Skip NavigationDr. David Dodick, chief science and medical officer of the Atria Health and Research Institute, a membership-based healthcare practice for longevity medicine and preventive care.Courtesy of David Dodick.
Three decades into his career as a neurologist at Mayo Clinic, Dr. David Dodick decided to make a change.
As a neurologist, Dodick treated his patients after they’d experienced memory loss or had a stroke, he says. “Knowing that these diseases had been brewing for decades before the patient finally walked through the door, I felt like we could be doing so much more to optimize their health, to prevent them from having to come into the hospital with a stroke or complaining of memory loss,” says Dodick.
Seven years ago, Dodick started broadening his research focus to preventive medicine, which involves studying the origin of chronic diseases and tailoring health recommendations for patients to ideally delay the onset of diseases like dementia and cancer. “That got me interested in the whole field of longevity,” he says.
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Through studying a preventive approach to neurology, he learned that “to protect the brain, you have to protect the rest of the body,” he says. Pulling from his expertise on brain health, Dodick has authored 13 books since 1994, published numerous scientific papers and presented on cognitive longevity and dementia prevention at the 2025 Aging Research and Drug Discovery meeting, a yearly longevity medicine conference.
Now, he’s the chief science and medical officer of the Atria Health and Research Institute, a membership-based healthcare practice for longevity medicine and preventive care.
Here, Dodick discusses how many of the habits he recommends to his patients are also part of his own wellness routine. Always consult with your primary care physician before making any changes that can affect your health.
‘Exercise is the best prescription I could write, and the best prescription you could fill’
CNBC Make It: What are your staples for keeping your body healthy?
David Dodick: Eating, sleeping, exercise and movement, cognitive exercise and managing stress. I wasn’t always like this, but sleep is a non-negotiable. We’re all busy and we’re not perfect. But if you get it right 80% to 90% of the time, that’s what’s important.
Exercise is the best prescription I could write, and the best prescription you could fill. At least 150 minutes of zone-two exercise per week — the kind of exercise where you’re not really working that hard and you can still carry on a conversation, but your heart rate is definitely up. I try to do it at least three times a week.
I do some aerobic exercise every single day. I also run: I’ll sprint for 60 to 90 seconds, walk fast or jog for 60 to 90 seconds, and repeat for about six to 10 minutes. And then resistance training, because we all lose muscle mass with age, and muscle is important for brain health, insulin sensitivity and metabolic health.
CNBC Make It: You mentioned the benefits of strength training for brain health. Are there any other practices that you’re doing specifically for your brain?
Dodick: Exercise is important. Deep sleep and sleep duration is important. Cognitive exercise is important, too. Your brain loves when you ask it to do something new, whether it’s learning a new instrument or learning a new language. It also really loves when you combine a motor activity with a cognitive activity like dancing or boxing, which require coordination and concentration. It’s a cognitive challenge, but it’s also a physical exercise.
And then stress management. We all have stress in our lives, but we can train our body to adapt and physiologically respond in a healthy way to stress. Some people meditate, some people pray, some people do yoga or Pilates.
Your brain loves when you ask it to do something new, whether it’s learning a new instrument or learning a new language.Dr. David Dodick
I meditate, do deep breathing exercises and use a biofeedback device where if you’re stressed and anxious, it simulates visuals of waves crashing, wind blowing and trees bending. You can change the simulation into a more serene setting where the sun is out and there’s a soft breeze by practicing deep breathing exercises. When you do that, you can watch your heart rate variability go up.
CNBC Make It: Diet is a huge topic in the field of longevity. What’s your daily diet like?
Dodick: I follow a seven-day meal plan that basically adheres to the MIND diet. It focuses on simple foods like legumes, beans, fish or poultry, vegetables and fruit. It also prioritizes nuts, olive oil, and avoiding ultra-processed foods and alcohol in excess.
The MIND diet has been shown to have a relative reduction in the incidence of dementia, depending on how strongly you adhere to it. My advice: Try it for one or two days per week first. Then, after 30 days of that, introduce more and more of it into your daily eating routine. Not everything needs to be done all at once.
CNBC Make It: Something we haven’t touched on yet is social fitness. We hear a lot about the importance of connecting with people who make you feel your best. How’s your social fitness?
Dodick: I’m engaged with people every day, all day. If you’re not, you need to be sure to connect with friends.
I’m constantly engaged with my family. I FaceTime friends and my parents. I went for a walk in Central Park [in New York City] last night with my wife. We took a long walk of 8,000 steps. And just over the past week or so, I went to a museum exhibit with my wife and a group of our really good friends. We went to dinner, probably three times.
I remain socially connected and socially engaged almost every waking moment of every single day, and it’s crucial.
CNBC Make It: I love to know what longevity experts are reading these days. What are you currently reading?
Dodick: I just finished “Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity” [by Dr. Eric Topol], and I think it’s an excellent book. It goes over some of the things we talked about today, and more.
The book I’m reading right now is “The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence” [by Sebastian Mallaby]. It gives a background on the history of artificial intelligence up to the present time.
The wellness routine of a longevity expert and neurologist
In summary, these are the essentials of Dodick’s daily habits for longevity:
- For physical health: Getting adequate quality and quantity of sleep, and prioritizing exercise multiple times a week.
- For mental health: Engaging in cognitive exercise by learning new things and using methods like biofeedback devices to manage his stress levels.
- For his daily diet: Following a MIND diet of beans, nuts, vegetables, fruit, and fish or poultry.
- For social fitness: Taking walks in the park with his wife, going out for dinner with friends and frequently calling his parents and family.
- For his media diet: Reading new books about longevity and researching about the future of AI in healthcare.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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