Episode 9: Clear the clouds: Everyday changes to help you beat brain fog

June. 6, 2023 | 30 mins

Join host Brent Bishop as he chats with Jill Hewlett, a brain fitness expert, trainer, and author from Toronto, Ontario. They will discuss the everyday changes you can make to help beat brain fog.

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You are listening to the Beyond Age podcast series.

Brent:

Hi, and welcome to Beyond Age, a Manulife exclusive podcast where we chat with experts to uncover the truth about holistic health and aging to help keep you living healthier for longer, no matter your age. I'm your host, Brent Bishop, and today I'm joined by Jill Hewlett from Toronto, Ontario. She's a brain fitness expert and wellness authority. Today we'll be discussing brain fog, brain fitness, and how to keep your mind working at its best for longer. Welcome, Jill.

Jill:

Great to spend this time with you, Brent, of looking forward to this conversation.

Brent:

Amazing, amazing. I love this concept of brain fitness, brain health, brain wellness. You know, it's something that's more prevalent now and more researched as you know, and so I'm really interested in this topic and excited to hear what you have to say about it. But before we do that, why don't we get into just telling us a little bit of background or you know, who you are and why you got into this field.

Jill:

Absolutely, for sure. So first of all, I am passionate about sharing brain fitness with individuals and organizations who want to create their fit brain and their fit life. And basically brain fitness is really about getting the most and best out of our brain at every stage of life from a teen, an adult, and those into the aging sector. So this is something that my career path grew into. Growing up, my parents owned a sporting good store in a town called Aurora. So my sisters and I, at a young age, after hours, we'd be running around the store playing with the equipment. You know, we would be trying on clothes, sports clothes. So as it was expected, my sisters and I would play sports, we'd be into fitness activities. So that was a big part of my upbringing and kind of set the stage for my appreciation of, and enjoyment of movement.

Then when I went into university, life became busy. I was away from home. So I already started to get out of balance because I just wasn't being as active. I was finding myself that my mood wasn't the same, I wasn't focusing on my studies, there was something missing. So I started getting out there and running and riding my bike and I got a gym membership and before you knew it, I felt all sorts of benefits. Not just physically but mentally and emotionally as well. Then I found as I proceeded into my wellness career path after university, that there's a body mind connection happening here because my body was stimulating my brain in the ways that it need to be stimulated and I never looked back since.

Brent:

Amazing. Thank you. So what about, you know, we've all experienced these times of a little confusion; you can't think straight performance isn't as high as it should be. And you know, with the introduction of long covid, which was a cause of "quote" "unquote" brain fog, we hear more and more about it. But you know, there's also tired brain, there's also overwhelmed brain. What causes these brain states, aside from long covid, and what do you think we can do to overcome these states?

Jill:

Great question. Tired brain, overwhelmed brain and brain fog have distinct categories. So I'll start first with tired brain. It relates to poor sleep, not enough sleep or not quality sleep. And so our brain especially does so much in our sleep state. We rejuvenate, we heal, we cleanse, we move information into long-term storage so we learn as we sleep, we consolidate our learning. A lot of people just aren't getting enough sleep and there's many reasons for it, but that's one issue. Another issue is just a sedentary lifestyle, and since March, 2020, people kind of did the lift and shift to their home office. They're not leaving home base, they're just not out and about the same way and spending far more time in front of our screens. Research has shown how much more people are on their screen time. And this is really, you know, causing them to be sedentary as well.

Another cause of tired brain would be dehydration, not drinking enough water. Our brain is an electrical unit. It needs to be frequently in a milia of water so our nervous system, our sensory system can process information and move it into our brain and then we assimilate, communicate, function properly. And when we're dehydrated, those lines of communication aren't working. And then last but not least, there's something called IFS, which stands for information fatigue syndrome. And this comes down to just the acronym TMI. Too much information coming at us. We are in the information age, people are always on their devices. There's always news and there's screens all around us and information is coming at us constantly. So those are the types of things that would contribute to a tired brain. Our cognitive processing is slow. We have difficulty shifting from one task to the next.

We just don't have the energy to go towards our goals or build our relationships. I mean, it really isn't any fun. So even just like a few things relating to the problems is to drink more water, get up and move around, getting to bed earlier. Do what you can to create a nice healthy bed routine. And last but not least, take some screen breaks because we need to take breaks from our devices.

