Deans' stroke musings: Art, peanuts and Dick Van Dyke: ageing well at Christmas

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Friday, April 17, 2026

Art, peanuts and Dick Van Dyke: ageing well at Christmas

I try to see lots of museums when I travel, next up.

Heading to Italy April 21-30 with Michigan Public Radio;3 nights at the Cardinal Hotel St. Peter in Rome;4 nights at Hotel Mary, Sorrento Coast; 1 night at Isola Sara Rome Airport Hotel.
Pompei and Naples here I come. The tiles in Pompeii probably qualify as original art

Art, peanuts and Dick Van Dyke: ageing well at Christmas

And all of a sudden – it’s almost Christmas! Another year of ageing well, for us all, we hope. The festive photo of Annabel and I above shows us flanking a Christmas tree decorated by our friend, artist Amy Robson. She handmade the dolls that decorate the tree. Making by hand, crafting in any form, is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. Working with your hands lights up an extraordinary number of neural circuits at once: the combination of fine motor control, spatial feedback, decision making and flow builds cognitive reserve, protecting the brain long-term. 2026 will be the year I make something. Just not sure what yet. I’d gladly welcome your suggestions in the comments below.

The joy of art

Talking of art, if getting out and about to an art gallery is on your to-do list over the festive period, then you’ll also be reducing stress. Research by Kings College London, part-sponsored by the Art Fund, compared the physiological impact of viewing original artworks in a gallery, versus looking at reprints in a non-gallery setting.

Pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α, which are linked to stress and chronic disease, dropped by 30% and 28% respectively for those viewing original art, with no change observed in the reproduction group. This suggests art has a potential calming effect on the body’s inflammatory responses. I would also suggest that there’s something so uplifting about being in an art gallery – the light, the space, the calm – that must also lower stress, don’t you think?

A few other longevity-focussed stories which have crossed my desk this year, but not yet made it onto the blog:

Superagers

We know that there are an elite group of older people known as ‘superagers’: people 80 and up who have the same memory function as someone 20 to 30 years younger. And we know that loneliness impacts cognitive function long term. So it’s not a huge surprise that superagers view social relationships as vitally important. A 25-year study by Northwestern University found this was the unifying factor among superagers – more so than diet, exercise regime or other lifestyle choices.

People with greater social connection(I have massive social connections.) experience less chronic stress, which elevates cortisol – which, in turn, leads to inflammation. That, in turn, could damage brain cells and even increase dementia risk.

The most super of agers

Talking of super-agers – or should that be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-agers – the ineffable Dick Van Dyke turned 100 this month. He’s published a book detailing his 100 rules to living to 100. The headlines: he goes to the gym three times a week, dances, takes five lumps of sugar in his coffee, enjoys a power nap and sings every day. Sounds like a recipe for a good, long life (except, maybe, the sugar).

Peanuts

With Christmas, comes feasting, and all manner of treats. Don’t hold back from grabbing a handful of peanuts: research from The Netherlands published earlier this month linked two servings of them to improvements in both brain vascular function and verbal memory. The study focussed on skin-roasted peanuts – not the salted or dry-roasted kind – and found that eating two servings a day increased blood flow to the brain. Peanuts are rich in polyphenols and antioxidants. Berries and dark chocolate also contain these nutrients, so enjoy those this Christmas too.

Annabel on the radio

Annabel and I bonded over our love of books and reading, so it was a joy to hear her on BBC Radio 4’s A Good Read, talking about one of her favourite books, The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd. If you have access to BBC Sounds, you can listen there. Annabel’s episode was the last in the current series. And I can vouch that The Living Mountain is indeed a good read.

A bonus workshop on nutrition for better brain health

I’m running a bonus workshop to help you create Your 2026 Brain Food Plan on January 15th . It’s for everyone who has my course, Feed Your Brain Better. The course is digital so you can buy and access any time. It costs £37 – approx $49. The free bonus workshop is designed to help you stay consistent with nutrition for better brain health in 2026 – especially when things get busy – and will be on Zoom. Details of how to join the course – and the workshop – here