Dr Norman Swan on 'The Brain Cliff' and how to stay away from the edge

What many of us fear, especially as we hit our forties and fifties, is not being as quick of mind. Not remembering as well as we used to. By our 60s and 70s we worry there's nothing we can do and that we are falling helplessly into an abyss which leads to dementia.Dr Norman Swan, one of Australia's most trusted doctors, shows us that we've been thinking about brain ageing the wrong way. It doesn't need to be about decline and deficit. It's about how to help our brains adapt, become resilient and maintain cognitive function - and it's much more than what we eat, how we exercise or our genes.Dr Swan has interviewed people from around the world in their 90s and 100s who still have remarkable cognitive function. These cognitive super-agers have very different life stories, but it turns out that underneath they're pretty much the same, with lessons that will help us all in our 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Dr Norman Swan about why the changes in the brain as we age are more about adaptation than decline, why our genetic make-up isn't as influential on our brain health as we might think, and how the lifestyle choices we make contribute to our brain health.