I'd like to share with you the overwhelmed brain to show you the contrast. Overwhelmed brain, these issues existed before Covid, but they're at an all-time high. What we're dealing with is constant uncertainty, ongoing changes. So much unknown that people have really lost a sense of their structure and routine. And our brain really needs it to feel safe. We need predictability because life as it is, is so unpredictable.

So the moment we get all these structures taken away and our regular routines deep down, we start to become anxious. And that can lead to other issues like just feeling down or depressed. Just having an unhealthy or limited perspective on life. It can affect our mental health, all these things. And we start to avoid taking action. So we become more and more stuck because we're so overwhelmed. So what can we do about that? First and foremost, super easy. Do some deep breathing, take a nice big inhale through the nose. Nose, exhale through the mouth. This will automatically have a calming effect. It'll move us into that rest and digest space. That parasympathetic response. We'll just slow our system down and get back into that present moment where we do have a say in things, where we do have some control, retraining our breath so that we have that strategy and you'll find yourself reset.

Brent:

That all helps with relaxing the nervous system. So we'll get into brain fog a little bit, but I'm interested in the aspect of what impacts on your daily life would brain fog have? I think I know what it is, and for our listeners, maybe just a quick little description of what brain fog is and maybe go into what the symptoms would be, what we'd experience?

Jill:

And really most of all, what's causing it so we can do something about it. What do we do about brain fog? Because it is a different category now. Some of the symptoms are quite similar, like the fatigue, the inability to focus, kind of feeling that hazy kind of feeling throughout the course of the day. We become forgetful. It's harder to make quick, timely decisions, which can actually become a safety issue if you're a surgeon or a dentist or you're supervising a job site. Because of what's going on behind the scenes with brain fog, it's actually a survival response. Basically, our system surviving instead of thriving and we're in protection mode instead of productivity mode. And so we really want to shift that because ultimately, we need to pay attention for these signs because they're red flags, they are letting us know something's going on and we need to do something about it.

Brent:

Very good. I didn't know there's a specific difference with these three categories: tired brain, overwhelmed brain, and the actual brain fog. The cause of brain fog, would it be a combination of overwhelmed brain and lack of sleep? Or is there something specific that is the cause of brain fog?

Jill:

So brain fog first and foremost is actually relating to toxicity. In particular, the toxicity here that I'm referring to for brain fog comes from what we eat.

Brent:

Alcohol, dehydration, too much sugar, all that kind of stuff I'd imagine.

Jill:

You're right on track. Absolutely. So our regular food, like what we eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. And then on top of it, alcohol, cigarettes, recreational drugs, medicines, heavy metals that we get through the drinking water ,are just the pollution. All these things add up to toxicity. I thought it would be interesting for people to hear about this toxic breakdown. Basically our system can handle a certain amount of toxicity. We have our liver and our kidneys to you know, filter things out and help us remove waste. But when we have too much, our system becomes overloaded and then it can't process quick enough to eliminate fast enough. Those toxins then get into the bloodstream. There's an alert response, there's an immune response. The system's saying, Hey, something's going on here, there's things that shouldn't be here.

And it can be simple things like you said, Brent, like sugar. For some people it's gluten because they just don't process it well. So that starts to create something called inflammation and there's a swelling going on, there's a danger response alert response going on. And so that gradually, if that stays in the system long enough, it becomes systemic and it actually makes its way to the brain. Right now we have something called the brain blood barrier, which is supposed to stop that from going through, but unfortunately due to this ongoing inflammation that becomes inflamed as well and it becomes permeable. So toxins get in. So now we're dealing with toxic overload in the brain as well. And this causes brain fog because what happens is these toxins interfere with brain cell chemistry. The neuro pathways are being impeded. Toxins can even get inside the cell, your brain cell, which is actually called a neuron, it can distort or impede the mitochondria. It's responsible for our biochemical energy. So you can see this cascade effect from when we put something into our mouth, goes through our system, doesn't get eliminated and ends up in our brain and now all of a sudden we've got brain interference and we start to have these brain fog symptoms. So obviously we need to eat. So it's just about taking out the bad stuff and putting in the good stuff.

Brent:

Yeah. This is a good visual, that cascade that you just gave and you can see how the consistency of eating poorly with those refined foods and so on could do damage over time. So for instance, healthy fats, we know that healthy fats among other nutrients can actually be very protective and great for our cellular health, for our brain health, but maybe you can quickly recommend some beneficial foods for improving brain function?

