aging gracefully

"Except for the dying part, getting older is so fabulous, I love it....everybody I know is better older. They are more relaxed, they're more mellow, they're more alert as friends, they have a confidence....You really do acquire a kind of 'I don't give a damn' about what people think, which is so liberating. I love this age now."

Candice Bergen

The quote above and the quote below come from a newsletter I received from Dr. Zur. I love the part about how our brains continue developing into our 50s and 60s. Hope. I am always looking for hope.

• Ms. Bergen is right: Older people are happier, more positive, have better emotional control, and are less concerned about peer pressure.
• While rats develop 5,000 to 10,000 new hippocampal neurons every day, whether the neurons survive depends on whether the rats do challenging tasks (such as complex mazes or difficult discriminations).
  
• Your brain improves nerve cell transmission with increased myelination though your fifties or sixties, and thus continues to develop.
• In middle age, people start making more use of both sides of their brains (bilateralization).
• With aging, people tend to place less value on achievement and novelty and more value on relationships and experiences.
• Air traffic controllers, aged 53-64, perform as well as controllers aged 20-27 (Canadian controllers had to be used for the research, as U.S. controllers are required to retire at 55).
• Since 1984, disability rates, as measured by the ability to perform activities of daily living, have been declining 1.5% to 2.5% a year. Thus, seniors are staying healthier longer.