How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life

Wisdom doesn’t automatically come with old age. Nothing does—except wrinkles. It’s true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place.¹

Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that aging means decline and poor health is probably the deadliest.²

Aperson who is “sageing” is becoming a “sage,” accumulating wisdom through long life experience. Consider Jeanne Louise Calment, the Frenchwoman who lived to the oldest reliably documented age, 122. Though mostly blind and deaf by her 120th birthday, her mind was still intact as was her sense of humor. She famously joked, “I have one wrinkle on my body, and I’m sitting on it.” She also claimed that she had lived so long because she had quit smoking when she was 117.³ You’ve got to love that. However, the examples of Madame Calment and other super-centenarians bring up one of the most critical questions of aging: how can you hang onto the memory, wit, and capacity for thought that make you who you are?

First, you can’t remember where you put your keys. Then, you can’t remember why you wanted your keys. Then you can’t remember where you were driving in the first place. Sound familiar? It is if you watch the news. Part of our “make them afraid, then sell them the cure” culture has been to tell us all the ways that, day by day, our marbles are rolling away. The result is a generation for whom every forgotten name and “Why did I come into this room?” moment breeds a bit of existential terror expressed in the cold thought, “Am I losing my mind?”

The fear is understandable. After all, we are our brains. Everything that we are—our passions, talents, relationships, skills, histories, lessons, heartaches, and triumphs—exists in those billions of neural connections residing within our cranial bones. Apart from belief in the soul, the mind is everything. It’s the seat of our reason and our humanity. So when we think we see the beginning of an inevitable decline from sharp, agile thinking to confusion, loss of independence, and loss of identity, the response is terror, understandably.

What a man knows at 50 that he did not know at 20 is, for the most part, incommunicable. The knowledge he has acquired with age is not the knowledge of formulas, or forms of words, but of people, places, actions—a knowledge gained not by words but by touch, sight, sound, victories, failures, sleeplessness, devotion, love—the human experiences and emotions of this earth and of oneself and other men; and perhaps, too, a little faith, a little reverence for things you cannot see. ⁴

That’s led to yet another pernicious cultural stereotype: everyone over sixty is a senile fool who must be addressed in the cadences of a clueless English speaker trying to make himself understood in a foreign country by talking LOUDER and s-l-o-w-e-r. People assume getting old means an inevitable plummet into dementia, being condescended to by family, ignored by corporate America, and ripped off by scam artists. It’s a slander that is painful, damaging, and fundamentally false. Since the best way to go about shredding stereotypes is by flinging facts, here are a few facts about the mind in your Second Prime.

• Buck O’Neil, 94, former Negro Leaguer and ambassador for the Negro League Museum in Kansas City, Missouri

And how about Art Linkletter, ninety-four, who travels 150,000 miles a year to speak,writes books, is a top philanthropist and a leading investor in clean energy? The world is brimming over with men and women in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who are writing, creating, innovating, and inspiring at astonishingly high levels (by the way, if you doubt that these folks are still with us, visit a fascinating Web site, www.deadoraliveinfo.com). They are all living refutations of the idea that with age comes breakdown. That said, some changes do inevitably come with age.

“Most people will agree that by age fifty or so about half of the population has what we might call ‘age associated memory impairment,’” says Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Center on Aging and author of The Memory Prescription, during an interview we did with him for our book. “What does that mean? It’s not really impairment, but if you have these people perform standardized memory tests, you find that on average they do not perform as well as a group of twenty-year-olds. There’s a noticeable change, and they will report to you that they know there’s a change. However, that does not usually go on to more serious forms of memory loss like dementia.

“As we get older, what now is termed mild cognitive impairment becomes more prevalent. This is a more serious form of memory loss, but people are still functioning independently. They don’t have Alzheimer’s disease, which is when the problem becomes so severe that they can’t handle things on their own. Alzheimer’s disease or severe dementia—which includes several types of senility caused by vascular disease, strokes, or any number of conditions—affects 5 to 10 percent of people sixty-five or older, and by the time you get to age eighty-five, the prevalence ranges anywhere from 30 to 50 percent.”

Hmm. There are a lot of terms floating around in this discussion. Let’s establish a clear etymology. A brief glossary:

Mild cognitive impairment or age associated memory impairment. This is the relatively benign “I can’t remember the name of that person I just met” kind of impairment that often becomes noticeable as early as the late 30s. This is generally a result of normal aging processes in the brain and should be nothing more than an annoyance, a loss of what we call “agility of thought”—you don’t think as quickly, you lose focus more easily, you forget what you were thinking about ten seconds earlier, and so on.

