Maintaining a healthy aging brain can be enjoyable because research demonstrates that the mature brain thrives on some of the very things that give pleasure and zest to life. For example, when individuals remain socially, spiritually, physically, and mentally active; practice healthy eating habits; and are creative they often feel better, experience joy, and enjoy life more fully. These actions support a healthy, pleasurable life. Living an active, optimistic life with many friends and many leisure activities increases not only the quality of life but also the longevity of the brain (Horstman, 2012).
At the beginning of the 20th century, the average life span was 47 years. Today the global average life span is 68 years, and for people born in the 21st century in Western developed countries, the average life span is approximately 80 years: almost double in little more than a century. Interestingly, the longer you live, the longer you may live.
- For a 65-year-old woman alive today, the average life span is 84.8 years.
- For a 75-year-old woman alive today, the average life span is 87.6 years.
- A man who is 75 years old today can expect to live to be 85.5 years.
With modern medicine, a healthy lifestyle, and technological advances, people can expect to live longer than ever before. Centenarians (those who have reached 100 and more) are the fastest-growing demographic group in the world (Horstman, 2012).
Until recently, brain aging—and everything it entails, from the annoying inconveniences of age-related memory loss to more serious conditions like Alzheimer's and dementia— was equated with neuron failure. Researchers thought that brain neurons were continuously lost from birth onward. Research now demonstrates that if a person does not have a specific disease that causes loss of nerve cells, then most, if not all, of the neurons remain healthy until death. New research during the last decade has led to a significant, and profound, shift in the way the aging brain is viewed by science and medicine. The perspective that an aging brain does not inevitably deteriorate as one ages creates exciting possibilities about the way aging is experienced (Guttman, 2001).