Tag Archives: aging

September 2026 in Review

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Most frightening and/or depressing story: Concerns about the food supply over the next year or so have seeped from alternative media into mainstream media stories. I consider this indicator at least as frightening as the content of the stories themselves. Honorable mention: tactical nuclear weapons (these would not help the food supply).

Most hopeful story: While there has been somewhat of a rollback in the number of competitive electoral democracies over the last 20 years, this is a minor blip when you look at the democratic revolution over the past 250 years.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: While exercise lowers dementia risk in general, exercising at or on the way to work does not seem to help as much. I speculated this might be due to some combination of stress, noise pollution, and air pollution, with the latter two being solvable problems. But although raw “fluid” intelligence seems to peak around age 20, “crystalized intelligence” which accounts for experience does not start to decline sharply until well after age 50, and possibly not until after age 70. Reading, physical activity, and “engagement with arts and culture” are all good for the aging brain.

What is good for the aging brain?

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What is good for the aging brain? First, reading. Is this really a surprise? There is some suggestion that reading about people in social situations might help substitute for being in actual social situations. Introverts rejoice! But there is also some suggestion of book clubs. Ugh…what I don’t like about book clubs is the idea that I am going to waste my remaining mortal reading time on suboptimal choices that other people think are good for me to read. Maybe online book clubs help solve this problem, because somewhere in the world’s billions there are probably at least thousands or even millions who want to read the things I want to read. But the idea of engaging with strangers on a screen is less appealing than a small group of friends or at least acquaintances discussing something. I like the idea, really – how about just reading something shorter than a book? I am not a huge short story fan, but maybe this is the happy medium. I can sit down and do my “homework” the night before or morning of book club. One more random thought – I wonder about audiobooks vs. reading on a page or screen. I enjoy both, but I actually find that both take regular practice at staying focused, and if I get out of practice with one or the other it takes some effort to get back into the swing of it. If you lose focus while reading words on a page, it’s easy to pause or backtrack, while if your mind wanders during an audiobook, it’s more annoying to rewind and try to figure out where you went wrong. I kind of like podcasts for this reason, because if I lose focus or doze off I don’t really care about going back. I’ll admit I also pay more attention to something I have paid money for than something I have not. Trying to concentrate and process the spoken word may very well be a useful cognitive exercise though, so when I say “annoying” that translates to “effort” which is the thing you have to do to improve or at least maintain yourself.

“Physical activity” – well, we knew that – but also “engagement with arts and culture“. Now that sounds kind of nice, but again I want to pick my arts and culture and not just ones that other people engage in to show off. I wonder if people have separated music from other arts, which could engage the brain differently. Music is inherently mathematical, it requires you to connect your senses and your brain in a unique way, and it is also creative, especially if you are making or writing it yourself. Really concentrating on music takes effort, similar to an audiobook, but you also just let it wash over you in the background without making the effort. Engaging in music with others might have different benefits than doing it by yourself. Damaging your eardrums with excessively loud music is almost certainly not good for your brain.

What age does intelligence peak?

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“Fluid intelligence“, which is your ability to solve problems without applying outside information, peaks around age 20. I find this discouraging. But then “crystalized intelligence”, which is your ability to apply outside information to problems, does not decline until later in life (50, 60, 70? there are a lot of numbers in this article.) I find this encouraging as I am entering this window now. It also suggests to me that multi-generational teams may be good at problem solving if we can get past some of the cultural issues (seriously, what is with the avoidance of eye contact by 20-somethings today?)

The article goes on to describe measurement errors and biases that have affected past studies. A big one is that when you test the intelligence of a sample of people of different ages all at once, you get one answer, whereas if you follow the same people for decades and test them repeatedly using the same methods, you get a different answer. The latter approach is the better one, but of course it is difficult because it takes 50 years to carry out an experiment.

napping

I think I’ve talked about napping before. It’s supposed to be good for your heart and brain. But anyway, here is what a (paywalled) Philadelphia Inquirer article says are best practices.

  • 20-30 minutes in length
  • end 4-6 hours before bedtime (this would be 4-6 pm for me)
  • “create the right environment by napping in a quiet, comfortable, and dimly lit space”

The article actually suggests it is okay to use caffeine to fight off grogginess when waking up from an afternoon nap. But I don’t think a cup of coffee late in the afternoon would work for me. I think that is actually a great time for exercise. And we know that is good for our hearts and brains.