Dementia. This is the term applied to any kind of progressive brain dysfunction that leads to the increasing restriction of normal lifestyle activities. Dementia can be brought on by a variety of traumas or diseases and can be a precursor to the more serious symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia can even be produced by a bad reaction to some medications. Some dementia is reversible through the normal healing processes; other dementia is permanent.

Alzheimer’s disease. The shadow of self-annihilation that hangs over every senior experiencing memory problems. Alzheimer’s is an incurable, progressive brain disorder that gradually destroys a person’s memory and ability to learn, reason, and communicate. Alzheimer’s patients often experience personality changes, paranoia, and delusions, as well as a heartbreaking loss of self-recognition or identity. Perhaps the most famous Alzheimer’s sufferer was former president Ronald Reagan.

Keeping your mind fit, just as keeping your body fit, is a matter of consistent work over time. Challenging your brain to think in new ways can actually create new nerve connections, many scientists believe, and help minimize loss of memory and mental agility as you age. But how can you give your mind a daily workout? Try the crossword puzzle in your daily newspaper.

Crosswords, brain teasers, and other puzzlers are very effective ways to challenge and extend your thinking regularly, even daily. They can increase your vocabulary, encourage you to research questions, and spark interest in new subjects. Novelty is powerful; everything you do that works rarely used areas of your brain equals a healthier brain.

A blend of all these activities will help you develop your intellect and curiosity and open new horizons of inquiry to you. Most important, they will help keep your brain firing on all cylinders.

Every thought you’ve ever had, every memory of your children or grandchildren, every emotion you’ve ever experienced, they all occur in your mind. Your mind is the wellspring of your creativity where lines of iambic pentameter begin, where you process color and taste and sound, and where you talk to God. The mind is everything.

As you stand on the cusp of your Second Prime, you have the power to determine what those years will look like. Will they be dependent or independent? Sick or robust? Short or long? Your future is a fabric of choices, and it’s your mind that will make those choices. Your mind has the power to reshape your world but only if it retains the capacity to choose. If you do not do everything in your power to keep your mind agile and sharp and active, you risk one day losing the ability to determine your own future. As Dr. Andrew Weil says, the goal is to live and love long and healthy and have a rapid decline right before the end. To achieve that goal, you not only have to keep your body fit but your mind as well.⁵ Here’s another way to look at it:

More on the concept of sageing later on. Right now, let’s talk about the brain. It’s the most extraordinary construct in nature, a remarkable organ that even now science is just beginning to understand. It’s made up of approximately 100 billion neurons, nerve cells that conduct bio-electrical impulses along an incredibly complex neural network to control every aspect of your body’s function.

With a machine this complicated, many things can go wrong. In The Memory Prescription, Small writes:

The scientific evidence is clear: brain aging begins as early as our twenties. Therefore it is never too early, and probably never too late, to fight off brain aging. Data show that as our neurons age and die, the actual overall size of the brain shrinks or atrophies. Also, aging brains accumulate lesions known as amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. This decayed material, resulting from cell death and degeneration of brain tissue, collects mainly in areas involved in memory and is believed to be responsible for Alzheimer’s disease.⁶

In his book, Small states that brain scans show brain decay in people in their 20s and 30s while people in middle age can show brain activity similar to Alzheimer’s without any memory problems. A computer will, over time, accumulate viruses, fragmented software, corrupted files, and damage to its hard disk until it cannot function properly. Our brains operate in the same manner. Over time, debris accumulates, and the organ becomes slack. The final result is a loss of function. But you can buy a new computer. You’ve got to dance with the brain what brung you.

So we have the slow loss of brain cells, and we have the slow buildup of the cellular equivalent of plastic grocery bags and Styrofoam fast food boxes in the landfills of our brains. But there are other factors that can produce memory loss:

• Stroke or another circulatory event that interrupts the flow of blood to the brain.When a blood clot or other obstruction prevents the circulatory system from feeding the brain with oxygen, for each minute the brain’s blood supply is restricted, millions more brain cells perish. If treatment is not fast enough, serious mental impairment can result. Brain tumors can also impair memory.

• Free radicals. In his scientific report, Boosting Memory, Preventing Brain Aging, Dr.Michael Elstein, the Australian antiaging researcher and author of Eternal Health, writes that these molecular toxins can destroy the cellular structures that provide energy to our brains. Since our brains use 20 percent of our body’s energy, the results can be devastating to brain health.⁷

• Drug side effects. All powerful drugs have side effects, and some popular classes of drugs, especially statins (taken to lower cholesterol) and SSRs (taken for depression) have been linked to memory loss in some users.

