Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives

by Daniel J. Levitin

Adopting new lifestyle choices is difficult. But if you remember why the lifestyle change is important, you’re more likely to stay with it, even when your motivation flags a little bit. Three additional factors that determine how well we age are more important than the rest. The first is childhood experiences, in particular of parental attachment and of head injury. It’s too late for you to do anything about these now, but you can protect and nurture the young people in your life, and you can predict your own outcomes by thinking about these. Children who are poorly attached, whose parents provide on-again, off-again care and attention, grow into adults who find it difficult to establish long-term intimate relationships. If you had a concussion as a child, your chances of developing dementia in old age are increased by a factor of two to four. If you had multiple concussions, the increased risk is not additive—that is, each additional concussion doesn’t increase the risk by the same amount, but rather accelerates the chances of a bad outcome in old age. Sports in which a child’s head is used as a battering ram, or other kinds of contact with an object or another person, are dangerous to mental health. The second most important factor in retaining mental vitality later in life is to exercise in varied, natural environments. You don’t need to run marathons. Power walking in a park or forest, fast enough to get your heart rate up and your brain full of rich, oxygenated blood,...