Think like an Elder

Thinking about aging often brings to mind physical transformations: the weakening of bones and muscles, the slow fade of energy, the aches, and the pains. But as our bodies change with age, so do our minds. It’s true that many elders experience some level of memory loss, a series of mental changes known collectively as ‘cognitive aging.’ Although some skills remain stable over the course of a normal life (vocabulary and general knowledge, for instance, are largely unaffected by the aging process), deterioration in other thought processes is a wholly normal and natural part of the aging process. Short-term memory, as well as the abilities to process new information, think critically, and apply logical reasoning, are all liable to erode over the years, worn away like a rock smoothed and polished by a river’s flow.

Prejudice against elders, known as ageism, tends to center on the cognitive results of aging. Popular culture is rife with negative stereotypes about aging and portrayals of the elderly; in books, movies, and on TV, we are encouraged to think of elders as harmlessly bumbling at best, emotionally unstable and dangerously incompetent at worst. Older characters— when they are given screen time at all— are often noted to be in scenes where they are the butt of a joke. According to a New Yorker article on the topic, “the baldest forms of ageism include addressing older people in “elderspeak”—high, loud tones and a simplified vocabulary—and tarring them with nouns like “coot” and “geezer” or adjectives like “decrepit.”

Of all the “isms” (sexism, racism, etc.) ageism is one of the least thought about and discussed, but efforts to push back against it and reject negative perceptions of aging and the elderly have begun to gain traction. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) recently launched a campaign entitled “Disrupt Aging” to fight the idea that someone might be “too old” to learn new skills, perform certain activities, or participate in certain conversations.

In addition, our notion of the elderly as prisoners of their own minds is becoming less and less grounded in truth. A recent study published in the journal Psychological Aging showed conclusive “improvement in overall emotional wellbeing with age.” The same study also highlighted a direct correlation between mindset and mortality. Elders who experienced “relatively more positive than negative emotions in everyday life” lived longer and were healthier over the course of their senescence. Gerontologists— those who study aging and the elderly— call this “the paradox of aging.” Instead of succumbing to the weight of our years, we are actually more likely to gain emotional resilience as we grow older. We become less likely to suffer over life’s annoyances and stumbling blocks and more likely to seek out contentment in its pleasures, both great and small. Not only that, but the greater our resilience, the longer we are likely to live.

Over the course of a year spent following the lives of six New York City-area residents over the age of 85, reporter John Leland found evidence of the mental transformations that come with age. Leland writes of his subjects, “all had known loss and survived” and that “each showed a matter-of-fact resilience that would shame most 25-year-olds.” The elders in Leland’s story speak of pleasures small and large: visits from loved ones, pictures of new grandchildren, taking care of houseplants, or learning new rules to a game. They do not speak of loss, pain, or sadness; in fact, according to one Mrs. Wong mentioned in the piece, “we seldom talk about bad things. We keep ourselves