• Head injuries. Sudden trauma to the brain due to a car accident or fall, for example, can cause memory loss. The effects can be overcome, assuming the damage is not too great to begin with.

• Inflammation. Increasingly, inflammation, a natural part of the body’s immune response, is being seen as a possible cause for a wide range of diseases. Prolonged inflammation in the brain, as a response to abnormal protein deposits for example, can damage healthy brain tissue. Anti-inflammatory drugs are now being tested to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

• Nutritional deficiencies. Older people who do not eat a healthy diet can lack critical nutrients needed for brain health.

• Stress. Elstein writes, “There is clear evidence that stress which is unresolved and constant impairs learning and memory.”⁸

• Deficiency of fatty acids. The brain is composed largely of fatty acids (such as the commonly known omega-3, found in oily fish like salmon and mackerel), which most people do not consume enough of.

• Hormonal imbalances. Diseases of the endocrine system can cause the body to lack normal levels of important hormones like DHEA, estrogen, and testosterone, all of which are vital to brain health.

That’s quite a litany of potential demons threatening your mental health. But that’s the negative perspective; the positive angle is that as time passes, science and medicine are regarding mental impairment not as a “that’s just part of getting old” condition (which it was seen as for many centuries) but as something with a set of specific causes, some preventable and curable, some not.

“People thought (dementia) was just a normal part of aging,” says Small in an interview for this book. “Now we see it as a disease, as a condition, and we need to deal with it and research it, and we’re doing that. Now we find that it may be an inevitable result if people live long enough, but in many situations we can intervene early and stave it off. That’s our approach now. We’re testing drugs in people with mild cognitive impairment. We find that these drugs may delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. I think the key here will be identifying the problems early, intervening early, and heading it off. I don’t mind getting Alzheimer’s disease as long as I’m 120 and I have lived a long and fulfilling life.”

We all have what are known as “senior moments,” when we forget something we know we should remember or can’t recall why we came into a room.Most of the time we slap ourselves on the head and poke fun at ourselves, knowing that such moments are usually the product of a distracted mind, a busy schedule, or the disease known as multitasking. But when should we not be so cavalier? When does a senior moment cross the line into the kind of memory loss we should actually worry about?

First, it’s important to know what not to worry about. You shouldn’t worry about every memory lapse; they happen to everyone at every age, not just people over fifty-five. If you know a word but can’t recall it, for instance, you’ll remember it later. Temporarily forgetting words, forgetting where you left things, and forgetting the names of people to whom you were just introduced are often signs of distraction, a restless mind, or anxiety in a social situation. Unless they prevent you from functioning in your daily life, they are nothing to worry about.

When memory lapses become continual and interfere with your ability to function in your daily life, that’s when it’s time to worry. The most serious issue is when you have a change in your recent memory. People with Alzheimer’s disease will often remember details of their distant past with great clarity but forget conversations they had two days before. Again, forgetting such things once in a while is no big deal; forgetting them chronically may be a sign of a much more serious problem. Other warning signs to watch for include the following:

• You have a hard time remembering how to do things you’ve done a thousand times in the past.

• You have a hard time keeping track of the events of the day and in what order they occurred.

• You find yourself using the same phrases or repeating stories in conversation.

If you find that you or someone you know are having these kinds of problems, don’t panic. These symptoms aren’t necessarily a harbinger of Alzheimer’s. Don’t speculate; get checked out by your physician.

An elderly man is in to see his doctor. The doctor runs his tests, then tells the man, “I have good news and bad news.”

“What’s the bad news?” asks the man.

“You have terminal cancer,” says the doctor.

“Oh, no,” says the man, devastated. After a moment to gather himself, he asks, “What’s the good news?”

The doctor says, “You also have Alzheimer’s. In six months you won’t remember you have cancer.”

Alzheimer’s disease may be the most dreaded affliction among older Americans because, unlike cancer or heart disease, Alzheimer’s steals not just your health but your identity. The disease affects more than 4.5 million Americans today, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, twice as many as in 1980. The association also estimates that because of the nation’s aging population, the number of people with the disease will grow in coming years to from 11.3 million to 16 million cases by 2050.

You know the litany of Alzheimer’s effects. Progressively, it destroys the patient’s ability to reason, learn, make judgments, and participate in even the most routine aspects of daily life. In the late stages of the disease, patients’ personalities can change, they can experience frightful hallucinations, and they may forget the identities of those closest to them. There is no cure. Drugs can delay the onset of symptoms for years, but the decline is inevitable. Alzheimer’s is well on its way to taking its place at the top of the hideous hit parade of maladies that kill most Americans along with heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.

