At the height of the pandemic, as we stayed glued to the TV for guidance on navigating our new reality, Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, was always there to offer straight talk and reality checks alongside glimpses of hope. Like Anthony Fauci, MD, he can deliver bad news while simultaneously managing to sound soothing.

Now Gupta, who’s also a neurosurgeon, is offering comfort on another front. In his new book, Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age (Simon & Schuster), he makes the case for the brain’s remarkable resilience and explains how we can continually nourish and strengthen its capabilities, no matter where we are on life’s journey.

O’s books editor, Leigh Haber, spoke with Gupta to find out more about how this most mysterious organ operates—and to learn how we can minimize those ever-increasing senior moments.


Growing up, I was taught that the brain had a finite number of cells that, once used up, were gone for good. But it turns out that isn’t true, right?

Sanjay Gupta: When I first began studying the brain, the belief was that there was no such thing as neurogenesis—the growth of new brain cells. The thinking was that you started out with a certain number and drained the cache as you got older. Yes, we can stimulate brain function, but can we actually generate new brain cells? That’s the question.

It was once thought that the soul resided in our chests—in the heart. But to you, it’s more accurate to say that our souls can be found in our brains.

Yes. An organ made up of three and a half pounds of tissue contains each thought, each memory, each joy, each pain—all we’ve ever experienced, which is why it’s so precious and why we need to nurture and care for it. The brain enables us to be resilient through life’s challenges and to build and remember our own narratives.

Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age

Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age

Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age

Shop at Bookshop

But isn’t it inevitable that our brains will decline as we age?

Actually, the brain is likely the only organ that can improve its function as we get older. Forgetfulness, for example, isn’t preordained. There are simple things you can do to exercise and revitalize the brain.

Like crossword puzzles—I do the New York Times’ version every morning...

Doing crosswords does fire up the part of your brain connected with word fluency, which is really good. But if you think of the brain’s parts as roads, what you want is not to take the same road every day, but to explore unfamiliar routes to maximize the brain’s resiliency.

How do you do that?

Something as simple as occasionally using a nondominant part of your body—say, eating with your left hand when you’re right-handed, or tying your shoes or throwing a ball with your nondominant hand. In neurological terms, if you’re right-handed, motor control is coming from your left cerebral cortex. So most of the time, your right cerebral cortex is unused—it’s in a kind of hibernation. When you consciously exercise that unused side, you’re waking it up. There are lots of ways to flex underutilized parts of the brain, and they’re often lots of fun, too.

Like learning a new language?

Or any new hobby that has some physicality, whether it’s pottery, painting, or playing piano. Those activities are really good for building new trails, new roads, even new cities within your brain. It’s a myth that we regularly use only 10 percent of our brain power. But I think it is true that much of the time we’re using only a small portion of our brain’s capacity, and the parts we aren’t using are allowed to get weak. We need to boost and engage them.

When you observed the recovery of former congresswoman Gabby Giffords after she was shot, you were amazed at how important music was to her healing process.

Music therapy played a huge role. Even those patients in the throes of dementia can retain music and sing songs from their childhood. When it comes to singing a song, just the act of voicing the words is all left temporal lobe. If you add in melody and sing aloud, that draws on the right parietal lobe. And if you dance along to the music, you’re using the cerebellum. At that point, your brain is like a fireworks show.

Speaking of dancing, physical exercise is one of the tools for brain building, right?

Yes, but brisk walking is better than more intense workouts. With vigorous exercise your brain typically emits the stress hormone cortisol, which tends to block the release of what’s called BDNF—a protein that’s a kind of Miracle-Gro for the brain—that more moderate exercise produces. So you want brisk walking versus hard running, as frequently as possible.

In the book, you talk about how anxiety and depression negatively impact brain function. During this Covid era, when we’re all stressed out, what can we do to lessen our feelings of fear and uncertainty?

We are social creatures, so talk to people, even if it’s only by phone or Zoom. Be vulnerable. Take the time to deepen your personal connections because, among other benefits, those human interactions can be protective in terms of building brain resiliency. And remember, this really is an instance when “we’re all in this together” isn’t a cliché—it’s the truth.

So there’s a silver lining to what we’re going through?

For many of us it’s offered a chance to ask ourselves whether our lives prepandemic were too busy, too scripted. I’ve spent more time with my wife in this last year than I had during our entire marriage. My dad went back to playing musical instruments and has started doing Zoom karaoke nights with friends.

Given what we’ve talked about, karaoke must be great for the brain.

Yes, go ahead. Do lots of karaoke!


preview for Oprah's Book Club Pick: Marilynne Robinson
Headshot of Leigh Haber
Leigh Haber

Leigh Haber is Vice President, Books, Oprah Daily and O Quarterly. She is also Director of Oprah's Book Club.