The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain by Gene D. Cohen, M.D., Ph.D
I love books that validate what I intuitively sense. One of the most pervasive - and scary!- negative myths of aging is that mental decline is inevitable in the second half of life. Yet I am convinced that, unless there is an illness of the brain, such as Alzheimer's, our brains get better with age. Cohen, renowned psychiatrist and gerontologist, brings forth extensive evidence from scientific research and his in-depth interviews with men and women demonstrating that the healthy brain does improve throughout life, in many ways.
Below are a few of my favorite quotes from The Mature Mind.
“Some of life’s most precious gifts can only be acquired with age.”
“ Our personalities, creativity, and psychological ‘selves’ continue to develop throughout life.”
“The brain can recruit areas of itself underused in earlier years. These reserves of strength and agility can compensate for the effects of aging in other parts of the brain.”
“It is in the latter stages of life, age 60-80, that the brain’s ‘information processing center’ achieves its greatest density and reach.”
“Our brains never lose the ability to learn by forming new synapses, dendrites and even entirely new brain cells.”
“ Creativity is a happy potential in all ages.”
”Many of your intellectual and cognitive abilities peak not in your early adulthood but in middle or beyond.”