What’s frustrating is that researchers don’t know exactly what causes the disease. There are many possible causal factors, as we’ve listed here, but no magic bullet. One of the leading theories is that a protein fragment called beta-amyloid may be largely responsible for the neural damage that leads to the disease. According to this theory, beta-amyloid, which is part of a larger protein, can accumulate in the brain when the larger protein is “cut” into smaller pieces to perform various tasks. The beta-amyloid fragments become plaques that clump onto brain cells, disrupting cell-to-cell communication and triggering an immune system response that results in inflammation, eventually killing the affected brain cells.

If the beta-amyloid theory proves correct, drugs could be developed to counter its effects. But that’s years off. What we know now is what Alzheimer’s does to the brain. Whatever sets the disease in motion begins injuring the brain years before symptoms appear. By the time obvious symptoms begin to appear, neurons have already begun to degenerate and die.⁹

Art Linkletter is chairman of the board of directors of the John Douglas French Foundation for Alzheimer’s Disease (www.jdfaf.org), so he knows that while work continues on finding the causes and treatments, the best we can do at this point is practice prevention and catch signs of cognitive impairment at their earliest stages. Upon detecting possible signs of the memory impairment that could presage the early stages of Alzheimer’s, visit your physician. A battery of screenings— including a CT or PET scan (which can check for the telltale signs of plaques that damage brain function) as well as memory, reasoning, and balance tests—can usually indicate with 90 percent accuracy if you have the early signs of Alzheimer’s.

Early detection is crucial. According to the 1998 article, “Projections of Alzheimer’s Disease in the United States and the Public Health Impact of Delaying Disease Onset” by Brookmeyer, Gray, and Kawas in the American Journal of Public Health, finding a treatment that could delay onset by five years could reduce the number of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease by nearly 50 percent after fifty years.¹⁰

• Watch for sudden mood swings, agitation, or depression. People in the early stages of the disease can lose control of their emotions.

• Notice how the person moves. Does he or she lack normal balance and coordination? It is not unusual for a person developing Alzheimer’s to change his or her walk.

• Monitor for signs of confusion such as getting lost on familiar streets, losing the train of a conversation, or forgetting the names of common objects.

• Does the person suddenly have a short or nonexistent attention span or behave inappropriately around other people?

• Be sure to eliminate drug reactions or hearing and vision impairment as the causes of problems. Responses to medications can cause memory loss, while the loss of a sense can bring about both anger and confusion.

Even with all that good advice, prevention seems like a better way to go. As with almost all the other physical breakdowns that afflict us as we age, Alzheimer’s is only partially caused by genetics. Researchers in Seattle have identified a single defect on chromosome 14 that may be a major risk factor in early-onset Alzheimer’s, which affects people under age sixty-five. Late-onset Alzheimer’s, which represents the majority of cases and appears after sixty-five, can be partially traced to a gene found on chromosome 19.¹¹ However, the work is still in its early stages, and most scientists agree that there is no one identifiable cause of the disease. That’s cause for hope because if the presence of an “Alzheimer’s gene” simply increases your risk of developing the disease, then your lifestyle choices put you in control of whether you develop it or not. Remember, lifestyle is 70 to 75 percent of longevity!

“We’ve done studies on identical twins,” says Small in his interview. “One twin gets Alzheimer’s. The other does not. If you look at their lifestyle, who got the Alzheimer’s? The twin who liked to party, who smoked and drank and had a bad diet. The other twin didn’t. We don’t have all of the lifestyle factors down yet. For example, there are studies suggesting that anti-inflammatory drugs protect the brain. We’re not sure yet. Part of my job is to try to get the information out to people so they can make informed decisions on how to conduct their lives to protect their brains tomorrow.”

Evidence suggests that the best way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease is to do all the things that you would otherwise be doing to live a long, healthy life. By living a healthy lifestyle—exercising; eating lots of fresh, nutritious foods; keeping your weight under control; reducing stress; challenging your mind; staying active and purposeful; and maintaining rich, rewarding relationships—you keep your entire body, including your brain, healthy. Lifestyle choices may be your most effective weapon at avoiding not just Alzheimer’s, but all kinds of dementia.

“I call them the big four,” says Small. “Mental activity, that’s one. Physical conditioning is two. Reducing stress is three. Number four is a healthy brain diet.”