Jill:

Yeah, that's a great takeaway because I mean that's something that we do every day. We're always eating. So if we can tweak our diet, we can get incredible results. So let's keep it simple and just say, let's stay away from as much as we can. Processed foods, packaged foods, fast foods, a lot of these foods have extra sugar in them. They've got preservatives, artificial ingredients, things that the body will perceive as toxins. So we take these types of things out, you know, unhealthy fats, the trans fats, things like that. And then we can put in all sorts of healthy options and whole foods. And then the other thing is one added piece, when we eat food that we've prepared, our system starts to prepare for it. The enzymes in our saliva, that is what gets activated. And also your whole system gets a chance to prepare. If we can actually have a relationship with our food, the food will do more for us.

Brent:

Right. That's a really good point. So you're a consultant for something called Brain Gym. Can you take us through what brain fitness actually is and how we can implement that into our daily lives? Because we all want to fit brain.

Jill:

Absolutely. I'd be happy to share that. So Brain Fitness is about having the tools and strategies to really invest into our healthier brain. And what's really cool, and you'll really like this because of the work you do, I often say you can use the body you have to get the brain you want. The body you currently have is basically the greatest resource you have to creating a better brain. So that's kind of the starting point that paints the picture within that awareness building and noticing. So that's an important component. Delivering this in user friendly neuroscience so people understand these more complicated information applied to our life in practical ways. And then I look at people from an angle of, where's our mindset at? It sets the stage for all our interactions, our relationships, going for our goals, seeing opportunities or missing opportunities.

Our mindset will make it or break it intentionally directing the energy and information flow inside our system rather than just defaulting into habit. Because we all have a lot of habits, some that we're conscious of, some that just run the show behind the scenes and we don't even realize it's going on. And then I often make recommendations and suggestions to brain/body fuel, there's the hydration part, right? Making sure that you're hydro-powered, and there's all the way to, you know, macronutrients and micronutrients, how to supplement properly, incorporating extra things like antioxidants and things that help slow down aging. And so there's that component. And then last but not least, there's the brain activation strategies. And these are microbursts of movements that leverage this body-mind connection and that we do them for 30 seconds to a minute and you completely reset your brain in the moment. So if your energy's dropping, have some water, do one of these activities. If you're having a hard time focusing, you can do an activity. There's activities for making better decisions, communicating more effectively, being more organized, being more creative. I mean, anything you need to do as a human being with a brain and body, they are brain activation strategies that will help you to do it better because they're basically stimulating those neurological pathways that are required to do those very skills.

Brent:

I love what you say about mindset and awareness. You know, things are 80% mental, 20% physical. If you put your mind on it, the chance of getting the result or working towards those goals is far greater. Well we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back after this message.

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Brent:

Welcome back to Beyond age. So Jill, I would love to do just a practical sort of quick starter activity. Maybe you can walk us through that, you know, something that we can do easily and any of our listeners could do?

Jill:

Yeah, let's do a few. And I'll also relate this quickly to the brain fog because another thing I wanted to mention, which these movements are so great for, is activating our higher order thinking. Our executive functions. This top part of our brain that's behind our forehead that has all these 86 billion neurons that give us this human advantage. So this higher order thinking, that's kind of like a fancy piece of equipment - really it's the CEO of our life, doesn't get the same energy or resources that our survival parts of our brain get to keep us alive. So a big part of dealing with that higher order thinking shutting down as well, is caused by stress. So these activities, first and foremost help people calm down, de-stress, and then they can then carry on far more effectively with their activities or their day.

So let's do a little pre-check. Basically I would ask someone to notice things like, what's your posture? Like, how are you sitting? This is what happens, we hold this stress and we become used to it. So when we do this pre-check, we kind of do this scan from head to toe to see what are we carrying, where's my energy levels? That's a good one. Like if I said to people between one and 10, where's your energy tank? Then you know they get an idea. Yeah, you know what, my energy is low. And the thing that they would do without realizing it out of habit, you could probably guess is run and get a cup of coffee,

Brent:

A stimulant!

