aging is in your mind
Last Friday’s post was somewhat directed towards dense research (aging theory, anti-inflammatories, vitamin D, avoiding diabetes) so today, let’s go lighter, simpler, and to a topic that probably is more important than the heavy science issues, at least concerning your mind and memory.
I have a theory that much unnecessary (I might say, premature) aging occurs just because you think you should age in a certain way, at a certain rate. Maybe you observed such aging changes in your parents or contemporaneous friends, and now you feel this is how it should be for you too. But it doesn’t have to be. In many areas, if you really believe that you can maintain your abilities as you get older, you can. I’ve seen it many times. Certainly not in all aspects of aging, but it’s true in many: your mindset is most important. It’s not so complicated.
And this recent simple research from North Carolina State University, published in Experimental Aging Research, is directed towards that theory. Basically, two groups of older individuals were given memory tests to see how well their minds were functioning. Before and during the tests, half of them were essentially told (or in subtle ways reminded): “you are old”, and the other half were not biased with that rubbish at all…they just were allowed to do the memory tests.
The study found that those older people who were subtly told: “we are young researchers doing memory tests on you old people” did much worse on the tests than the older people who just took the test without any such biased and unnecessary comments. So as you, and we, all get older, we will be subjected to such biases and comments (be ready so you can reject them), and if you just believe in yourself, you’ll do much better…
I could only find a short abstract of the study (I couldn’t get access to the full report), so I suggest you read the following press release from North Carolina State University, which sums up the details of the study very nicely:
Thinking your memory will get worse as you get older may actually be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that senior citizens who think older people should perform poorly on tests of memory actually score much worse than seniors who do not buy in to negative stereotypes about aging and memory loss.
In a study published earlier this month, psychology professor Dr. Tom Hess and a team of researchers from NC State show that older adults’ ability to remember suffers when negative stereotypes are “activated” in a given situation. “For example, older adults will perform more poorly on a memory test if they are told that older folks do poorly on that particular type of memory test,” Hess says. Memory also suffers if senior citizens believe they are being “stigmatized,” meaning that others are looking down on them because of their age.
“Such situations may be a part of older adults’ everyday experience,” Hess says, “such as being concerned about what others think of them at work having a negative effect on their performance – and thus potentially reinforcing the negative stereotypes.” However, Hess adds, “The positive flip side of this is that those who do not feel stigmatized, or those in situations where more positive views of aging are activated, exhibit significantly higher levels of memory performance.” In other words, if you are confident that aging will not ravage your memory, you are more likely to perform well on memory-related tasks.
The study also found a couple of factors that influenced the extent to which negative stereotypes influence older adults. For example, the researchers found that adults between the ages of 60 and 70 suffered more when these negative stereotypes were activated than seniors who were between the ages of 71 and 82. However, the 71-82 age group performed worse when they felt stigmatized.
Finally, the study found that negative effects were strongest for those older adults with the highest levels of education. “We interpret this as being consistent with the idea that those who value their ability to remember things most are the most likely to be sensitive to the negative implications of stereotypes, and thus are most likely to exhibit the problems associated with the stereotype.”