Barbara Morris, pharmacist and author of Put Old on Hold, insists that science holds the key right now to preventing Alzheimer’s disease. She writes in response to our questions: “Yes, we do know how to prevent Alzheimer’s. An extensive amount of existing research indicates that specific nutrients and antioxidants have the potential to help prevent this dreaded disease.However, the medical establishment—the pharmaceutical industry, the government, and assorted corporate entities with financial interests to protect—ignore the results of credible, prevention-oriented research.”

Dr. Lester Packer has been a professor and member of the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley and is in charge of the Packer Laboratory, one of the world’s leading antioxidant research centers. In his book, The Antioxidant Miracle, Packer says, “We have performed numerous experiments in my laboratory that demonstrate that vitamin E (along with Coenzyme Q-10, the other fat soluble antioxidant) can reduce lipid peroxidation in the brain. What’s even more exciting is that a recent multi-institution, double-blind, placebo-controlled study conducted by the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study showed that vitamin E worked even better than standard drug therapy in treating Alzheimer’s patients.”

Packer believes that “Based on the growing number of studies that show vitamin E and other antioxidants can protect against so-called brain aging, vitamin E may prove to be useful in delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, or in some cases, even preventing it from occurring in the first place by protecting brain tissue against oxidative damage.” ¹²

Life is not stationary. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years all tick away at the same clip for everyone. No age group can be isolated. None of us can settle into infancy, youth, middle age, or old age. We all grow older, and, incidentally, it is an exciting thought if the accent is on growing. “Though our outward man perish,” said Paul, “yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). ¹³

We believe in reducing your risk factors through means that you can control. So let’s leave behind the sad specter of Alzheimer’s and take a look at the many ways you can keep your mind dazzling and keep away not just Alzheimer’s but all the other types of dementia as well.

Some cognitive impairment as you age is probably unavoidable, but with the right lifestyle choices and an active effort to maintain your brain health starting as early as possible, you can stay sharp and mentally agile to the end of your days.

Some recent research suggests that the age-related slowdown in thought may be reversible. Studies in 2003 on monkeys at the University of Utah School of Medicine revealed that a neurotransmitter called GABA, which helps the neural connections in the brain respond to specific stimuli, may be depleted with age, resulting in brain impairment. Tests have yet to be conducted on humans, but in the monkey subjects, drugs that boost the activity of GABA in the brain appear to reverse the effects, restoring brain function. If this holds true in humans and can be done safely, it’s possible that some kinds of mental decline could be reversed. GABA-enhancing drugs are used now to treat epilepsy.¹⁴

Beyond miracle cures, however, lie commonsense miracles that hold out just as much hope for keeping the brain healthy into old age. Elstein says that adults should adopt a variety of methods for keeping the brain healthy into old age:

• Maintaining optimal nutrition, especially with essential fats found in nuts, seeds, oils, and small fish and the essential amino acids found in eggs, beans, lean meats, nuts, and seeds, is important.

• Supplements of vitamin B₁₂and folic acid have been demonstrated to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by almost 60 percent.

• Hormones are important for preserving memory. Research indicates that estrogen is beneficial for women while testosterone helps men. DHEA, thyroid hormones, and pregnenolone might also help. Maintaining optimal levels of DHEA will reduce the harmful effects that cortisol, the stress hormone, has on the memory center based in the hippocampus. Meditation will also help in this regard. Having good levels of thyroid hormone also prevents the brain from becoming sluggish.

• Exercising the brain and remaining gainfully employed is vital. The old slogan “use it or lose it” absolutely applies to the brain.

• Reducing toxicity from heavy metals such as mercury, lead, and aluminum can protect health.

• Managing food allergies—including those to wheat and gluten, dairy, and yeast—can be beneficial.

• Taking herbal tonics such as gingko biloba, brahmi, and withania has been shown scientifically to boost memory. Other nutrients such as phosphatidylserine, alpha-lipoic acid and acetyl-L-carnitine have benefits as far as memory is concerned.

• Nutrients such as vitamins C and E, magnesium and choline—which makes acetylcholine, the brain chemical responsible for memory— will also assist with the augmenting of higher mental powers.

• Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower. Harvard scientists have reported that a diet rich in such vegetables seemed to stop age-related declines in thinking.

• Green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale. They are rich sources of folate, which appears to play a major role in preventing stroke and also may help the body break down the amino acid homocysteine, which is toxic to brain cells.

• Nuts and oils. The brain is 60 percent fat, and raw nuts give you plenty of healthy fats that lower cholesterol and fight inflammation. Olive, canola, and other monounsaturated oils also appear to reduce Alzheimer’s risk.

• Fish like salmon and tuna. Mom was right: fish is brain food, at least oil-rich varieties that give your brain more of those important healthy fats.