Jill:

Get a stimulant! And in brain fitness we're not completely against coffee, we're just about getting hydrated. So drinking water instead and getting movement, because those things, water and movement, the activities you and I are going to do, will actually stimulate and give you energy and we'll sculpt your brain. Okay. So we're going to drink some water as a first thing. So cheers.

Brent:

Cheers Jill.

Jill:

Then we'll do some deep breathing. A nice inhale through the nose, and exhale through the mouth. As we inhale through our nose, we're sending a direct energy supply to our brain and it's so great because it's automatically energizing. Our brain does not hold oxygen the way the rest of our tissues and organs do. So it needs a constant fresh supply. So a nice inhale through the nose and then deep exhale through the mouth. As we exhale through the mouth, we're cleansing and detoxifying, we're releasing acidity. I'd like to now take you through an all over body massage.

Brent:

Virtually?

Jill:

That sounds inviting, doesn't it? But it's only done in one area that has 400 acupressure points. So you are just stimulating this one area and you're getting this all over body benefit. So you want to join me in taking your hands to either side of your head just to your ears. And for listeners, just go to the very top there, thumbs touching the front of your ear fingertips at the top and back. And you're going to just start by rolling out your ear little bit at a time, working your way gradually down your ear until you get right down to the earlobe, and breathing as you do this, most people say this feels amazing. So just really enjoy.

Brent:

It does feel good.

Jill:

Awesome. And you do this two or three times. So starting from the beginning again, gradually working your way down, you'll find your ears feel warmer because of the circulation. They start to become more sensitive because we've desensitized ourselves because we're so not connected and aware of what's going on in our body. So we start to feel this and we realize, hey, you know what? It's relaxing me. I think I even need to yawn. So all of a sudden we've got this amazing stimulation that's happened through our whole body and it makes us more alert. It gets our system working because sitting for hours and hours is not what our brain's meant to do. Our brain is designed to move in space. Our brain is three-dimensional, screens are two-dimensional. We're wiring our brain at a lesser capacity.

Brent:

That's a great way of putting it. You're kind of dumbing it down. It's natural ability and where it wants to go. I like that.

Jill:

Exactly. So here we got to reawaken it and use our body to stimulate our brain because those pressure points are connected throughout your body. Also, when you're stimulating both sides of your ears, you're turning on listening. And by doing it on both sides of the brain, you're stimulating and actually activating both main brain hemispheres, which is a great lead in to the next activity we'll do, which is specifically about getting the logic side and the creative sides of your brain working together as a team.

This next activity is called the "cross crawl", which research shows hands down, getting out for daily walks is so important for your brain. It can ward off degeneration. It actually builds the learning and memory centres of our brain. It's a great way to just reset ourselves. It totally helps us reduce stress because the walking motion requires balance and we can't be in balance and stress at the same time.

They don't coexist. You're in one state or the other because balance is a higher part of your brain. So if you're in stress, you're in survival mode. When you activate balance by something as simple as going for a walk, you automatically start to activate the balance system. But we can do a version of it ourselves rather than getting up and heading out the door right here in front of our desks. We can take our right hand, bring it across our body and touch the left leg, left thigh, then come up and take the left arm across the body and touch the right thigh. Now we'll just keep doing that from side to side. Remembering to breathe deeply. Notice how your spine feels. Because when we're sitting for long periods of time, the cerebral spinal fluid, the fluid that's meant to move through your spine to help your brain and body to communicate, becomes stagnant.

It's just sitting there and blood is pooling in our lower extremities as well. So this movement is getting the circulation going, it's getting that cerebral spinal fluid flowing and all of a sudden, wow, I just did a few rotations, I'm already feeling more awake. Plus you're taking a break from looking at your screen because as you do this. I'm going to invite everyone to turn their head as well. Okay. And then you can do it a little bit deeper.

Then last but not least, I would suggest to stand up and do it on the spot, standing up and walking on the spot at a regular pace and then going slower. Because when you go slower it requires balance and that little stress relieving benefit that you get from it. So there you go!

Brent:

I will say it also feels great on your spine, like your lumbar area and like you know, those muscles that supports your spine, it feels really good. Movement is medicine, right?

Jill:

Yes, it is. I so believe it.

