You Can’t Control Your Genetics. But This Is Yours.
By Claudia Munoz, MD, MPH. Board-Certified Neurologist
Most of us carry a quiet fear about our brain. A parent diagnosed with dementia. A grandmother who had a stroke. A family history we can’t change. When something feels out of our hands, it’s easy to decide there’s nothing to do.
Here’s what I tell patients: genetics may load the brush, but your daily habits paint the picture. Your brain responds to what you do today, not to what happened yesterday. The habits that protect it are more ordinary, and more doable than most people expect.
What You Can’t Control, and What You Can
You can’t change your genes. You can’t turn back your age. You can’t rewrite your past: the years of stress, the nights of poor sleep, the doctor’s visits you skipped while taking care of everyone else.
But there’s a second list, and it’s yours:
Get organized. Keep your appointments, medications, and results in one place. A brain that isn’t juggling logistics has more room for everything else.
Take your meds. Blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol medications protect your brain as much as your heart. Never stop one on your own. If side effects or cost are a problem, tell your doctor and ask for options.
Ask for help. Asking your doctor, your family, or a professional is a health habit, not a weakness.
Move your body. Physical activity supports blood flow to the brain, helps control blood pressure and blood sugar, and lowers stress hormones.
Stay proactive. Waiting for symptoms means waiting for damage. Prevention happens years before anything shows up.
“Your brain responds to what you do today, not what happened yesterday.”
Brain Damage Doesn’t Come Out of Nowhere
Strokes and vascular dementia usually give warnings first. The warnings are quiet, which is why they get ignored. Here are the five most important.
High blood pressure. Over time, it damages the small blood vessels that feed the brain. It’s one of the strongest risk factors for both stroke and dementia, and it often causes no symptoms. → Get it measured. Home monitors make this easy.
High blood sugar. Diabetes and prediabetes injure blood vessels and raise the risk of stroke and cognitive decline. Many people have elevated blood sugar for years without knowing it. → Ask for an A1C test, a simple blood test that shows your average blood sugar over about three months.
Chronic stress. Short bursts are normal. Stress with no outlet keeps cortisol elevated, which affects blood pressure, sleep, eating, and the memory centers of the brain. → Build one real outlet into your week: a walk, a call, prayer, music, rest.
Poor sleep. Sleep is when the brain consolidates memory and clears waste. Regularly getting less than 7 hours is linked with higher blood pressure and higher long-term risk of cognitive decline. → Start with going to bed 30 minutes earlier.
Smoking. It damages blood vessels throughout the body, including in the brain. The benefits of quitting begin quickly and keep growing. → Quitting is hard. Ask your doctor about support. It works better than going it alone.
Know Your Numbers: Step One
You can’t work on what you haven’t measured. As a neurologist, these are the first things I want to know about any patient. They aren’t scary, they’re fixable.
Number Why it matters for your brain
Blood pressure The most important modifiable risk factor for stroke, and a major one for dementia.
Blood sugar (A1C) Shows diabetes or prediabetes, both linked to vascular damage in the brain.
Hours of real sleep Not the hours you wish you slept. The hours you actually do.
Waist circumference Abdominal fat is linked to inflammation and vascular risk.
Family history Stroke or dementia in your family doesn’t decide your future, but it tells you where to be extra proactive.
Why this matters for Latino families: About 1 in 3 Latinas have blood pressure above the healthy range, about 1 in 9 have diabetes and don’t know it yet, and nearly half live with obesity. These are the same risk factors listed above, so the opportunity to protect your brain is just as large as the risk.
You Don’t Need to Fix Everything Today
When people hear a list of risk factors, they often feel overwhelmed and do nothing. That’s the trap. You don’t need a new life. You need one small step you can repeat.
📅 Book that check-up. Ask for your blood pressure, A1C, and cholesterol. Bring your medication list.
🚶 Take a 10-minute walk. After a meal is ideal. It helps blood sugar and clears the mind.
🍲 Cook one meal at home. One home-cooked meal a day is a quiet win for blood pressure and blood sugar.
🌙 Go to bed 30 minutes earlier. The simplest sleep upgrade there is.
📞 Call a friend. Connection lowers stress. Ten minutes of real conversation counts.
Small. Consistent. Today. Pick one. Do it for two weeks. Then pick another. A small step repeated beats a big plan you abandon by Friday.
The Hardest Part: Talking to Your Family
Knowing the risk factors is only half of it. The harder part is bringing them up with a parent or a partner without it sounding like an accusation, without scaring them, and without the conversation shutting down before it starts.
Free Download: The Family Brain Health Prevention Guide
I put together a free family guide with scripts to help you start this conversation, plus the risk factors worth knowing and a simple checklist to begin this month. Available in English and Spanish. [Download the Free Guide → link in bio]
So, Which One Are You Starting Today?
You don’t have to fix everything. You just have to start. Book the check-up. Take the walk. Go to bed earlier. Call someone you love. Pick one, and let your brain do the rest.
Tell me in the comments which one you chose. Your answer might be exactly what someone else needed to start too.
