Posts

A lot of people just think, Well, I’m 70, and this is what happens to 70-year-olds—your brain starts to slow down, says Wu.

  A lot of people just think, Well, I’m 70, and this is what happens to 70-year-olds—your brain starts to slow down, says Wu.  But she has found in her research that once adults begin learning again, through curriculums like the one she designed—many local university extensions, community colleges, and community rec departments offer comparable courses—their cognitive skills in tests measuring attention and working memory (recalling numbers in sequence, for example) eventually may start looking more like younger adults’, and they are likely to report feeling more engaged and capable of learning than they had in years.  Flush with the pleasure of meeting new people through their classes and gaining exposure to novel ideas, “they’ll turn to me and say, ‘Oh my God. I was missing out on so much. This is so much fun. I never want to go back to where I was before,’” says Wu.  “There is a lot of benefit to having control over your life, but there are also benefits to losing...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pull a Rodney Dangerfield

  Pull a Rodney Dangerfield And go back to “school.”  One major source of bliss later in life is having more freedom , as many empty nesters and retirees finally do, to choose how you spend your time. But golfing every day isn’t optimal.  Older adults who spend some of that free time learning new things gain big benefits that can help keep them sharp and independent for years to come. Rachel Wu, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, studies cognitive agility across the life span and reports that the happiest and healthiest older adults don’t do just one favorite leisure activity day after day; instead, they dedicate time to learning new things and stay open to mastering new skills—even though it may give them some temporary, un-fun frustration. After she had adults between the ages of 58 and 86 take three classes simultaneously in subjects such as Spanish, digital photography, and painting, they significantly improved their ...
Post a Comment
Read more