7. Get Better With Age
In our youth-obsessed culture, no one’s suggesting a revision to the Constitution allowing 20-year-olds to run for President. The age requirement remains at 35. You’ve heard about the wisdom and judgment of older people? Scientists are starting to understand how wisdom works on a neurological level. run for 竞选 When you are older, explains Merzenich, “you have recorded in your brain millions and millions of little social scenarios and facts” that you can call upon at any time. Furthermore, he notes, “you are a much better synthesizer and integrator of that information.” Older people are better at solving problems, because they have more mental information to draw upon than younger people do. That’s why those in their 50s and 60s are sage. They’re the ones we turn to for the best advice, the ones we want to run our companies and our country. As Barry Gordon, a neurologist at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of Intelligent Memory: Improve the Memory That Makes You Smarter, puts it, “It’s nice to know some things get better with age.” Question time: 1. Why "exercise may forestall some kinds of mental decline"? 2. How to train our brains to be faster according to Dr. Michael Merzenich? 3. Why older people are better at solving problems? 【参考答案】 1. Because studies have shown that among other brain benefits, aerobic exercise increases capillary development in the brain, meaning more blood supply, more nutrients and — a big requirement for brain health — more oxygen. 2. Anything that closely engages your focus and is strongly rewarding will kick our brain into learning mode and necessarily notch it up. 3. Because they have more mental information to draw upon than younger people do.