Old Brains in New Places

Is moving beneficial for people our age? Applying the principles of new brain science seems to suggest that it can certainly help us stay young and sharp.

Moving, especially to a different part of the country, forces us to change some of our habits. Old people are “set in their ways”, a quality that psychologist Ellen J. Langer calls “mindlessness”. It's not just a feature of age; most people, she says, live their lives mindlessly, on automatic pilot; but those who choose to become “mindful” stay youthful longer.

A woman in my women's group who just moved here from Tucson asked, "Isn't it too late to get established in a new place?" Not at all! Brain research in the last twenty years has shown that the brain’s ability to change, called “neuroplasticity”, persists as long as we live. It’s never too late to change!

The brain creates neuronal connections that are reinforced by habit, like those well-worn pathways in the carpet created by repeated trips back and forth to the kitchen or bath; these connections are reinforced by habit. But we can change the imprints if we choose.

It’s a case of use-it-or-lose-it. Just as muscle tone rapidly deteriorates when we don’t exercise, a brain that relies on ingrained or “mindless” behavior is an under-utilized organ, and little by little it stops producing new neuronal tracks. People who sit home in front of the television, endlessly repeating old behaviors, are letting a good brain to go to waste.

This is why we are advised to learn something new every day, like a new language, or how to play a musical instrument. Neuroscience has shown that stimulating mental activities with lots of repetition are just what we need to keep our brains healthy. Now that we are living longer, pushing back the 70 forms of dementia that confine more and more elders to nursing homes is a primary goal for most of us.

Age provides limitless opportunities for new kinds of activities, ones without the stress associated with jobs and child-rearing. The trick is to choose a challenging activity, the more difficult the better. Diane Ackerman writes in her book, A Hundred Names for Love, which is about her husband’s aphasia (brain damage resulting from a massive stroke): 

“A colossal number of brain cells (hundreds to thousands) are born each day but most die within weeks unless the brain is forced to learn something new. Then more neurons revive and sprout connections to their brethren. The harder the task, the more survivors.” 

Ackerman's husband, Paul West, an accomplished writer, lost the ability to communicate; but with constant daily effort to write and to speak, and his wife's constant support, he regained many of his verbal skills. In the five years after the stroke, he actually published three books and dozens of articles! 

You have to try. Moving to a new place challenges us to adopt new habits, but without application and repetition, we’ll simply transport the old ways to the new location.

We have to think to change the pathway, and that’s the whole idea. The more attentive we become to what we are doing, the more the brain benefits from the effort.

Yesterday in an aquatic yoga class that I enjoy, one woman alluded to her “challenged directionality.” It’s like a kind of dyslexia, she said. She can’t follow directions that rely on left and right because her brain can’t figure them out.

I don’t have that problem exactly, but I definitely have a poor sense of direction; and if I come to a dead end and have to turn around, I sometimes can’t figure out how to get back where I was going.

Living in a new town, driving into new areas to shop or attend an event, requires a fair amount of effort on my part. I have to look up the directions, study the map, print out the steps I’ll need to take; I have to allow enough time so that I don’t get into a panic; and then I really have to pay attention to where I’m going.

When I go back a week later, I have to review all these pointers, and pay careful attention to landmarks along the way. When I recognize that I am going the right way, I'm proud of my success. 

I did live in this region before, so it’s not completely overwhelming, but one place I now visit frequently, Santa Rosa, I now approach from the opposite direction. Instead of coming from the west, I now arrive from the southeast. At first I was totally confused. 

I could not figure out how to get to one congested, busy street, Santa Rosa Avenue. I had to get on the freeway! But last week, when I visited the Peace and Justice Center on Sebastopol Road, I saw where Santa Rosa Avenue begins. Suddenly the pieces fell into place. Of course! This is the way we used to go to Toys R Us! Now I know how to get to all the Big Box stores that we don’t have in Sonoma.

As I tromp into the kitchen to get a glass of water and reach – again! -- for the wrong cupboard, I notice that if I pause to remember where the glasses are, I can feel my mind come into focus, with improved results. Like an absent-minded professor, I’m always thinking about something else. I have to pay attention to what the body is doing, to remember where the glasses are now. 

Like absent minded professors, many older adults are not necessarily senile; they are just focusing on what they are doing. Langer’s research has shown that even very old people can behave more youthfully if they practice paying attention in this way.

Moving to a new place is more disorienting at our age; but it can have this unexpected benefit. It forces us to be more mindful of what we’re doing, carving new pathways into old brains grown lazy from habit. We can do the same thing without relocating, just by taking a new route to the library, or even rearranging the furniture.

Either way, we have to be willing to try.

[NOTE: This blog is the second in a series about my recent move from Santa Fe to Sonoma. To read them in order, start here]