Never mind the lost keys. When it comes to the big stuff, middle-aged brains outperform the rest
If you are over 40, I'm prepared to offer you a 100% guarantee that reading this column is going to make you feel very cheerful. For the full, calorie-free, feelgood experience you may have to read the book, The Secret Life of the Grown Up Brain, but I'll give you a taster.
Have you noticed that you forget names? That you get distracted and can't remember what you were doing? That you have to write endless to-do lists of tasks or you forget? That your kids groan with impatience when you can't work out some new gadget?
If yes to any or all of the above, have you then concluded that your middle-aged brain is falling apart and that you have embarked on a long slide into doddery senescence? And have you then added to the ensuing sense of uselessness and redundancy the bitter humiliation that you are on the point of being outstripped by the superior technological skills of primary school children?
If so, Barbara Strauch's book will have you dancing in the streets with delight. She argues that on a range of cognitive skills, the middle-aged brain (roughly aged 40-68) outperforms all other age groups. There are a few tricks we lose – for example, retrieval of information such as names and a slight slowing down – but that is more than compensated by the huge gains in many of the most important forms of brain performance.
The middle-aged brain has developed "powerful systems that cut through the intricacies of complex problems to find concrete answers. It more calmly manages emotions and information. It is more nimble, more flexible, even cheerier." On four of six key mental abilities, the peak comes in mid-life. It can size up situations better, draw the connections and see the wider context; this enables better judgment. It appreciates subtlety and ambivalence. In research on wisdom – what it is and who has it – one study concluded it peaks at about 65 after a sustained accumulation through mid-life.
Research may in due course be able to point to the physiological evidence for wisdom, Strauch suggests. Myelin, the crucial white fatty coating of the nerve fibres, makes the connections in the brain work. In two key areas of the brain, myelin continues to increase well into middle age, peaking at 50 on average but often continuing to grow past 60.
Perhaps the most surprising finding in this research is that the middle-aged brain is more cheerful. In a range of tests, it was evident that the middle-aged got less anxious and stressed about negative stimuli and responded very strongly to positive. This is in spite of how our brains in the amygdala are geared to respond to negative, and generally find it easier to recognise, process and remember. This more positive tendency enables the middle-aged to stay calm, emotionally stable and enthusiastic. It's not hard to see how this could serve a very useful evolutionary purpose in helping the group thrive.
So if the middle-aged are so brilliant, how has this time of life had such a bad press? Here Staunch does a fantastic demolition job on the 20th-century demonisation of middle age; there is no evidence for the male midlife crisis or the female empty-nest syndrome. Middle age is just as prone to crises and depression as any other age, but in general, life satisfaction rises and peaks at 65. And that is despite all the talk of sandwich carers with both children to rear and old parents; the truth is that the middle-aged are remarkably competent jugglers of their many responsibilities.
Middle age is a modern phenomenon – a hundred years ago, life expectancy was 47. But instead of seeing the opportunities for this expanded period after child rearing and before the onset of old age, it was immediately cast as a time of loss, decline and anxiety. One suggestion is that some of this curious mythology was specific to the first postwar generation to arrive at middle age in the 60s and 70s. Another is that this negativity was useful to groom anxious middle-aged consumers who would snap up racy convertibles and anti-wrinkle cream. One thing is certain: the baby boomers – of whom Strauch is one – are determined to rewrite middle age.
We have allowed ourselves to be "aged by culture", argues the American writer Margaret Gullette. We've become victims of an "ideology of decline". Fortunately, science is systematically undermining all these myths. Hopefully, this cheering news will begin to percolate into how we organise our working lives – currently crazily packed into the key decades of family formation.
In the meantime, it's time for a truce. An end to beating ourselves up over the odd forgotten name, lost keys, distraction and repetition: it's all trivia. On all the big stuff, we are brilliant. Feeling happier now?