Brent:

Years ago we used to think, you know, when you hit a certain age, there's no more growth or change that can occur in the brain. We now know that's not true. You know, you can in fact rewire your brain at any age as long as the environment is there, where we're doing the fitness and all these things. From a fitness perspective, I love the movement stuff because it's like you're increasing blood flow to the brain. You're increasing eventually your cognitive reserve, which can help with memory, which can help with, you know, warding off things like dementia and those types of illnesses. Not only that, increasing something called brain-derived neurotropic factor, BDNF.

Jill:

Yes! BDFN, I'm a fan..

Brent:

It protects the neurons and helps with, you know, more neural growth and neuro connections. So in saying that and kind of in more into the scientific side of things, we'll delve into what regions of the brain are specifically impacted by brain fog. And if we implement something like brain fitness as we just did, what are the positive impacts that it has on our overall brain function?

Jill:

Absolutely. When you talk about the region of the brain, the idea here once again is back to those executive functions. They shut down. When we're in survival mode, we don't have access to that higher brain power that helps us to make decisions, time manage, communicate effectively, organize our life, feel good. And the other thing is, I'll tie it back to what you said there too about building that cognitive reserve, especially as we age, we want to build a strong lush cognitive reserve. It can take us through challenging times or that aging process. And so this reference you make to the BDNF, this is like a Miracle Grow for the brain. And so we can fortify those neurons. Fortify those neuro pathways, make them stronger. And this is within our realm of control. Not only is it up to us, it's really our responsibility.

And it's a huge, huge opportunity. So that’s why I like to tell people, you are a neuroplastician; in every moment of every day, you are working with this neuroplasticity. And so why not do it effectively? It's going to happen by default anyway. If you move into unhealthy habits, you are going to impede your physical, mental, and emotional health and your overall functionality. Yeah. There's no doubt about it. It may not happen the first day or the second day, but ongoingly that adds up. So when we have tools like this and people listen to a conversation like this that shows them new possibilities, then they can really start to invest in this into themselves. And I have a lot of resources too. I have a blog, I have videos, I have my newsletters sign up every week. I send out a brain and life reset so we can stay in this conversation and share these types of resources. And people would just go to my website, which is my name: www.jillhewlett.com. And yeah, I'd be happy to talk to people and further this conversation.

Brent:

That's really great. Yeah. It's good to have resources for a lot of people, this is a fairly new area of importance and you know, it's being stressed more now. So if you can have a positive impact on age related decline, why wouldn't you take that opportunity? Right.

Jill:

Totally Brent. Because I think there's a whole concept of you can't change your brain, you're stuck with what you've got. You know, what you get is what you get and that's kind of your life journey. And then people believe that this idea of brain fog is a neck up issue, it's not, your whole system's involved. And because all your lifestyle habits are what sculpture brain embody, you can change them. You can at any time. It's so exciting. There's so much potential.

Brent:

That's great. I think you kind of led into my next question that I wanted to ask you. You know, is it possible not only to treat brain fog, but to prevent or even reverse it?

Jill:

That's a really good question too, because people are thinking, well what I've done so far, can I bring healing to? Absolutely. Like people can improve these things all the time because we have the ability as long as we're on the planet to create new neurons and new neural pathways. So absolutely it's not set in stone. And there's so many miracles and exciting stories. We've heard of people overcoming brain injuries and traumas that they were told that they couldn't. But you know, with just practice and consistency and applying different methods that stimulate the brain in these healthy and essential ways, new growth will occur. So I don't think anyone needs to be concerned about being stuck. I will say though, elderly people are going to be more impacted by brain fog being that their systems are weaker. They're probably not sleeping as well, they might be on medications and all these things add up. Not to say it won't happen, you can absolutely make changes. My mother who's a thriving 80 year old is a perfect example of putting into use healthy habits that make a difference and she can tell the difference when she doesn't do them. So yeah, at every age and stage of life this is possible. But of course young kids are in early developmental years and they're in a growth period. They've got all sorts of myelination that's ready to strengthen and build these neuro pathways so they have an advantage.

Brent:

Absolutely. And this is very much like say rehabbing an injury. You know, I'm not 20 anymore, I don't necessarily heal as well, but I can take the right steps and maybe alter my exercise plan to accommodate idiosyncrasies or things that I'm dealing with at the time. So you're right, any age you can still definitely take advantage of, you know, being nice to your body, for sure. Tying brain fog to aging, what impact does it have on overall longevity? So if you're experiencing brain fog on a regular basis, what's it going to do to you for your healthy aging?

