These 7 Healthy Habits Can Make Your Brain Younger, Study Reveals

A University of Florida study found that optimism, good sleep, and social support can make the brain appear years younger than its chronological age.

Your birth certificate might say 65, but your brain could be functioning as if it were ten years younger, or older, depending on how you live your life.

That’s the main takeaway from new research by scientists at the University of Florida. The study found that optimism, quality sleep, supportive relationships, and other positive lifestyle traits are strongly linked to better brain health. The results indicate that daily habits and how people respond to stress can meaningfully affect how quickly the brain ages, even among those who experience chronic pain.

“These are things that people have some level of control over,” said Jared Tanner, Ph.D., a research associate professor of clinical and health psychology at the University of Florida who helped lead the new study. “You can learn how to perceive stress differently. Poor sleep is very treatable. Optimism can be practiced.”

The research followed 128 middle-aged and older adults over two years. Most participants experienced chronic musculoskeletal pain related to, or at risk for, knee osteoarthritis. Using MRI scans interpreted by a machine learning system, the team estimated each person’s “brain age” and compared it with their actual chronological age. The gap between these two numbers represented overall brain health.

The Power of Positive Living

Chronic stressors such as pain, low income, limited education, and other social challenges were linked to older-looking brains. However, those effects appeared to lessen over time. What made a clearer difference were positive lifestyle and psychosocial factors—things like sleeping well, keeping a healthy weight, managing stress effectively, staying tobacco-free, and maintaining strong social connections.

The study identified seven behavioral and psychosocial factors (termed “protective factors”) that were linked to younger, healthier brains. Each was measured using validated tools and scored on a 0–2 scale (with higher scores representing more protection).

1. Tobacco use – Non-smokers received the most protective score. Former smokers earned an intermediate score, and current smokers the lowest.
2. Waist circumference – Lower waist circumference (≤80 cm for women, ≤94 cm for men) was considered most protective, based on WHO cutoffs. Higher waist circumference reflected less healthy body composition.
3. Optimism (Life Orientation Test-Revised) – Higher optimism levels received more protective points.
4. Positive and negative affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) – Having more frequent positive emotions and fewer negative ones was linked to better brain health. Negative emotion scores were reversed so that lower distress counted as more protective.
5. Perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale) – Lower perceived stress was given higher protective scores.
6. Social support (Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support) – Greater perceived support from family, friends, and significant others was protective.
7. Sleep quality (PROMIS Sleep–Related Impairment Short Form 8a) – Better sleep quality (lower sleep-related impairment) received higher protective scores.

Study participants who reported the most protective factors had brains eight years younger than their chronological age when the study started, and their brains went on to age more slowly over the next two years.

“The message is consistent across our studies, health-promoting behaviors are not only associated with lower pain and better physical functioning, they appear to actually bolster health in an additive fashion at a meaningful level,” said Kimberly Sibille, Ph.D., an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at UF and senior author of the report.

A Broader Picture of Brain Health

Sibille and Tanner, along with colleagues across UF and at other institutions, published their findings in the journal Brain Communications.

Scientists have long known that older brains are more vulnerable to problems like memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Traditionally, brain research has focused on individual regions. But since pain, stress, and life experiences affect many parts of the brain at once, the brain age gap — the difference between a person’s age and how old their brain looks in brain scans — provides a single, whole-brain snapshot that captures those complexities.

Although the study focused on people living with chronic pain, it’s likely that factors like lower stress, social support and quality sleep serve to slow brain aging in other populations as well.

“Literally for every additional healthy promoting factor there is some evidence of neurobiological benefit,” Sibille said. “Our findings support the growing body of evidence that Lifestyle is medicine.”

Reference: “More than chronic pain: behavioural and psychosocial protective factors predict lower brain age in adults with/at risk of knee osteoarthritis over two years” by Jared J Tanner, Angela Mickle, Udell Holmes, Brittany Addison, Kenia Rangel, Cynthia Garvan, Roland Staud, Song Lai, David Redden, Burel R Goodin, Catherine C Price, Roger B Fillingim and Kimberly T Sibille, 11 September 2025, Brain Communications.
DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcaf344

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