Young Brain in Old Body

My body tells me I’m getting old, but my brain didn’t get the memo.  I still want to jump up and dance as if I were at a sock hop when I hear Chubby Checker’s The Twist. Like a toddler, I still hold out my finger for a bird or butterfly, wishing she’d land on it. I get ecstatic when it does. I still imagine what life as a ballerina would be like when I watch The Nutcracker. I still want to pet every bear or tiger I see.

I have a young brain in an old body.

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I’m not alone. A "scientific" poll of six of my friends says their brain still thinks they are younger than their age – many still in their late teens or early 20s.

So what does my younger brain do?

When I was young, I was almost fearless. I lived in a sheltered world, where the biggest threat was a bad hair day. Within limits, I’m still a risk-taker. I didn’t hesitate when they asked volunteers to hold a 15’ albino python at Reptile Gardens in Rapid City. Well, it wasn’t really a risk. He was well-fed, and the keeper was there. It was a great experience. It was warm, not cold as I expected, but it had been in a heated cage. It wasn’t slimy. It was much softer than I expected; like a kid glove. And it was beautiful – cream and white. My friends thought I was nuts to volunteer. I figured it was their loss. They’ll never have that exciting experience to remember.

Sure, I’ve toned down my risk-taking. I wouldn’t bungee jump (not wise for someone with osteoporosis) or drive 90 on curvy country roads when no one is around like I did when I was a teenager. I’ve honed my impulse control when meeting wild animals. Maybe it was the time a snow leopard leapt from her hideout and pounced at my head at a nighttime zoo walk; I’m glad the glass between us didn’t break. That's when it hit me that she wasn’t just a beautiful, furry, purring creature that wanted my pets. She thought I was dinner, or a cat toy. Whatever she thought, it was the first time I experienced terror from an animal. Since then, I still want to pet the lions, tigers, and bears, but my older brain says maybe it’s not a good idea.

Video - Tiger Pounces couple at Chippewa Falls, WI Zoo

Experts say that while your body ages, your consciousness is just a steady stream. There is no point at which it looks in the mirror and says, “Boy, am I getting old!” You don't wake up one morning as an older person. You wake up as the same continuous you. That's why the younger you isn't really gone.

 But you keep your core of enjoyment, and it can expand.

Psychologists say the reason we still groove to Chubby Checker is that our most intense, formative memories happen in adolescence, locking in an internal "snapshot" of who we are. They become part of our identity. You retain that youthful baseline.

Apparently that youthful baseline is really powerful. At a concert, about 800 seniors got up and danced to The Twist. With the same exuberance, but my older body lacked the vigor and intensity of the young one.

Now I can also enjoy the second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, with the same intensity, minus the vigor. It’s a quiet intensity that sometimes brings me to tears.

The same has happened with art. My youthful tastes centered around bright colors and simple forms: Matisse’s Blue Nude because it was curvy and a pretty shade of blue, Picasso’s Hands Holding Flowers, and Mondrian's primary colors. I still love those, but with a lifetime of courses and museum visits, not only has my list of favorites multiplied, but my appreciation of art has deepened in ways I couldn't have imagined when I was young.

Matisse's Blue Nude, Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night

After searching the web, I found there might be a reason why our brains still think they’re young. Jonas Frisen, a scientist in Stockholm, has been busy determining the age of cells using radioactive Carbon-14. In other words, he’s been dating our body parts like he'd date dinosaur fossils.

Apparently some cells age, while other cells are busy renewing themselves. (1)

Your skin is, on average, 120 days old – so why does it look so old?

But here’s the bad news. The eye’s lens, the heart muscles, and the neurons in the cerebral cortex don’t renew themselves. So our eyes and heart, and some parts of our brain are actually old. Of course we already knew that, didn’t we? Naples, with an average age of 65.4, has cataract surgeons and cardiologists on every block.

And even though my consciousness is a steady stream,  the parts of my brain that control impulses, memory, movement, smell, and taste age with the rest of our body. That explains why I forget things, trip over a piece of paper, and need more pepper on everything.

The good news is that even though my heart, eyes, and some brain parts are old, our sense of wonder is still intact—and may even have expanded. Our sense of wonder didn't just survive—it graduated. So we can still marvel at a sunset, a zebra butterfly, a hummingbird, and a snow leopard (even if it does want to eat us). And our brain still pumps those feel-good chemicals when we listen to music or see beautiful art.

Ok, occasionally my brain seems like it’s aged. Sometimes I think like my mother. When I saw a 60s-ish man riding a bike in flip-flops, I thought, “He’s crazy, doesn’t he know how dangerous that is?”  So, at least some part of my brain aged. It’s called wisdom.

I’m glad my personal, non-scientific poll and my internet research confirmed that I’m not a freak because my brain thinks it’s young. And that’s a good thing. Another study found that people who feel younger than their years have more grey matter in parts of the brain that typically shrink as we age.

It seems the young person inside us doesn't disappear as we age. We just add everything we've learned along the way. She's still in there, with a little more wisdom and a few good reasons not to do stupid things. She's just learned not to pet snow leopards.

Feeling Young Could Mean Your Brain is Aging More Slowly

References

1. Nicholas Wade, Your Body is Younger than you Think, New York Times, Aug 2, 2005

2. Alan Mozes, Feel Younger Than Your Years? Your Brain Shows It, WebMd, Jul 18, 2018