To continue to act smart, you need to accept that you are not as swift.
THE ELDERS talk with frankness about the frustrations of their aging brains. They explain that older people simply can’t do as much mental work as they used to, at least not with the same accuracy. As Brian says, “I notice how easily I get confused. I spend a lot of time in my head reorganizing. I’m always programming my brain to try to keep things straight.” Carol feels as if her brain speed has been dialed down a few notches. “Everything is slower. My recall is slower. My speech is slower. My comprehension is slower. My granddaughter talks so fast that it doesn’t get into my brain. I don’t talk so much now because I can’t get it out fast enough. I let others do the talking and I do a lot of listening.”
What the elders have done is adopt techniques to shore up their brains. Peter finds that his mind works best when he minimizes distractions. “I try to avoid noise. I like quiet times. I don’t turn on the radio or TV as soon as I come in the door. I do a lot of reflection. When I go on a long trip in the car I just think about things—what I’m going to do and say. My motto is to just keep doing it, but to slow my pace.” Peter’s approach is supported by neurologists who recommend that, since we lose some of our ability to filter out distracting information as we age, we should make an effort to concentrate on one key task at a time and try to reduce distractions.1
Several of the elders have designated a person to help them organize and stay on top of daily demands. Sylvia found that at 84 she was forgetting appointments and finding it difficult to handle all her correspondence. What is helping her keep everything straight is the assistance of a young woman who works with the non-profit organization where she volunteers. She says, “I’m not that smart, but I look for someone smarter than me to work with me in everything.” Karen decided to get herself the same kind of help. She was trained as a lawyer and her work always involved writing. She still likes putting her thoughts down on paper, but at 100 years of age can no longer write legibly and can’t handle a computer. Her solution was to hire a student to come to her retirement home several times a week to take dictation and handle her affairs. When I phoned Karen to arrange for an interview she explained that I would need to make an appointment through “her secretary.”
The elders point out that if there are things we want to do that require intense mental concentration, we should tackle them now. For example, people with extensive libraries need to organize them while they still have the ability. An 80-year-old retired academic told me that his greatest frustration about aging has been losing his ability to lay his hands on the research documents he needs. “My files are in total disarray. If only they were in layers chronologically, then I could treat my room like an archaeological dig and shovel down to the appropriate year. But my past is lost to me now. I didn’t realize I would lose the ability to sort and organize, but it’s gone.” Henry tried to anticipate this problem. “Once I realized I was losing my categorizing abilities, I hired someone to organize my library, but I wish I’d done it myself when I was younger. Because someone else did the organizing, I can’t find things as easily as I could before. One tip that will help you as you age is to always put things in the same place. The sooner you start, the better.”
One advantage we boomers will have is the increasing potential to use technological aids to keep us functioning effectively. Organizations like NECTAR (Network for Effective Collaboration Technologies through Advanced Research), www.nectar-research.net, are designing and evaluating electronic cognitive aids that will help us carry on daily activities if we develop cognitive impairments. These tools will help us remember names, faces and appointments, and find important objects such as glasses, wallets and keys, as well as help us remember procedural instructions. For any of this assistance to work, however, we first have to acknowledge we need it.
The elders are firm believers in the “use it or lose it” philosophy when it comes to the brain, and encourage us to keep as mentally fit as possible by continuing to exercise our grey matter. They have kept their minds engaged through work, volunteer activities and hobbies. Many have taken courses and several have written books. They encourage us to follow their example.
In addition to keeping “brain fit” by staying engaged in the world, many of the elders deliberately use techniques for brain exercise. Betty is always looking for ways to give her grey matter a workout. “I deliberately don’t write everything down,” she says. “I try to remember things on my own. I also do exercises for my brain like Sudoku.” Doreen does the same. “I do crossword puzzles and play online Scrabble. I also play bridge—it’s good for the mind.” The elders also found that discussion groups that focus on books or current events force them to keep thinking. Steve encourages me to memorize poetry. Research published in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology, supports these strategies. The study found that people can delay the onset of dementia by doing daily cognitive exercises, whether reading, writing, completing crossword puzzles, playing board or card games, participating in group discussions or playing music. People who didn’t engage their brain lost their memory three times as quickly as those who did these exercises daily.2
There are a variety of products that claim to strengthen the brain, each providing supportive research to back up its assertions, and each with a different focus. So, before choosing one, we’ll need to figure out which mental facilities need work. For example, Brian is starting to have difficulty distinguishing words when people are speaking quickly, especially on the telephone. He says that it’s not a question of volume—there is something else going on that makes it hard to tell one word from another. I have been testing out Posit Science’s Brain Fitness Program, and I’m guessing that it might help Brian. The program includes exercises that focus on auditory processing—for example, distinguishing a sound that is rising in pitch from one that is falling in pitch—so it might strengthen the facility that Brian finds is weak.
