Brain Rules for Aging Well. John Medina
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each ear, is involved in processing your emotions. It too is affected by levels of social activity. The higher the overall number of (and the greater the variability in) the types of relationships you maintain, the bigger your amygdala becomes. These aren’t small changes. If you triple the number of people in your social network, you double the volume of your amygdala. Wondering how you’d keep up with all those people? While you maintain your closest relationships with five people at a time, researchers find, you can have meaningful relationships of varying quality with an additional 150 people. Think of it as rings of relationships.
Social activity also affects a region called the entorhinal cortex, which helps you recall important things like your first kiss. This romantic bundle of nerves, which also helps process other types of memories (and many types of social perceptions), is located in the temporal lobe, the brain regions closest to your eardrums.
Given the rise of the Internet, does it matter which kind of social network is being measured, silicon- or carbon-based? It does. For example, gray matter changes in non-amygdalar regions (like the frontal lobe and entorhinal cortex) occur only with flesh-and-blood interactions. In contrast, density changes in the amygdala are specifically associated with the size of both Web-based social networks and the number of face-to-face social interactions. The reasons for these differences, extraordinary as they may sound, are not known.
Not all social interactions are created equal, however. You don’t have to look any further than a typical day in an American office, populated by dysfunctional management, for an example.
The boss from hell
The boss wore his unpleasantness like a purity ring on his middle finger. He publicly announced the contents of private meetings to his entire forty-person staff. He slapped the hand of a loyal employee who had worked for the company for forty-four years. When that employee asked for time off to go to the hospital where her daughter had suddenly been admitted, the boss replied, “What are you going to do, hold her hand?”
I describe this narrative, one of many stories online chronicling chronically bad working relationships, to counter an impression you might be getting from this chapter: that every relationship provides neurological benefit. The truth is just the opposite. You can have many relationships with people, but if they’re negative, they’re unhealthy. Studies show that it’s not the overall number of interactions that benefit health, but the net quality of the individual interactions. According to researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: “Social support and strain, which measured qualitative characteristics of social connections that are distinct from relationship quantity, mattered more for physical health in mid-adulthood, and continued to have impacts in late adulthood.”
Behavioral labs are coming up with all kinds of dos and don’ts for relationships. Interactions burdened with competitive one-upmanship provide no cognitive benefit at all. Relationships with people who are emotionally controlling, meddlesome, or consistently verbally aggressive (like that aforementioned boss) are worth limiting, if not ending altogether.
Drop the ego
What’s the secret to a good interaction for your brain? It’s a willingness to consistently take the other person’s point of view, actively seeking to understand a different perspective. You may agree with the other person or you may not, but the effort transforms casual conversation into meaningful brain food. If that sounds like Theory of Mind stuff we’ve been talking about, you are right on the research money. It’s also a scientifically nice way of saying: stop being so self-centered. This advice, by the way, is just as healthy for people much younger than your average Social Security recipient. Regularly engage people, and your brain will thank you at any age.
You can create an environment conducive to quality relationships. Social psychologist Rebecca Adams summarized how in a New York Times interview a few years back, if you cultivate the following:
• “repeated, unplanned interactions,” spontaneously rubbing shoulders with good friends
• “proximity,” living close by to friends and family members so those shoulders are available for rubbing
• “a setting that encourages people to let their guard down”
Not surprisingly, Adams relates, most of our tightest friendships initially form in college, where these conditions are met by design.
It’s best to have friends of all ages—including kids. That notion may transcend our culture’s perspective, but not our culture’s data. The more intergenerational relationships older people form, the higher the brain benefit turns out to be, especially when seniors interact with elementary-age children. It reduces stress, decreases rates of affective disorders such as anxiety and depression, and even lowers mortality rates.
There are probably many reasons for these findings. Young people always have different perspectives from their elders. That means regular exposure to virtually anyone of a different generation increases the diversity of opinions you’re likely to experience. The music to which you listen may change. You may read different kinds of books, learn to laugh at different things. If you regularly inhabit another’s point of view, you are exercising very important regions of the brain. The quote “Sometimes you need to talk to a three-year-old so you can understand life again” is quite literally true. Plus, if the only friends you have are old, you will be attending many more funerals than weddings. And there’s nothing like watching the death of people around you to increase your sense of isolation. Having younger friends opens up a healthy can of life-goes-on, with a sparkling supply of weddings and baby showers in case you forget. Statistically, you’ve got a guarantee your young friends will outlive you.
Happily, the benefits of intergenerational friendship flow back into the life of the child. Regular interactions with older people increase a child’s problem-solving skills, positively influence emotional development, and improve language acquisition. Older people tend to be more patient, tend to look on the sunny side of life, and are more experienced with kids, often having raised children of their own. This ability to be kind, to listen, to empathize, is especially valuable for kids being raised in the chaos of a two-career family. Kids may always be the demander-in-chief, yet seniors who can make time for them and all their youthful foibles will discover the joys of being a wiser parent this time around.
So become someone’s favorite grandparent, as well as a mentor, friend, and confidant. Create peace in your marriage. Make friends with your neighbors. See your friends often.
And if you don’t?
All the lonely people
Researchers have uncovered three important facts about old age and loneliness. The first is as welcome as wrinkles: loneliness really increases with age. Depending on the study, the proportion of older adults experiencing at least moderate amounts of loneliness is anywhere between 20 percent and 40 percent. Second, loneliness throughout a person’s lifetime is uneven, following a U-shaped curve. Third, loneliness is the single greatest risk factor for clinical depression.
The definition of loneliness seems as obvious as drywall. You want to be around people and you can’t, so you feel bad. Defining loneliness in a scientifically specific way, though, is a bit tricky. Some people are “loners” and prefer life that way. Some folks favor pets over people. Others need humans around all the time. Researchers use the term “objective social isolation” for those who are isolated (and may even prefer it) and “perceived social isolation” for those who feel alone (and definitely do not prefer it). Here’s a laboratory definition for you: “A perceived lack of control over the quantity and especially the quality of one’s social activity.”
Scientists also have a psychometric test to measure what that quote means. Developed in one of the least lonely places on earth, Southern California, the test is appropriately called the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Here’s what researchers have found.
We start feeling lonely in late adolescence, and the feeling decreases as we move through early-to-middle adulthood. That’s natural: we go through school, jobs, kids—experiences chock-full of other people. Our number of friends rises