For filmmaker Lauren Miller Rogen, a good night’s rest is non-negotiable — even if her husband, actor Seth Rogen, has some thoughts about all the work it took to get there. “Seth always jokes that I have 10,000 things to do to sleep,” Lauren, who tracks her sleep and activities with an Oura Ring, said in the couple’s joint phone interview with Yahoo Life. “I have a cooling pillow, a weighted blanket, a sleep mask, a white noise machine… I have a bedtime and wind-down routine. My sleep has really improved.”
Lauren’s focus on sleeping well isn’t just about feeling well-rested. After her mother, Adele, was diagnosed with Early-onset Alzheimer’s At age 54, Lauren and Seth decided to educate others on how to improve their brain health and discovered that sleep was a key pillar. Now, your organization, Hilarity for charity (HFC), provides care tools for those who need them, as well as promoting brain research and teaching people how to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s.
In addition to sleep, focusing on cognitive health, emotional well-being, physical fitness, and nutrition is vital to keeping your brain healthy. When it comes to the food they eat, the couple seeks balance: they eat what they call an “intuitive” Mediterranean-style diet, which includes dishes like grilled fish and broccoli with roast chicken. (As with quality sleepResearch shows that a Mediterranean diet is associated with fewer signs of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain.)
Lauren says she never wants to feel like she’s depriving herself: “Salads and veggies…may not seem like the most fun thing, but they’re important to do,” she notes. “And then once or twice a week you eat a cookie.”
Long days on set, of course, can sometimes derail even the best-laid plans. Seth says his focus now is on how food makes him feel, which helps him make healthier choices — at least most of the time. “As I get older, what I struggle with most is tiredness and lack of energy at work,” said the Pineapple Express It is Knocked Out star says. “I just know that if I eat a lot of junk, I will have less energy than if I eat better food. But at the end of the day, if we’re working late, yes, I’ll shove a whole Philly cheesesteak in my mouth walking from the set to my car.”
Just as important as taking care of your physical health (which also includes exercises such as Orange Theory and weight lifting) is taking care of her mental and emotional health – something Lauren addressed head-on after her mother was diagnosed. Lauren joined a support group with other people who, at the time, were under 35 and had a parent who had dementia. (Lauren’s mother died at age 68.) “I felt like I was in a community of people who really saw me and could understand what I was going through, and that was really helpful,” she says. (HFC recently released a guide for caregivers for people who care for their loved ones.)
Seth also encouraged Lauren to try therapy, telling her, “’I love you, but I don’t know how to help you. I don’t know what other tools I can give you,’” she recalls. “My therapist was really there to help me find perspective and rationalize the good and the bad, and understand that even though this horrible thing was happening to my mother, I still needed to live my own life alongside of that,” she explains. “And now, they continue to do this with any of the other things that I continue to face as a human being.”
While self-care—and reducing your risk of Alzheimer’s—may feel like work, Seth and Lauren agree it can also be fun: They recently launched HFCUniversity, which includes brain-friendly classes taught by celebrity professors including Kristen Bell and Quinta Brunson. In their spare time, they get together with friends to make pottery in their personal studio, and Seth combines this with his passion for marijuana by creating smoke-friendly ceramics for the Houseplant brand.
“With pottery, we keep our brains active and constantly learn new things by doing so – this is so important for brain health,” says Lauren.
