Good News! Your Brain Is Getting Smarter

Entering middle age is not all bad. In fact, it's all good. Research shows the human brain may actually get smarter with time.

Forgetfulness, distractedness, muddled thoughts--all classic signs of middle age. You might think that everyone on the other side of 40 needs their head examined.
Fortunately, Barbara Strauch has done just that. In her new book, The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain, Strauch, 58, a New York Times health and medical science editor, parses scientific research, brain scans and life span studies to arrive at a revolutionary--and eminently reassuring--conclusion: Middle-aged brains are smarter. Better yet, middle-aged people, roughly those between 40 and 68, are happier. Despite the hype about losing millions of brain cells as we age (not true, says Strauch) and the all-too-real senior moments, middle-aged minds are better able "to make accurate judgments about people, about jobs, and about finances--about the world around us. Our brains build up patterns of connections, interwoven layers of knowledge that allow us to recognize similarities of situations and see solutions." In other words, unlike our rash younger brains, our cool-headed middle-aged brains can see the forest for the trees.

Excerpt: The Best Brains Of Our Lives
This is due, in part, to myelin (the fatty white coating on brain neurons), which continues to grow until late middle age. As myelin increases, it builds connections that make sense of our surroundings. This white matter may be "middle aged wisdom" itself, in the words of one Harvard University scientist.

Strauch talked to ForbesWoman about why she has "a zippity-do-da sense of well being in middle age," why we should all eat more blueberries and fish oil and the reason teenagers are good for us.