The midlife brain

Your brain is truly remarkable.

It is a network of 128 billion neurons that connect as a single, immense, and flexible structure.

It never stops – these neurons will have a constant conversation with each other until we die. These neurons are grouped into clusters that in her informative, very readable book Seven and a Half Lessons about The Brain, Lisa Felman Barrett describes are like airports. While most of the connections are for local traffic they also serve as communication hubs for long distance connections. The hubs are a supercritical infrastructure and vulnerable because they are points of efficiency. Our brain network changes constantly, and our brain wiring is coated in chemicals called neurotransmitters that enable these communications to travel. Neurons die in some parts of the brain and are born in others. Connections can become stronger when neurons fire together and weaker when they don’t – this is called plasticity.

We have learnt so much about how the brain works - but there is so much yet to discover. Hybrid disciplines like affective neuroscience have evolved to study the brain mechanisms that underlie our emotions searching for ways to enhance our sense of wellbeing and promote positive mind qualities. The midlife brain in particular undergoes changes that can impact on wellbeing and cognitive abilities, but it does not suffer the dramatic decline that was historically thought.

Douglas Abrams talks about Jane Goodall in their inspirational book The Book of Hope, A Survival Guide for Trying Times describing the octogenarian as vibrant, alive and unstoppable. Abrams ponders on how different people age and why some in their forties and fifties seem defeated by life and start to recede while others in their eighties and nineties look “endlessly curious and engaged with all that life’s laboratory has to discover”.

Studies by MIDUS and other research evidence that the middle-aged brain not only retains many youthful abilities but gains new ones. Brain imagery technology increasingly shows how brain circuitry impacts on physical health and how purposefully altering neurological activity can increase positivity and accordingly strengthen the immune system. The middle-aged brain has the advantage of life experience and accordingly has already learnt to cope with adversity and built up resilience. Learning to cope with adversity, managing emotions, reducing stress and anxiety can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and Type 2 diabetes. This knowledge that you can to an extent influence what happens in your life gives confidence. It acts in a self -reinforcing belief loop: you do more to keep a healthy brain e.g., healthy diet, exercise, word games, and because it does make a difference -you do more.

The midlife brain is a fascinating and complex subject that we are still researching and learning about. While there is certainly a decline in some cognitive abilities, there are also many strengths and new skills that emerge. If we eat healthily and exercise taking care of our bodies and make lifestyle choices, we can help ensure that our brains remain healthy and active well into our later years. If we are living longer surely, we all want to have a good quality of life?

Look out for my future blogs. It can be hard but working together I can give you the strategies and tools to overcome procrastination, break bad habits and essentially help you find the values important to you that will give you the motivation.