The one thing we know for certain about memory is that it is central to our identities, and that a rich, active memory can be one of the great blessings of age. Wisdom, a source of wonderful stories, the images of people and places — these are all benefits of a strong memory. Unfortunately, as with our emotional habits, the loss of memory with aging has been thought to be something humans could not control. It was considered the luck of the genetic draw if someone’s memory remained intact into advanced old age. But as we are discovering every day, we have greater control over our lives than once thought. Memory, like mood, is a conscious act, and Brain Refreshing will help you build and maintain a strong memory.
Negative thought patterns spring from memories of unhappy events that you have clung to in your mind. They exert influence on your brain, leading to unproductive habits of thinking, preconceptions, even biases, all of which all have negative effects on health.
Brain refreshing helps you release the traumatic events of the past and clear your mind of burdensome memories. The result is deep emotional and spiritual healing — a renewal of your ability to look at life in a positive, healthful way. Gradually, you erase the negative neural pathways that were deeply dug into your brain like ruts in old roads. You create new highways to courage, inspiration, and serenity. This is very much a renaissance of the mind — a rebirth of the emotional freedom you experienced when you were a child.
If memories from the past do not haunt you, then perhaps the thought of losing your short term memory does. This is indeed a brain skill that declines with age. However, studies have shown that older people greatly overestimate their short-term memory loss. When you are twenty, misplacing your keys is absentmindedness; when you are 60, it is a “senior moment.” On top of that, memory degradation may be a cultural phenomenon, as young people are becoming less adept with their memory skills than the youth of previous generations, presumably because of the influence of information-storage technology.
Although brain refreshing is not specifically about improving memory skill, it can help with memory. It has been clearly documented that stress and negative emotions can get in the way of learning and memory. Stress literally shrinks the hypothalamus, the part of your brain in charge of memory. By freeing yourself from negative emotions and habits, you will be opening your brain to receive and store new information, like throwing away old files in a filing cabinet to make room for new.
Your Mellow Old Brain
You’ve probably heard that some people, like old wine, mellow with age. As it turns out, this is true of all of us because of the way our brains age. Researchers have discovered that older people generally have better emotional control and a more positive outlook on life. They theorize that the human brain is designed to shift from a more aggressive, competitive mode in youth to a more cooperative mode in later life. In the past, this may have been biologically advantageous as older people, no longer of reproductive age, shifted their attention to support of their kin, which indirectly assured survival of their genetic information.
Brain scans have revealed that older people simply process emotions differently, which may account for the improvement in emotional control. In the older people, more areas of the brain are shown to be active during the experience of emotions, especially in response to negative emotional stimuli. This finding suggests that life experience may provide additional brain connections to help neutralize negative emotions more quickly.
Overall, older people are healthier mentally than younger people. Incidence of neurosis decreases, and older people are less likely to report feelings of despair and worthlessness.
That being said, mental health is not automatic for older people. In fact, depression is common and the occurrence of suicide is more common among older people than it is among middle-aged people, especially among older men. Just because the older brain is better equipped to deal with negative emotion does not mean it is immune to emotional difficulty. After all, there are many aspects of aging that are difficult to handle, including death of friends, one’s own physical decline, and the sense of aimlessness that can accompany retirement. It is best to prepare yourself with a strategy for emotional well-being in order to make the most of your brain’s natural wisdom as you age.
This article is excerpted from Ilchi Lee and Jessie Jones’ book “In Full Bloom: A Brain Education Guide for Successful Aging.”