Jill:

Good question. Yeah, I mean, once again, it really is a red flag. So these symptoms, let's not overlook them. Let's use them as information and then start to learn about what's going on. And we shared a lot of great information. So there's lots here to start with. And then really recognize that if we aren't going to make these changes, there's going to be wear and tear, premature aging, premature breakdown. Our system's working twice as hard, three, four times, five times as hard. So automatically we go into like what I mentioned before, that protection mode rather than productivity and growth mode. I always like to say to people, you're rarely ever just plateauing. You're either going downhill or uphill.

Brent:

Yeah, that's a good point.

Jill:

Your choices are either working against you or working for you, and you got to get over that 50% mark of making better choices on the higher side of 50 plus. And then you know, you can start to reverse things and you won't quicken that aging process and create this extra unnecessary wear and tear.

Brent:

That makes a lot of sense. I know in many industry there's always misconceptions, myths, things that you know, need to be debunked. What do you think about brain fitness and brain fog that you believe should be debunked and perhaps, you know, is there common knowledge that still rooted in fact?

Jill:

Yeah, because it's hard to know, right? There's so much information out there, what's truth, what's fact? Sometimes the best way to know is to try it yourself. Because if you get results then you know, if it's working for you then it's working for you. Right. But having said that, you know, I think the big issue, and I kind of alluded to it before, but I think it deserves more attention because we really for the longest time have separated our brain from our body. There's a belief, there's an understanding even in school, like kids made to sit for long periods of time at a desk and learn, like how does that work? The thing is, our brain is designed to move in space, to gather resources, to interact with people, to build shelter, to find a mate like to do these things to interact.

And so now sitting all the time, especially in front of screens, but even like kids all day at school, we're not activating the learning potential because the body is meant to activate the brain that way. So of course recess is so important. Getting out at lunch hour, getting fresh air, getting solar power, all these things. But going back to the point of the myth here is that this is a separate entity. Your brain and body are something separate. And so thinking that brain fog is simply a neck up issue or any learning or behaviour issue is a neck up issue. There is so much that the body can do to get the brain working better, that if you have brain fog, you have body fog, and you've got to work on both.

Brent:

Right. That's a great point I think that everybody should take on is it's your complete body. I could go on forever with you on this because I think you have such great information and tools for all of us, but sort of leave it off and round it up for our, our listeners, if there are one to two takeaways in terms of brain fog and how to recognize and address it, what two would stand out for you that you think are most important for our listeners to get

Jill:

For a wrap up? I'd like to share this. There's three main things our brain and body need. Oxygen, nutrition, and activation. Those are like the hub. Those are central to everything. Okay. So oxygen, if we're not getting enough oxygen to our cells, our cells are suffocating. Like we could be suffocating our cells simply because we're so stressed, we're so inflamed, we need to calm down. We need to cool down. We literally need to become not so hotheaded.

Brent:

Literally.

Jill:

Yes, exactly. So the oxen, deep breathing, take baths, walk in nature, get lots of fresh air. Then the nutrition side, if we're not getting the nutrients to ourselves, we're starving ourselves. So now we could be suffocating them or we could be starving them talking about decline, like we are in the decline mode and we're working against ourselves. So knowing that we need nutrition, take out the bad stuff, put in the good stuff, stay hydrated, getting the vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids. Amino acids that are the information to tell your food what to do. So they really meant to work together as a team. And then last but not least, the third word is activation. And that's the movement thing that you and I are both so passionate about. It's like if you don't move it, you lose it. So many people like don't realize that their brain is meant to move in space and I really want to drive that home. So get up and take brain breaks. And then of course as an bonus point, I guess I could say is work on that mindset like we were talking about earlier. Envision what you want to create. You can use your mind to improve your brain functioning as well.

Brent:

This is amazing. I mean, great wrap up points. So Jill, thank you so much.

Jill:

Wow. That was so much fun, Brent. Thank you.

Brent:

Well, that's it everyone. Thanks for tuning in to Beyond Age, an exclusive podcast from Manulife. Tune in to the next episode, where we talk to Lycia Rodrigues, the caregiver support manager at Family Caregivers of British Columbia, about the sandwich generation and how family caregiving impacts health and longevity. Don't forget to visit our website, manulife.ca/LiveHealthier for more tips, videos, and content from Manulife that can help you live healthier for longer, no matter your age.

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