Just like the original PBS Brain Fitness program last December, this new one holds encyclopedic information on how our brain function ages and what we can do to decrease its gradual rate of decline.
At the beginning of this 90-minute program, Peter Coyote (isn’t he delicious?) introduces the idea of harnessing the power of brain plasticity (the ability of our brain to change and adapt rapidly to its surrounding environment) even as our sensory abilities decline.
One of the difficulties is that our brains trick us. They naturally compensate for gradual declines in vision, hearing, smell, and taste by filling in the parts we can no longer sense. The changes can be so subtle over time, that we may have no perception of what is happening. And the senses are our main way of perceiving the world and interacting with it.
Sight is our most dominant sense. One concept they discussed was “useful field of view” which they defined as how much we can easily take in when we quickly scan our surroundings. When we do a scan like this, we take in large amounts of information, but our accuracy in how we process that information may decline with age.
Our peripheral vision also degrades over time so that we may see less, but our brain simply fills in the parts our vision could not take in quickly. In other words we’re working with less and less information in forming our opinions about what is happening around us. We must constantly be aware of this decline in our field of vision and concentrate on the details of our surroundings, thus increasing our level of attention as we age.
Five Tips on Maintaining Independence With Aging:
- Keep what you have: With a good diet & exercise. It is also very important to protect your vision from UV light with excellent sunglasses!
- Be socially active: Continue to connect positively with others. Learn and grow in your relationships throughout life.
- Maintain focus & attention: Strive to increase your cognitive abilities and field of vision. Pay closer attention to the details around you, and engage in new activities constantly.
- Utilize positive plasticity: Be ready to try something new, learn new skills and seek new challenges. Concentrate on expanding your neural networks!
- Don’t accept decline as inevitable. Be aggressive about maintaining your quality of life. Don’t go down without a fight or settle for less!
The thing is, in the whole history of humankind, we must appreciate that this is the best time to be facing the difficulties of aging. We learn more with each generation!
They did mention Baby Boomers as the generation who is the least accepting of “natural decline.” We’re fighting it to the end!!!
