Top Habits That Made My Brain 10 Years Younger

Ever since I was a child, I was consumed by anxiety and tormented by my mind. As I got older, my anxiety got worse, and so did my urge to escape it.

I began using drugs when I was 14 years old, and by the time I was 20, I was a heroin addict. I spent the next 15 years destroying my body and mind. But I was lucky. Pummelled into submission by the most painful night of my life, I was forced to look at the world from a completely new perspective.
Life gave me a second chance, and I devoured every second of it. Some might say that I switched addictions. But I like to call it intense curiosity, as I was bitten by the bug of life.
That was in October 2013, and since then, I’ve become a PhD student, an author, a life change strategist, and a lecturer at the top two universities in Ireland, all in the area of the neuroscience.
My newfound curiosity also introduced me to the world of personal growth, where I designed a programme to help me to navigate my new life. The habits from this programme have not only helped me to achieve outward success; they’ve changed my physical, emotional, and mental health too.
As luck had it, I was part of a brain imaging study while I was in detox. Using scans from my addicted brain, we compared them to scans of my brain 5 years later and the differences were incredible.
With new innovative measurement tools, I’ve also been able to explore the predictive age of my brain. Astonishingly, not only did I reverse the age of my brain, it is now nearly 10 years younger than that of a normal man my age.
Below I describe how our brains can change, and then I discuss the 12 age-reversing habits that made mine 10 years younger.
How Our Brains Can Change
The Plastic Brain
Our brains are malleable, like playdough, and our experiences determine their shape. This process is best compared to physical exercise. For example, thirty reps lifting weights won’t make your muscles bigger, but thirty reps every day for a year will. The same is true for your brain, and over time, its shape will change.
I was a compulsive worrier before I found recovery. I always felt tense, uneasy, and anxious. If my mind wasn’t scanning the world for potential threats, it was looking for ways to relieve my unrelenting anxiety. Over time, I literally transformed my brain into a finely tuned anxiety machine.
It’s the same for any negative feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Whatever you rest your mind upon, be it anger, self-doubt, or fear, your brain will eventually take that shape.
Thankfully, you can shape your brain in a much more positive direction. For example, by harnessing the power of neuroplasticity via regular mindfulness practice, you can become more resilient, develop sharper focus, and manage your emotions more effectively.
The brain images below are scans of my own brain. The one on the left was conducted as part of a study in 2013 — when I was only two days clean after 15 years of addiction. The one on the right was taken in May 2018, as part of a TV documentary about stress.
As an external comparison, the picture middle-right shows me deep in addiction in 2011, and the picture far right was taken in February 2020, nearly 10 years later.