By Meghan Streit
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
What do Galileo, Alan Alda, Lena Horne, and Frank Lloyd Wright all have in common?
All four made significant accomplishments at age 65 and older. These important historical and contemporary figures help to dispel the myth that older adults do not make valuable contributions to society.
To the contrary, speaker and consultant Bill Forssander presents an abundance of evidence that the human brain actually gets better with age. Forssander, who is the chairman of the Naperville Chamber of Commerce Speaker’s Bureau, spoke with residents and answered questions about “The Benefits of the Senior Mind” at Monarch Landing last month.
‘So much more wisdom’
“Younger people tend to feel and think entirely differently and don’t coordinate both hemispheres of the brain,” Forssander says. “[As older adults], our ‘computers’ might get a little slower in processing information, but we have so much more wisdom.”
Forssander says older adults’ brains provide specific advantages, including superior abilities to relate to others, broader vocabulary, acquired learning, and greater creativity.
He also says these advantages increasingly mean people can accomplish great feats well into old age. Whether it’s in science, the arts, international relations, or psychology, many older adults are continuing to have a measurable impact on the world around them.
“Out-of-the-box thinking really improves with age,” Forssander says.
Another outdated metric, Forssander says, is viewing age 65 as a marker of “old age” or “retirement age.” Life expectancies have increased by decades since the time when 65 was established as the beginning of “old age.” Today, it’s just not relevant.