2 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology
I often hear it's a slow decent to death from 30yo with the brain having stopped growing/changing, genetic mistakes piling up, immune system degradation, weakening muscles, etc.
Surely there's SOME advantage to being 40? Anything good? Or am I a walking corpse?
Comment by Brain_Hawk at 16/03/2023 at 03:32 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
There's lots of good things about being 40. Your older and wiser, yeah your brain isn't as plastic as it used to be but it also is better able to stay on topic and has a lot more base knowledge to work from.
It's also a lot more stable. You're not likely to develop schizophrenia and you're 40s, you're much less likely to develop any other mental illness at this age, most of those happen at younger onsets when people's brains are more plastic and developing. Developing. So you're kind of post-developmental, but there's a benefit to that. You are who you are, and that's not exactly fixed but there's a certain stability there
A lot of people do their best working life and their 40s, make the most impact in their 40s and 50s. Because the experience you've gained in life matters
Comment by Indemnity4 at 17/03/2023 at 03:43 UTC*
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What's good is you aren't 55 yet.
You have outlived all the childhood diseases and ailments. You are less likely to be depressed, have substance abuse, suicide.
Emotional intelligence improves with age.
Your fight and flight receptors have started to decline. That is good. Those contribute to anxiety, so that lessens with age. After age 65 new onset panic disorder is almost non-existent because those neurons aren't there.
Response times start to slow with age. Bad for being a race car driver, great for decision making. It is about age 35-40 that impulsive reactions drop, which leads to few mistakes when operating tools or managing decisions.
Peak income is about age 44. Higher income correlates with a LOT of health improvements.
Age 55 is where a lot of biological process start to turn negative. For instance up to age 25 it's really easy to grow new bone material because you literally are still growing new bones. Age 25-55 it's roughly one-in/one-out, meaning you have to exercise more to grow more bone tissue and sedentary lifestyle you will lose bone mass. After age 55 it's roughly 1-in:1-and-a-bit out - meaning you have to exercise a lot more to grow new bone tissue, exercise somewhat just to retain what you have, and sedentary life means osteoarthritis becomes a problem, breaks take longer to heal.