Getting older is a good thing. I know that can be difficult to believe at times when you look in the mirror and barely recognize the face looking back at you. People will say that they feel the same inside as they did when they were 30 or 40 years younger. But do they really? How similar are we inside to that younger version of us?
Does Youth Equal Strength?
Subjective age, is the age that you think you are inside your head. It’s a very strange idea that you can see yourself as a different age than the one that you currently are. Maybe, it’s a connection that you have to a past version of yourself when you felt strong, able and most completely yourself? Maybe, it’s the effect of ageism: not wanting to acknowledge the passage of time? Studies have found that when people think of themselves as older than their chronological age, they are actually likely to be more frail. People link older with weaker. The participants in this study, and the study itself, connected aging with frailty: an ageist concept.*** But this is not reality.
Power With Age
When people name their subjective age as much younger than they are, maybe it’s energy and enthusiasm that they feel rather than youth? I think so. Eagerness and passion are not connected to a specific age. You can feel unmotivated or stuck at any time in your life. Just as you can feel vital and energetic at any time too. The benefit of that energy as you get older, is the larger collection of resources, experiences and abilities that you bring with that energy. You’re actually stronger now.
Ageist Bias Works Against Us
Ageism has effected many of the studies that have been done on the cognitive abilities of older people. Researchers admit that they didn’t allow for this bias when they set up their studies and therefore, they have reinforced the ageist idea that cognitive decline is normal in older people.
older people have much more information in their brains than younger ones, so retrieving it naturally takes longer. And the quality of the information in the older brain is more nuanced. While younger people were faster in tests of cognitive performance, older people showed “greater sensitivity to fine-grained differences,”
Phyllis Korkki, “The Science Of Older And Wiser,” The New York Times
When faced with negative views of aging, of course most people wouldn’t see it at a positive and choose a younger subjective age. But aging is powerful and comes with stronger cognitive abilities to consider nuance and details.
Older You: Stronger You
The older you is better at certain things than younger you because you have more lived experience.
“Older people are usually more proficient than young people in certain dimensions of cognition, particularly those that involve different ways to solve problems, as well as life planning, and making future goals.”**
Hopefully, you have developed more empathy, a stronger ability to connect with others’ emotional states, and more awareness of others’ well-being.** These are powerful abilities that come with age. We are not the same inside as we were 30 years ago and that’s great!
*The Older Brain May Just Be Fuller. Click here to read.
**https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/boomers-30/201708/are-older-people-wiser
***https://bmcgeriatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12877-021-02344-1
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