The Myth of the Midlife Crisis
June 14, 2006 by Mary Wynne-Wynter
The Myth of the Midlife Crisis: "
It's
time we stopped dismissing middle age as the beginning of the end.
Research suggests that at 40, the brain's best years are still ahead.
(Via Newsweek Health for Life.)
While changing our perspective, age also remodels our brains, leaving us better equipped to fulfill our own dreams. The most important difference between older brains and younger brains is also the easiest to overlook: older brains have learned more than young ones. Throughout life, our brains encode thoughts and memories by forming new connections among neurons. The neurons themselves may lose some processing speed with age, but they become ever more richly intertwined. Magnified tremendously, the brain of a mentally active 50-year-old looks like a dense forest of interlocking branches, and this density reflects both deeper knowledge and better judgment. That's why age is such an advantage in fields like editing, law, medicine, coaching and management. There is no substitute for acquired learning.
Knowledge and wisdom aren't the only fruits of age. New research suggests that as our brains become more densely wired, they also become less rigidly bifurcated. As I mentioned earlier, our brains actually consist of two separate structures—a right brain and a left brain—linked by a row of fibers called the corpus callosum. In most people, the left hemisphere specializes in speech, language and logical reasoning, while the right hemisphere handles more intuitive tasks, such as face recognition and the reading of emotional cues. But as scientists have recently discovered through studies with PET scans and magnetic resonance imaging, this pattern changes as we age. Unlike young adults, who handle most tasks on one side of the brain or the other, older ones tend to use both hemispheres. Duke University neuroscientist Robert Cabeza has dubbed this phenomenon Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults—HAROLD for short—and his research suggests it is no accident.