Earlier this week, I reported on a 2015 JAMA study suggesting that simply feeling younger than our chronological age can prolong our lives.
But until recently, the question remained: Does feeling younger actually prolong lives that are healthy and vibrant?
Dr. Jeanyung Chey and her team of researchers from Seoul National University in Korea have begun to shed light on this important question.
As we age, our brains show a number of changes that reflect declining neural health, including reductions in the volume of gray matter. Applying recently developed techniques to identify brain features associated with aging, Chey and her colleagues investigated the link between subjective age (how old we feel we are) and brain aging (our brain’s actual gray matter volume).
They performed MRI brain scans on 68 healthy people aged 59 to 84 to measure gray matter volumes in various brain regions. Participants who felt younger than their age showed greater gray matter volume in key brain regions, as compared to those who felt older.
“We found that people who feel younger have the structural characteristics of a younger brain,” said Chey. “Importantly, this difference remains robust even when other possible factors, including personality, subjective health, depressive symptoms, or cognitive functions, are accounted for.”
This interesting study was published just this year in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. We still have a long way to go to fully understand the relationship between feelings about our age and our brain’s health.
But these initial findings offer exciting new possibilities regarding the power of our thoughts and feelings to potentially impact not only longevity, but also enhanced brain health as we age.
In this week’s next and final blog, I’ll touch on what this might mean for us in our everyday lives.
It is interesting that we now have this data indicating that there is a physiological basis for the relationship between how we feel and the condition of our brains. It suggests that people who consistently report feeling old are not just perpetual moaners—they really have a physical brain basis for those feelings.
Do you know people who consistently report feeling old? Should this evidence of a physiological basis for their feelings about their age influence the way you relate to them?
That all depends on the causal linkage, doesn’t it?
If moaning about how old I am actually causes deterioration of my brain, you could help me by showing me how to moan less.
If moaning about how old I am is the result of a brain that has already deteriorated…well, I guess you could still help me by showing me how to moan less!
Interesting. I still feel like I’m in my 20s, despite some physical limitations, although I’m nearly 60. The only time I feel “old” is when someone gives up their seat for me on the train. I graciously accept, of course, whilst feeling like a fraud!
Well, my dear, I think this means you are substantially increasing your health and longevity. Brava!
Marlena: My mom Wilma who lived to be 101 1/2 told me more than once that she felt much younger that her chronological age. In fact, it was as though she felt she should somehow try to “feel” more like her age. Well, I’m glad she didn’t. We enjoyed having her with us until the very last day – always a treasure! Now we relish the memories. AB
She was a great lady, AND a great case in point. Thanks AB!
Here’s an odd little comment. . .We were very close to two people in our lives who developed Alzheimer’s disease in their 80’s (and probably earlier). We know Alzheimer’s produces profound changes in the brain. In their late 80’s they each contended that they felt the same at 80 as they did at 40. No difference. Of course they were not particularly self-aware, but that was their perception.
I have a female friend who laughs, “You can say 60 is the new 40, or 70 is the new 50, but 80 is just damn 80 !” I have observed she has a point. 80 seems to be a different ballgame. Do it while you can.
Your comment about your friends with Alzheimer’s gives me pause. As I think you know, we’ve begun to learn more about the disease, in order to do some volunteer work with people in early stages – like teach them tai chi. I’ve never thought about the upside. If Ed and I could progress along the same path with the disease, it may be a “happy self-unaware” period of our lives:-)