But perhaps the simplest, greatest advice comes from AARP’s Staying Sharp public information program, presented by NRTA: AARP’s Educator Community along with the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. These recommendations treat the brain as a muscle, which, like any other muscle in the body, must be worked to remain fit and strong. But instead of becoming physically fit, you can use these ideas to train your brain to become what we call “quizzically fit”—that is, challenging yourself with new questions, new puzzles, new stimuli, and new tasks that give your brain and mind a great workout. Some marvelous suggestions from Staying Sharp:

• Switch sides. If you’re right handed, use your other hand for such activities as brushing your teeth or using the computer mouse. This activates areas of your brain that get little use.

• Change the scenery. Rearrange the décor in a room or your whole house, or try taking a new route to work. This remaps the visual and spatial networks in your brain.

• Use the sign language alphabet. Learning to spell the manual alphabet, twenty-six hand positions that coincide to the twenty-six letters, works both the visual and motor areas of your brain.

• Do things blindfolded. Try eating blueberries, sorting coins, or other tasks without using your eyes. Blueberries contain compounds that bridge the gap between aging nerve cells.

• Do puzzles. Crossword puzzles are great for language and reasoning, while jigsaw puzzles work your spatial intelligence and are more likely to activate new pathways in your brain.

• Tell stories. Take turns reading a book aloud with your spouse or a friend. Reading and listening stimulate your brain’s left and right hemispheres to work together.

• Stimulate your sense of smell. Smell is the only sense connected to the limbic system, a primitive part of the brain associated with memory and emotion. That’s why a scent can send you tumbling back to your childhood. Try listening to music while burning aromatic firewood or cooking something fragrant, and you’ll build brain connections by combining two senses that don’t normally work together.

• Be a reporter.When you describe things to others, you improve your visual memory and your attention span.

• Walk. Aerobic exercise increases levels of a chemical called BDNF, for brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which protects nerve cells from free radical damage. Older adults who start a walking program show substantial improvement in planning, scheduling, and task coordination.¹⁵

New concerns for the Boomer generation

Il_Best_of_Your_Life-TP_0190_001 Then: Long hair
Now: Longing for hair

Il_Best_of_Your_Life-TP_0190_002 Then: A keg
Now: An EKG

Il_Best_of_Your_Life-TP_0190_003 Then: Acid rock
Now: Acid reflux

Il_Best_of_Your_Life-TP_0190_004 Then: Moving to California because it’s cool.
Now: Moving to California because it’s hot.

Il_Best_of_Your_Life-TP_0190_005 Then: Watching John Glenn’s historic flight with your parents
Now: Watching John Glenn’s historic flight with your kids

Il_Best_of_Your_Life-TP_0190_006 Then: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth
Taylor
Now: Trying not to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor

Il_Best_of_Your_Life-TP_0190_007 Then: Paar
Now: AARP

Il_Best_of_Your_Life-TP_0190_008 Then: Hoping for a BMW
Now: Hoping for a BM

Il_Best_of_Your_Life-TP_0190_009 Then: Getting out to a new, hip joint
Now: Getting a new hip joint

However, no solution is as comprehensive as Small’s 14-day Memory Prescription, developed in cooperation with the UCLA Center on Aging. “Some people said to me,‘Doc, tell me exactly what to do,’” says Small in his interview. “And that’s what I did. I said, ‘Get up, do this exercise, eat this.’”

Small’s fourteen-day program begins with candid assessments of your mental and physical condition, as described in his book, The Memory Prescription. What follows is a two-week whole body, whole mind regimen that addresses the “big four” factors related to memory and brain function: exercise, healthy diet, mental challenge, and stress management. Stress in particular, Small insists, is a potent but often-ignored contributor to memory loss. “There have been studies showing that animals under stress have smaller memory centers in the brain,” he says. “People with psychological proneness to stress have an increased risk for getting Alzheimer’s disease. Study volunteers who were injected with stress hormones like cortisol can’t remember and can’t learn new information. Fortunately, it’s temporary. If you take the stress hormone away, their memory function improves.”

On Small’s fourteen-day prescription, patients follow a strict dietary plan, exercise, employ stress-reduction techniques, and do “mental aerobics” designed to challenge memory and reasoning and develop memory improvement skills. In his book, Small offers in-depth information about the types of exercise that offer the most cognition benefits; dozens of advanced mental exercises that challenge the brain, develop memory skills, and promote the creation of new neural pathways; antioxidant-rich, brain-healthy foods as well as foods harmful to mental function; numerous ways to reduce stress such as massage and developing proper sleep habits; and even insight into the truths and myths about supplements and hormones.

