprivation below six hours triggers inflammation and reduces the brain’s ability to clear toxins, literally shrinking grey matter over time. He emphasises that sleep is essential for brain repair.
Excessive screen time, especially doom-scrolling late at night, floods the brain with blue light that disrupts melatonin and damages the hippocampus – the memory centre. Add chronic stress to the list: prolonged cortisol spikes destroy neurones in critical thinking areas.
Loud music above 85 decibels (common with earphones at max volume) permanently harms auditory pathways and has been linked to early dementia. Even multitasking – jumping between apps and tasks – exhausts the prefrontal cortex, reducing focus and decision-making power.
Other culprits include dehydration (the brain is 80% water), skipping breakfast (starving neurones of glucose), and excessive sugar or processed food that causes insulin resistance in the brain – now dubbed “Type 3 diabetes”.
“Small changes today can save your brain tomorrow,” Dr Saxena urges. Simple fixes like seven to eight hours of sleep, 10-minute meditation, staying hydrated, and turning down the volume can protect your most precious organ.
Your brain isn’t invincible. Treat your brain well now, or it may forget how to treat you in return.