Excerpt from: The Caregiver Partnership (click for full article)
Now for some really good news about brain health. Scientists
(and thus the rest of us) used to think that after reaching age thirty
it was a slow, then fast slide downhill for our brains. Many wonder–if
that is true then why are most of the CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies
over the age of 50?
New research shows that
older brains may well have abilities that younger brains have not yet
developed. In the competitive and success driven leadership arena, there
is no room for error. The acuity of these executives is tested daily
and scrutinized regularly. They must be equal to the task or be
replaced.
In the new book "Hope I Don't Die Before I Get Old"
Tracey Bowman and Mary Boone Wellington detail scientific discoveries
that explain this phenomena. New research shows that older brains may
well have abilities that younger brains have not yet developed. In an
unprecedented longitudinal study (using the same people over a period of
years), Sherry Willis of Penn State University
found that in vocabulary, verbal memory, spacial orientation and
inductive reasoning, people performed best between the ages of forty and
sixty five. They found that the ability to do fast calculations does
decline after age twenty five, but by better utilization of both halves
of the brain, seniors excel at drawing fast and meaningful conclusions.
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