Can just two weeks on such a program make a difference? “We studied (the program) at UCLA and had dramatic results,” says Small. “When we did brain scans on people who did this two-week program, including the big four I mentioned, we saw there was a significant change in their brain efficiency. They were much more efficient after just two weeks in the memory centers of the brain. And they felt better. When people start eating right and relaxing and exercising, they sleep better, they feel more positive, and they feel empowered because their memory abilities have improved. We’ve seen a lot of people who jump-started a healthy lifestyle, which in the long run will help them live better longer.”

Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success. ¹⁶

Small believes a key goal is to get people to make the two-week regimen a permanent part of their lifestyle. “I think one agenda would be to have an advanced course—longer-term courses,” he says. “I’ve been working with groups outside of UCLA (to do that). I think that a lot of people will want to come in each week and keep using memory boosters to keep their minds sharp.”

There is much you can do to take control of your brain and ensure that your mind is sharp and agile well into your Second Prime. That’s hopeful.But what about the mild cognitive impairment that often comes with age even if you’re stuffing yourself with antioxidants and working out at the gym?

Age-related slowdown in thought doesn’t have to be something you live with. Humans are remarkable for their ability to adapt to changing conditions.You can adapt to a slowdown in your faculties, so you may not notice much of a change. For instance, what appears at first glance to be a thinking problem can be a problem with sight or hearing. Perhaps your vision has deteriorated a bit and you require better light to read by, or your hearing has lost some of its acuity, so you need the volume higher on a radio or a microphone to hear properly. Or you don’t concentrate as well, so you need a quieter, less distracting environment in order to learn. There’s nothing wrong with your noodle; it’s your sensory equipment that needs a bit of help. Learn to compensate.

Old Jokes by J.L. Kuntz

Jokes and stories about old age fill my e-mail as friends and relatives feel inclined to send them along. Countless jokes and cartoons lampooning senior citizens. They are of a common theme and parody, failing hearing and failing eyesight. Memory also is a favorite target. Since a majority, if not all, of these jokes originate with senior citizens, they cannot be called politically incorrect. Some are truly funny while others can only be characterized as mean-spirited. No subject nor body part is sacred, and it seems that at some indeterminate age, certainly beginning some time in the late 50s, they are discussed or depicted with wild abandon. Thus are depicted toothless, paunchy, flatfooted individuals who look on life with bewilderment; women whose breasts hang to their knees and men with bellies so big they no longer can see their feet, let alone their manhood. You know the ones, you have seen and laughed at some yourself on occasion. It is, it appears, a time of self-mockery. No other age group parodies itself with such vigor. I find it depressing.

I have heard various talking heads speak of this self-ridicule in a positive light; implying that we have accepted and are coping well with the aging process. I beg to disagree. The jokes and cartoons avoid the reality of aging and the permanence of its end. I find it all so annoying since I know that I have slowed, know that my eyesight is not what it should be. Yet, in my heart, I know I can’t be that old. My thoughts tend to younger things. And I remember. Remembering, I know what I miss.

I miss the passion. I miss the passion of waking in the middle of the night and coupling with an intensity often lacking when both are fully awake. I miss the spontaneity of grabbing hands and running until breathless for no earthly reason. I miss the immortality of younger days.

I resent the fact that I have become cautious on a ladder. I used to climb to the roof without a thought. Now I make that journey only when absolutely necessary and fear lurks at the corners of my mind, especially if I have to work along the eaves. The fear may be justified. A sliding ladder and dangling half on, half off the roof awaiting ignominious rescue tends to give one a healthy respect in such matters. As a result, some tasks are long delayed as I use the excuse of not having enough time.

I used to think thirty-five the perfect age. At thirty-five, you are old enough to be pretty well established in who you are and what you are doing. At the same time, you have come to realize that you actually were pretty stupid in your younger years. You now understand that you really don’t know it all. At thirty-five, if you are wise, you are in reasonable physical shape and you can still consider yourself immortal.

I miss, I miss . . . the list could be as endless as those plaints of old age which intrude on my days. But even in this passing regret, there is an inner peace not possible in youth. There is the quiet joy of being with friends, of being with her, of becoming lost still in the scent of her hair, the same scent from days when time was new. There is the renewed satisfaction of reading a good book or of being curious enough to still want to learn new disciplines. There also still is the joy of running, the satisfaction of meeting self-set goals. As for climbing ladders, perhaps it is time to cede that task to someone else. Although it would give me distress, if someone must fall off the roof, I would prefer that it would be someone else’s body that plummets past the window. Realizing this, I often press the delete button without regret, knowing that the same joke, or one similar, will reappear in my e-mail queue.

