You don’t have to fall down.
Falls are not an inevitable price of growing older, despite the fear that a fall might be an unwelcome turning point in later life. Falls are common, and their consequences can be severe—fracture, hospitalization, fear of moving, and the gradual narrowing of a life once lived freely—but many of their contributing causes are identifiable and modifiable.
Cognitive aging is often framed as an inevitable slide, but the last decade of research tells a different story: for most people, how your brain ages is far more about how you live than which genes you inherited. A large longitudinal study from China found that people with a “favorable lifestyle” had 46.8% slower cognitive decline than those with an unfavorable one—even when they carried high-risk genes—while genetics alone accounted for a much smaller fraction of risk. Put differently: genes load the gun; lifestyle determines whether it fires.
Holding on to your marbles More »
This is a truth that becomes most real in late life, when the body begins its slow rebellion and friends depart one by one into silence. The warmth is not illusion. It is perhaps the most substantial thing we accumulate—more enduring than achievement, more tangible than possessions. It is the library we carry.
In the warmth of the sun More »