There are far too many products out there to do a comprehensive listing, but a few others you might check out are available at www.mybraintrainer.com, www.brainbuilder.com, and www.fitbrains.com. CogniFit products include MindFit and GoldenFit Drive for improving the driving skills of seniors, www.cognifit.com. Nintendo also offers products such as Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day. Most of the companies offer free trials, so if you’re interested you can give these products a try.
What’s good for the body is good for the brain.
Good brain functioning is also linked to our physical health, so here’s where we’ll get a double bang for our buck. Everything we should be doing for our body, including practising good nutrition, exercising regularly and treating medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, is equally good for the brain. Researchers from the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health followed 11,000 American participants over a fifteen-year period and found that smokers were 70 percent more likely than non-smokers to develop dementia, those with high blood pressure (hypertension) were 60 percent more likely to develop dementia than those without hypertension, and those with diabetes were twice as likely to develop dementia than those without diabetes. Another study with a similar sample size found that having even moderately high levels of cholesterol in your forties puts you at greater risk for developing dementia when you’re a senior.3
Exercise seems to help keep our brains healthy. Researchers have found a connection between regular aerobic workouts and an increase in the number of large-diameter blood vessels in the cerebral region of the brain, as well as an increase in blood flow in the three major cerebral arteries. This is a good thing because narrowing and loss of small blood vessels likely leads to cerebral decline. Older adults who spent over three hours a week in aerobic sports for ten or more years improved their brain blood flow. Ten years sounds like a long time, and you may think you’re too old to get started on this path.
But it turns out that the research subjects were between the ages of 60 and 80 when they began the ten-year exercise program.4 So maybe it’s not too late to get our hearts pumping for brain fitness.
Playing is work for the brain.
If exercising seems like way too much work, we can give the brain a workout in much more playful ways. We could memorize more poetry, as Steve suggests, practise new dance steps, get back to those piano lessons we dropped as children, or take up tai chi, which my friend says has more than 240 separate movements to remember. When Fred was in his seventies, he went back to his childhood love of painting. He began by taking lessons in figure and charcoal drawing at the local art gallery, and ended up taking two years of art courses. Now at 81, he says, “I now take weekly lessons from an artist, and I do regular homework. It is something that gives me real pleasure, and I know it’s good for me on so many levels.” His work is getting critical approval and he has begun selling pieces both framed and as Christmas cards. “You need to develop the strengths you’ve got. Find the hobbies you love.”
For Linda, acting is great fun as well as a great mental exercise. “Stage work is good for the brain, the memory and for focusing. The roles also teach you a great deal about the human heart, as well as [about] the people you’re working with.” Linda’s assessment is corroborated by a research study that looked at the benefits of theatre training for seniors. The theatre participants, who were aged 60 to 86, made significant gains on measures of both cognitive and psychological well-being.5
Dancing plays a big part in the lives of several of the elders, and it gives their bodies and brains a workout at the same time as it brings them great happiness. The day Norah turned 65 she took her first pension cheque and bought herself dance lessons. “You need to find something that totally transforms you—and for me that’s dancing. If I’m ever depressed I always dance. I remember one time in particular when I used my dancing to great effect. I was on an organized trip and they held a talent night. When it came my turn I danced the sword dance and the sailor’s hornpipe. They were astonished to see me transformed from the limping lady who was always bringing up the rear.” Sylvia was a dancing sensation in her youth, and, when she hit her eighties, she decided to share her love of dance by becoming a dance teacher. She ended up teaching sixty women a week to tap dance. Peter had always wanted to learn the tango so he decided he’d go for lessons to Argentina, the birthplace of the dance. “My wife and I spent two wonderful weeks in Buenos Aires taking tango lessons in the afternoon and Spanish lessons in the morning. Now we look for the chance to show off our moves.”
