Any Shiny Thing - Life after 50

Midlife Fiction

10 Reasons to Be Happy About Getting Older

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Walker, Treva, and Lynne at BAM 2016

Walker, Lynne, and Treva at BAM conference in Las Vegas, 2016

For those of you at the Las Vegas Bloggers At Midlife conference who wanted a copy of my Top Ten, here you go! I had such a great time there and was proud to have been invited. Thanks to Walker Thornton and Treva Scharf for your words of wisdom and fellowship. Herewith, my top ten:

  1. YOU HAVE GREATER IMMUNITY TO COLDS, AND FEEL LESS PAIN IN THE DENTIST’S CHAIR. 
  1. YOU HAVE A GREATER SENSE OF WELL-BEING In study after study, people become happier after age fifty. 
  1. SOCIAL REASONING IMPROVES IN OLD AGE Older people are capable of higher-order reasoning and are able to take into account multiple perspectives. This makes them better at compromise, legal decisions, counseling, and intergroup negotiations. 
  1. YOU HAVE HIGHER COGNITIVE ABILITY IN LATER YEARS According to a 40-year study, cognition peaks from age forty to seventy. 
  1. MYELIN LEVELS DON’T PEAK UNTIL APPROXIMATELY AGE SIXTY Myelin leads to better neural transmission. 
  1. PATTERN RECOGNITION The brain instantly sifts through millions of life experiences, finding answers that seem unknowable to youth. 
  1. YOU HAVE GREATER CONTROL OF YOUR EMOTIONS. Even though we feel emotions more deeply as we age, we can deal with them better. 
  1. YOU CAN GENERATE NEW BRAIN CELLS ALL YOUR LIFE by exercising, learning something new and challenging, and socializing. 
  1. YOU CAN BUILD COGNITIVE RESERVE to counter dementia. 
  1. BILATERALIZATION The older you get, the more you use both sides of your brain to make decisions and solve problems, leading to more sublime thinking.

For more uplifting information about the amazing, aging brain, click on the first of a four-article series here.

BAM conference

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  2. Hi Lynne! Thank you for posting these 10 points because even though I’ve read about many of them before, I don’t think any of us can hear them enough. There are SO many advantages to being our age–and aging in general–but they are mainly hidden with all the focus on youth and consumerism in our culture. I appreciated your and Walker’s perspective at BAM and was so happy to meet you in person. Because we are practically neighbors here in southern California, I’m hoping we get a chance to get together and talk writing and positive aging more than once a year at BAM. Until then…. ~Kathy

    • Jean, much of what I learned is either in Aging Well by Dr. George Vaillant, or The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain by Barbara Strauch. Both are enjoyable, empowering reads.

  4. I learned a lot from you and Walker…and you even made me think through some of the words I use! Very hopeful list, Lynne. So glad we got to meet!

  5. I enjoy the specifics of your list. Apparently optimism also increases, especially in those who are active. Thanks for sharing

  7. Hi Lynne,
    I sure hope I can get to see you at BAM ’17, or someplace else you may speak. Your list is great, but your response to Bob Hurlbert hits all the marks, in my book!

  8. Lynne – You are amazing in your observations, about everything I’ve seen you write or heard you say. Those 10 points remind all of us in the various age-ranges how we can face tomorrow, or even a seemingly bad day. Thank you.

    • Hi Bob, great to hear from you! When I was a kid, I felt trapped. I was loved, but it was a tough situation, still. I imagined adulthood to be a time of freedom to make my own choices. Little did I know society would continue to try to constrain me. But I played along. Got the job, paid the bills, supported the non-working husbands. Now as an older person, I refuse to play along. I refuse to let society dictate how (miserably) I should see myself in the second half of life. Luckily, there is plenty of emerging science to support my desire to be excited about aging! Thank you for your kind words.

  9. Gosh, after seeing this I just get wait to get on with this aging business. Wish I could have been at the BAM to hear you, but maybe next year!

    • Well, don’t rush it. I think you have to see life as a forever-rebalancing set of scales: there may be more on one side in youth than the other, and then it shifts, but it’s always a balance adding up to 100%. I.E. what you lose in skin tone, you gain in grey matter.

  11. Lynne, Thanks for this positive spin on aging to counteract the feeling of our bodies falling apart with age! I’m not so sure about #10 but the rest are very reassuring. It sounds like your conference was energizing. I appreciate all you are doing to change the perspective on aging. Attitude is everything!

    • Kathy, I think it’s a blessing that, even when we’re challenged with the toll time takes on our physiology, our mind can still continue to sail onward.
      Thinking of you with very best wishes.

  12. I agree with all of the points, except #10, and that’s only a partial disagreement—the dentist’s chair, what else? Thanks for being so willing to share. You know some of that valuable perspective will turn up in someone’s blog, don’t you? Wonderful wisdom!

    • I know! My dentist confirmed it when I asked him. He said some of his clients don’t want Novocaine anymore when they hit age 60. However, that day was particularly bad for me. I wanted every drug he had.

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