Do you lie about age, or do others find inspiration from your maturity?
Do predictable answers fly from your tongue like corn pops over heat, or do you investigate new insights and weigh different viewpoints?
Would friends describe you as gracious and set in your ways, or as alive and curious?
Myth has it that aging should be gracious living, but rejuvenating brain facts favor voracious curiosity. You?
1. Voracious seniors defy age by tapping multiple hidden and unused intelligences that keep them active in unique performances.
2. Inquiring minds spark more working memory which is less available to those who settle for old or revert to ruts that shape old socks.
3. Curious elderly hold Alzheimer’s disease at bay, and reboot their minds well beyond golden years. Check out the Sisters of Notre Dame who beat the pathology of aging brains.
4. Interested seniors learn from opposites, and suggest solutions with more of the brain in mind. How so? While satisfied seniors tend to burn out through boredom, lively elders adjust mental thermostats to burn stronger with interest that leads them to life’s peaks.
5. Flexible seniors tap natural chemicals to refuel their brains for better flexibility as they go. While it’s true that older workers sometimes get sidelined unfairly, lively seniors rewire their dendrite brain cells daily for change and winning solutions even when life loses its grip.
Whether your brain is active at a vital workplace or retired from a lifelong career, every action you do today will physically and mentally reshape your brain for more of the same tomorrow. Why not survey your intelligences to see what’s up and running well today, and don’t forget to also look at what still lies hidden or unused. Both strengths and weaknesses can help you shape life-changing tasks you plan for tomorrow.
Each choice you make in any day will shape your brain for age. Dr. Robyn McMaster shows how nutrients also turbo-charge voracious senior brains, for instance, and sleep choices are vital too. What could you do today shape mind-bending performances?
on Oct 30th, 2008 at 6:46 am
I am an unusual case. I have always had relationships with older persons and even married an older woman. Even today, my friends, who are the closest to me are at least five years older than I am and most are ten and older. As a teenager, I found friends of my own age immature and felt more comfortable around older people.
Today, I find that the older friends look to me to keep them informed and younger ones to inspire them. I guess that since I am a voracious reader and by nature a curious person, I can look forward to a comfortable future!
rummusers last blog post..Values Learned From Parents.
on Oct 30th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Ramana, this shows a keen celebration of age that adds hope to the future regardless of years. I’ve always seen deep value in friendships with people of many ages too.
Sadly, we often lose older people, who pass on long before we are ready to let them go, and that has happened to me with one of the wisest friends of my lifetime.
Still the differences in ages keeps one’s mind alive and in tune with meaning at so many unique levels.
Seniors have so many proclivities that they have yet to unpack in those golden years and it is an enormous privilege to help them see genuine plasticity in the older brain — a fact we knew little about until recently.
Thanks for bringing that idea to the fore.
on Oct 30th, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] Ask, How smart are you? and a person tends to respond negatively and in numerical scores. This question - as worded above - increasingly causes problems, because of new facts that identify differing areas where several intelligences reside in human brains. Unlike general intelligence ideas, that guided test writers, we now know that people who are smart in one area, may be less intelligent in others. Current research throws IQ scores and other standardized scores into serious question, yet it also opens amazing segues for robust mental development well beyond senior years. [...]
on Nov 3rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
[...] We’re told that cells grow more when people are stimulated by their environment. That’s very similar to research already out to show how the brain rewires and shapes itself, based on what we do in a day. Good news for those of us who are aging with the brain in mind. [...]
on Nov 4th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
[...] I’d leap for joy at spaces for people to engage more talents from genius aging minds all around [...]
on Feb 16th, 2009 at 6:13 am
[...] Tell yourself that memory leaks out with age, and watch your brain abandon dynamic plasticity and live up to your expected loss. That way your brain abandons its natural proclivity to remember [...]