Research findings confirm the elders’ enthusiasm. Participating in the arts will benefit our brains, our bodies and our souls. The Creativity and Aging Study, conducted by George Washington University with the National Endowment of the Arts, found that community-based art programs run by professional artists for seniors have health promotion and disease prevention effects, and help them maintain their independence.6 Those who participated in the community arts program had better health, fewer doctor visits, used fewer medications, felt less depressed, were less lonely, had higher morale and were more socially active than a control group. The study concluded that what gave the arts programs an advantage over physical exercise and many other general activities was their beauty and productivity, which fostered sustained involvement on the part of the seniors.7
There are several inspiring examples of these theories of aging in practice. The Zimmers is a forty-person band whose members are all over 60 years of age. One 100-year-old member is thought to be the oldest employee in Britain. It’s a joy to watch them perform The Who’s “My Generation” at AARP http://radioprimetime.org/specials/zimmers/. Another singing group called Young@Heart has members ranging in age from 73 to 92. They began as a lunchtime singalong at a meal site for the elderly in Northampton, Massachusetts. The group travels internationally, is recording an album and performs theatrical productions. A delightful documentary has been made about the group; the trailer is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjnfoFg7i7g.
The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, by Gene Cohen, is an excellent resource for stimulating creativity. The book includes simple exercises and concrete suggestions to help jump-start creative energy. Another resource is Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit, which can be downloaded from the Arts and Aging website, www.artsandaging.org. The website of the Canadian Organization of Senior Artists and Performers (COSAP), www.cosap.ca, is a terrific incentive for involvement in the performing arts. One of their programs, called Jubilations, trains, nurtures and features local senior artists in professionally produced productions across Ontario. They have produced two guides to help seniors create productions in their own communities.
To stop learning is to start aging.
The elders epitomize the concept of lifelong learning. Hugh is now 90 years of age and learned to cook after he retired. “My wife did all the cooking until I left work, and then she said I should take over. I became a good cook. My best dish is cheese soufflé.” When Jeanette was 54 she became a museum docent. “I was learning along with the schoolchildren. It was a gift.” At 80, Stan takes courses at the community centre; his current class is about digital cameras. Louise, who is also 80, participates in a lifelong learning program run by the university. The emphasis is on peer learning, and participants write papers and present them to the class. Betsy is 75, and takes courses offered through a university continuing education program. She studied literature for three years, and read many of the classics, and took a couple of trips to France with the program. Currently she’s taking a course on contemporary art, as well as lessons in watercolour painting.
For me, the most compelling argument for continuing to learn new things is the one made by Dr. Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself. He explains that once we hit our thirties, we tend to rely on our mastery of skills in everything we do. This means we stop learning new things, and when we stop learning, the part of the brain that facilitates thinking wastes away. Eventually we lose our memory, our handwriting gets worse and we don’t drive as well. This process even affects what we expect of ourselves. So what we need to do is challenge ourselves with intensive learning.8
A couple of the elders expressed regret about not continuing their formal learning. Sally said that if she were my age, she’d go back to school. “If you want to further your education, do it—even if you’re 50. You’re not too old. I wish now that I had gone back to school and finished my degree when I was your age.” For those people not interested in pursuing a degree, there are countless informal learning opportunities, including programs affiliated with colleges and universities. One of the elders participates in the McGill Institute for Learning in Retirement (MILR). The program describes itself as a community of mature learners, and the emphasis is placed on “peer learning” through participation in self-directed study groups. The program encourages active participation rather than passive listening, and the groups of ten to twenty-two members are led informally by peer moderators. Members are encouraged to do research and to use the McGill Libraries. There are no educa- tional prerequisites, no age limitations, no exams and no grades. For programs offered through other institutions, you can participate without being physically present, so even housebound people are able to enrol in an online-learning course.
The elders also take on projects as a way of motivating themselves to learn new things and to keep mentally engaged. Carol decided to pursue her interest in genealogy by tackling a family history. “I started my genealogy project and then I realized that I needed to organize all my bits and pieces—so that was my excuse for getting a computer. That forced me to learn all about the computer, too.” At 92, Rosemarie gives poetry readings, and two years ago she presented a paper at a conference. “I keep mentally active by writing, researching and presenting papers.” Throughout his eighties, Gordon organized dozens of gatherings to showcase literary talent, which he called his arts and letters salons.