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"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 a 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
Ms. Bergen is right: Older people are happier, more positive, have better emotional control and are less concerned about peer pressure.
Researchers agree – Here are the findings:
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 age, 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.
