I have a middle-aged brain and it concerns me. Overall I do great, but my short-term memory sometimes … doesn’t work so well.
But hey, there’s some good news for me, and for all of you that are in the 40-65 age category, or will be eventually.
I just found a New York Times interview with Barbara Strauch, who wrote the recently released The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind:
After we hit 40, many of us begin to worry about our aging brains. Will we spend our middle years searching for car keys and forgetting names?
Sure, brains can get forgetful as they get old, but they can also get better with age, reports Ms. Strauch, who is also the health editor at The New York Times.
6 Important Points About Middle-Aged Brains
1. Despite short-term memory problems, middle-aged brains function quite well, especially in people with good health.
2. The middle-aged brain solves problems better than young-adult brains: they’re superior at inductive reasoning and have more experience dealing with problems.
3. Middle-aged people have better social skills than young adults. They’re better at assessing people and social situations.
4. As you age, you have more experience in dealing with the world, and this creates neural connections in the brain that help you deal better with life.
5. Regular exercise keeps your brain sharp. And most things that are good for your heart are also good for your brain.
6. Increased interaction with other people helps your brain.
My Younger Brain…
As an undergrad I took calculus and higher mathematics, plus several courses in calculus-based physics and physical chemistry. My brain was quite good at doing math well and quickly, and it helped me get mostly A’s.
But I’ve wondered since if I could regain those math skills if I ever wanted to go back to school, say to study astrophysics.
Now I’m encouraged that my brain can do that, if I really want it to.
Intelligent productivity requires that we make the best use of our brains. I’m buying the book.
What About Your Brain?
Got a middle-aged brain? Feeling more hopeful about it? How’s it serving you overall?
The one thing I feel is important as we get older is we have the choice of what we want to remember. Sometimes we may forget where we put those keys, but that is ok. Sooner or later we find them and we can just call that a scavanger hunt. Through the years we have a lot to remember, so our brain gets full and we choose to remember the important stuff. Why clutter up the brain with unimportant stuff. This is called wisdom.
So don’t worry John you are good and just getting wiser.
Debbie
Thanks for the kind words Debbie!
As I get older, I also get more organized. I have a specific place for everything, so I rarely have to go hunting for the keys or my glasses.
I’ve found that instituting little policies that keep things consistent help me remember certain things. I too have set places for things, but if I lose something, when I eventually find it, I usually put it back in the first place I looked for it, since that’s where I’ll probably look first if I lose it again.
As a T’ai-Chi teacher, I find that older students do very well at T’ai-Chi if they can be patient, which a lot of older people are anyway. (The impatient ones have been killed off in accidents!) The main thing is that older students need more repetitions in order for a movement or correction to “stick”. One thing you can always get better at is making the best, most efficient use of whatever energy you have left.
My advice is to aging brains: 1. Practice losing and letting go. You will lose everything someday. and 2. Study whatever you do and see if you can do it with less force and get the same or better results. Forcing things seldom helps. 3. Relax. Relaxing helps the brain function better by removing strain and pressure. Recognize that your aging brain might be slower than it once was will take the pressure off and let it remember whatever it is you’re trying to remember. 4. Get regular moderate exercise. It’s especially nice if you can find an activity you enjoy, like taking walks, vs. forcing yourself through boring “workouts”.
I’ve seen a lot of older people get so frustrated with their older brains because they expect them to function exactly as they did when they were younger. I get that way too, but what purpose does it serve? Blowing off steam, sure. But after that initial, “God damn it!” the effects are mostly negative. I’ve had older students say things like “Why can’t I get this?!!” And I say, “Because it’s hard! You’re studying how to use an ancient Chinese broadsword with your left hand and you’re almost 80!” If you give yourself a break, own your strengths (listed well in your blog post John) and your weaknesses (What was your name again?), the older brain can really be an asset.
Gene, thanks so much for the insightful comment.
I find it helps to accept that occasionally my brain is not going to function like I want it to. For me, this is primarily short-term memory.
And I agree about relaxing when the brain isn’t working optimally. It doesn’t help to berate ourselves; it just makes the problem worse.
I think we need to enjoy life as much as possible, do things that stimulate our brains, and get moderate exercise we like to do.
John,
My mom’s 86 and has a very sharp mind – she keeps it honed by social interaction and – working crossword puzzles. I do all sorts of puzzles myself (I’m 55) and they are guaranteed to keep the brain stimulated and those neurons firing. Also, I work in a fast-paced, high-information volume environment (UC Berkeley Extension), and I need to be uber-organized so that I can find information quickly and efficiently. Hence, I never lose or misplace anything in normal life. Of course, all my hiking and cycling and nature immersions, plus a long-time mostly vegan diet, along with very low to no stress in life, and LOVE galore – all this keeps the brain healthy, active, thriving.
Gambolin’ Man, it sounds like you’ve found the perfect recipe for a healthy mind and a happy life.
I do occasional crossword puzzles. I also listen to a lot of Teaching Company college courses, and I study and think a lot about social and hard sciences in my freelance writing work.
I always believe that our brains gets more enhanced as we age. While it may be true that we acquire some lapses as we age, I do know that we can counter it by practicing effective methods to suppress those setbacks. 🙂
Walter, this is essentially what Barbara Strauch is saying in her book. We gain important skills and abilities that help us function well in the world, while we also decline in certain functions such as short-term memory.
Hey John,
well, i’m in the same boat as you. I have some issues with my memory. don’t know why, but it’s sad.
I find myself writing everything down. Though I’m still good with numbers and stuff (I remembe pi is 3.1415927) go figure, but man…some of it is fading fast man.
Brandon
.-= BrandonBurgh´s last blog ..Victim or Champion? How I Really Feel… =-.
Brandon, you’re smart enough to write things down, and that’s important.
I remember pi also. But I don’t remember how to integrate, or solve differential equations.
In my early middle age I started of all things some commercial fishing out of San Francisco… salmon… which is a slow, graceful fisher. Since I had never been off shore or even coastal boating before I got to watch my brain learn depth perception out there and to watch sea birds in a new way. The brain is amazing at any age.
Anne, I also spent a lot of time beside and on the ocean, especially when I lived on Kauai for three years in the 1990s. My brain learned to adjust to wave size, speed, and distance, especially when I was bodysurfing.
Careful John, I may fall in love 😉
I used to have a phenomenal memory-I mean scary good. Now, that’s a thing of the past. At first, it really bothered me, but now I laugh about it. I have always been a big believer in trying new things or learning new things is the key. It’s good to know there’s life in the ol’ brain cells. 🙂
Thanks for an interesting post. If I remember, I’ll RT it. 🙂
You did retweet this post, Cathy. You still got it!