As I set off on my morning run, I promise myself that I will not go quietly into that dark night.¹⁷

• Keep a personal calendar. Use computer-based ones that send you e-mail alerts to remind you of upcoming commitments.

• When you meet someone new, repeat his name back to him after you’re introduced. “Tom? Nice to meet you, Tom.”

• Write yourself notes reminding you to do certain tasks and leave them where you’re sure to find them.

One of the best ways to keep your brain forming new connections and remaining active and agile as you age is to go back to school. Find ways to learn new skills or learn about new subjects. You can attend a community college, audit courses at a university, go to classes at a community recreation program, attend courses through a private company like The Learning Annex, or even attend “distance learning” classes on the Internet for everything from computer certification to foreign languages. More and more universities and schools are embracing the concept of lifelong learning, in which learning does not stop with an undergraduate or graduate degree at twenty-one or twenty-five, but continues throughout life.

That spirit is sending Baby Boomers back to school in record numbers. The range of educational choices is as varied as the people seeking them: some folks go for advanced degrees in scholarly subjects, others seek vocational skills to pursue hobbies of longtime interest such as woodworking and computer use, and still others are just out to learn something fun, from flower arranging to tango dancing. After all, an AARP study showed that 73 percent of Baby Boomers polled expected to have a hobby or special interest in their retirement.¹⁸ That translates to a lot of learning to be done.

Nothing is healthier for the mind than the seeking of knowledge. As philosopher John Dewey said, “Education must be reconceived, not as merely a preparation for maturity (whence our absurd idea that it should stop after adolescence) but as a continuous growth of the mind and a continuous illumination of life.”¹⁹

A Rush University study of 1,000 priests, nuns, and brothers of religious orders has shown that the mental abilities of older people do not change much from year to year unless they develop a debilitating illness such as Alzheimer’s.²⁰ Think about that: if you practice what we preach in this chapter, you have an excellent chance of enjoying decades of clear, creative thought and memory. Like so much else, it’s your choice. Research shows that when people buy into the cultural stereotype of old age as a time when your mind goes to pot, they’re more likely to lose more of their cognitive function.A positive attitude about the mind and old age goes a long way to preserving brain health. Pessimists please take note.

Whether you breeze into your 90s with a mind as sharp as a tack or forget a few names and faces as the decades pass, age gives you many delightful gifts to compensate. You’ve gained an immense store of wisdom, what Duke University researcher Lawrence Katz, PhD calls “a dense and rich network of associations developed through a lifetime of experiences.”²¹ Wisdom is a commodity that cannot be bought. It must be earned.

With age, you’re gaining foresight, understanding, and perception that younger people simply don’t have. It’s like being able to see the future; you can assess a situation based on your experience, look at the people involved based on what you know about people (and the fact that they never change), and predict what will happen with remarkable accuracy. If younger folks don’t listen to you, that’s their problem.

But when you’re growing in wisdom and knowledge and insight— and when you’re sharing those qualities with younger people who need guidance, mentoring and guiding people who need what you know— you’re not aging.You’re sageing.You’re turning one of the most profound aspects of age into an asset for yourself and others. And maybe, just maybe, you’re learning something as well. We should all strive to sage, not just age. The world would be a better, wiser place.

Second Prime Strategy—Mind

1. Things to Do

• Assess your memory and that of your spouse for any signs of impairment.

• Pick up a copy of The Memory Prescription by Dr. Gary Small.

• Stop paying attention to negative stereotypes about age and lost marbles.

• Start doing things to reduce stress and get more rest.

• Look into classes at your local college, university, or community center.

• Pick five challenging books and start reading.

• Pick a new skill you want to learn in the next year.

• Begin eating more brain-healthy foods.

2. Changes You Need to Make for a Healthier Mind

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3. Your Mind Goals for Your Second Prime

Example: “Learn to speak Italian in the next twelve months.”

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4. Mind Resources

• SeniorNet (www.seniornet.org)

• UCLA Center on Aging (www.aging.ucla.edu)

• John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation (www.jdfaf.org)

• Alzheimer’s Association (www.alz.org)

• Alzheimer’s Disease Education and Referral Center (www.alzheimers.org)

• Family Doctor.org (www.familydoctor.org)

• Dementia.com (www.dementia.com)

• Neurology Channel (www.neurologychannel.com)

• Internet Mental Health (www.mentalhealth.com)

• The Human Brain (www.fi.edu/brain)

• Elder Wisdom Circle (www.elderwisdomcircle.org)

• Mentoring (www.mentoring.org)