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There is a group of people that longevity researchers call “Super Agers,” who are in their 80s and beyond, but have the cognitive function of those decades younger.
Conversely, it’s possible for your brain to be older than your chronological age, which is what we want to avoid.
As a neuroscience researcher and author of “The Age-Proof Brain,” I’ve found that it’s our behaviors, not just our genes, that have a powerful impact on our brain’s destiny.
So what sets Super Agers apart from people who have weak memory skills? According to a 2021 study that followed Super Agers over the course of 18 months, one key differentiator was that they kept learning new things throughout their life.
Super Agers learn something new every day
Think of the brain like a bank account. We make “deposits” — or new connections between our brain cells — by learning. Our memories are housed in these connections.
As we age, we naturally lose some of those connections. It’s like making a withdrawal every year. But the more deposits we make throughout our lives, the less our net worth is affected by these withdrawals.
One study found that adults with more years of education had more active frontal lobes when they took memory tests. Activity in the frontal lobe is associated with better memory.
But higher education isn’t the only way to maintain memory. In another study, even if individuals had lower levels of education, if they attended lectures, read, wrote and read often, they had memory scores on par with those with more education.
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