Don’t Worry, Be Happy: Mental Decline ‘Not Inevitable’ With Age

Cheese and wine aren’t the only things that get better with age: many older adults also show significant improvements in their physical and cognitive health over time, according to a new study. The reason why seems to lie in how they think about getting older.

Being positive in older life makes a big difference

Ageing in older life is often portrayed as an inevitable steady slide towards physical and mental decline but, happily, that is not necessarily true. Researchers at Yale University followed more than 11,000 citizens aged 65 or older over 12 years, tracking changes in cognition and physical function.

In a conclusive rebuff to the classic stereotypes, they found that one third of participants improved cognitively, while 28 percent improved physically. When participants whose cognitive scores remained stable were included, researchers found that more than half defied the notion of inevitable cognitive decline.

People who viewed getting older positively were more likely to show improvements in their cognitive skills and their walking speed, notes Scientific American. By contrast, folks in the study who held more negative ideas about aging tended to see a decline in these skills. That suggests people’s beliefs can have a dramatic effect on their biology, the researchers say.

“If you average everyone together, you see decline,” explained Dr Becca Levy, professor of public health and psychology at Yale. “But when you look at individual trajectories, you uncover a very different story. A meaningful percentage of the older participants that we studied got better.”

So, remember: A positive outlook on ageing can help you join all the happy people who defy stereotypes of cognitive and physical deterioration.