Our brains respond to fear by shutting down and so if we hope to sustain growth we may wish to address fears that could be holding us back. Certainly fear of dementia is one barrier to a sound, healthy brain, and yet so are other fears such as our failure to reach and sustain perfectionism.
Donny Osmond often tells the story of riveting anxiety he felt during the filming of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, where he feared his performance would be less than perfect and that fear imprisoned him in unimaginable ways. Only when Osmond let go of the need to be perfect, did the fear leave and enjoyment returned to his acting and singing.
The opposite of fear is cultivating a free and open mind that equips us to learn and grow and thrive even after we bounce back and carry valuable lessons from our mistakes.
Since our world at times lately seems to spin more on a fear axle, all the more reason that seniors learn from one another and especially that we navigate fears of dementia into freedom of living with and learning from our daily mistakes.
Why No Nuns in the Study Group Got Dementia
A longitudinal 25 year research study sought to discover why no symptoms for Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common cause of dementia, appeared evident in a group of nuns. Scientists grew curious as to why this group of 100 nuns who lived and worked much the same as their senior counterparts in the general population, presented no signs of dementia as they aged.
The nuns certainly ate similar foods, they enjoyed wine at times, and they met the same daily stressors in their careers as teachers, chefs, housekeepers at the convent and healthcare workers. As the nuns began to pass away and after reaching no conclusions, the scientists returned to the group and requested their permission to create autopsies on their brains after death. The sisters gladly complied and scientists and the religious order alike were shocked at the results.
The nuns brains contained a very similar amount of plaque that was found in the general population that had Alzheimer’s disease or other debilitating forms of dementia. In other words the odds of getting dementia are about 2 people in every 100 for seniors in their 60s. A senior’s risk however increases as we age, so that the possibility of getting dementia almost doubles every five years. For example, the 90 year olds and over population show that 33 in every 100 seniors can expect to develop dementia.
The nuns did not differ in their rate of dementia evidence such as plaque that showed in brain scans. They simply continued to live their lives fully as if their brains were fully functioning. They enjoy meaningful lifestyles filled with purpose as if they had developed no dementia.
We also know a great deal more currently about plasticity or our brain’s ability to change itself and to heal from lessor forms of cognitive decline.
What we do in a day literally changes our brains into good or bad results. On the good side, plasticity rewires our brains for growth mindset actions we do in any day. On a lesser side, plasticity can rewire us for ruts by laying down new neural pathways for boring or tedious tasks we spent our time repeating during any day.
Paul Bach-y-Rita, famous for his work in neuroplasticity, discovered that his own father’s crippling stroke in New York was incurable, and still Paul refused to give up. Language and mobility were gone forever, experts claimed, yet Paul vowed to help his father heal.
If we are drawn to people like Paul Bach-y-Rita who target a finer place in life, when challenges strike, we typically see plasticity in action. If we find ourselves locked in a lonely, and losing tunnel, with boring days that have us looking for even the tiniest lights in so much darkness, plasticity is clearly not working as it is intended.
Sometimes an initial cortisol segue leads us into plasticity’s best demonstrations After a month’s therapy and little progress, medical experts assured the Bach-y-Rita family they could do no more, and suggested Paul’s father should enter a seniors’ rehab institution. Brains cannot repair themselves, medical specialists argued, which in the vernacular meant nothing else could help their 65 year old father to walk or talk again.
Is ours the innovative story of Bach-y-Rita seeking healing for his debilitated father who went from the lofty post of a professor at New York University to become a fully dependent patient after the stoke.
To many the sad saga became just another story about hopeless narratives within stagnant traditional and conventional medical systems, along with health care experts who have given up on change for the most part?
It seemed the serotonin part of this story could never win:
All seemed lost to those who looked on at the family’s tragedy. After all, who ever heard of a brain that repairs itself after a serious stroke? The healthy, once respected scholar, Bach-y-Rita, spiraled down from well respected professor at City College in NY into complete dependency on care-givers for his most basic needs.
Look again though, at the serotonin story:
Determined to make a difference, one son George brought his Papa back to Mexico and began to teach him to crawl again. Using the wall to support his limp shoulder, Bach-y-Rita, inched along clumsily for months, as he and his sons created marble games to play on the floor that required Bach-y-Rita to reach and move in fun ways.
Back up to the cortisol crank’s tale:
Cynics in medical schools warned that the family was wasting their time, and neighbors criticized the Bach-y-Rita clan when their papa crawled outside, saying, “Stop treating this old man like a dog.” Yet brainpower prevailed that would lead to discoveries in plasticity.
Another line from serotonin’s yarn in this real-life drama:
With every spark of progress, Bah-y-Rita’s two adult sons and advocates persisted more to help their papa do acts on the opposite side of his weakness and loss. Little was known until recently about how the brain changes itself whenever you act opposite a weakness. Yet it makes sense that this mind-bending discovery came to Paul Bach-y-Rita who was a curious person who keenly sought solutions, and refused to give up when he met failures and opposition along the way.
Check out the growth mindset opportunities opened by these two:
Progress came slowly, and Paul observed how his father’s brain over time and with persistence and hard work reorganized itself to take over where damaged parts had destroyed his ability to walk and talk. After many months of crawling and sputtering syllables, new life finally came. In other words, new neuron pathways for language and mobility remapped in different areas, to replace damaged brain cells.
After a miraculous recovery, Bach-y-Rita returned to teach at City College in New York, at 68, three years following his massive stroke.
Concluding narrative
When our story holds onto hope as its central theme, we’ve created the optimum space for plasticity to operate effectively in bringing about change that improves our mental and emotional health. Yes, anything can happen, as Bach-y-Rita discovered.
We can improve our lives in the most difficult areas, and reshape prosperity, through the magical story of reshaped and rebooted brainpower. When we simply act and persist, as Bach-y-Rita did, on the other side of loss. plasticity will do the rest.
What’s our story, and where could plasticity make changes that lead us into healing and new opportunities? As a result of this miraculous change in Bach-y-Rita, his younger son, Paul’s life was shaped by a new and dynamic narrative he described as seeing with our brains and not our eyes. Others in the neural fields named Paul Bach-y-Rita as the father of Plasticity. He fashioned a living and true tale that led to his papa’s brain reorganizing itself for renewal and growth.
Serotonin stories of plasticity changing our brains for growth, hold innovative tools for our future. Paul Bach-y-Rita went on to explain a great deal of the research in areas of plasticity – that equips brains to rewire and remap in other areas. We know that damaged or lesioned areas in the brain that occur through strokes cannot be repaired. Plasticity’s role however, is to remap the skills lost in a stroke, onto other areas of unused real estate in our brains. So we can relearn lost abilities from within this remapped area.
Because of plasticity and through persistence and grit, Paul Bach-y-Rita found life-changing solutions where cynics and naysayer medical experts saw only doom, gloom and disaster after a massive stroke.
Cortisol stories where hope dims and we yield to cynical acceptance hold too many seniors back. After all, who leaps at the mediocrity and disbelief of mainstream experts? Or who’s inspired by the yarns that fail to win tangible results from bureaucrats?
Paul Bach-y-Rita would be the first plasticity aware story-teller to remind us of the wonder of our brain’s change and healing abilities. He’d show how our brain can reorganize itself to become the life-changing solution we seek as seniors with a purpose. What serotonin story could we share to inspire action on the other side of weakness, until brainpower remaps strength and we boost our growth mindset yet again?
Here’s another growth mindset story that shows plasticity’s wondrous results in a 97 year old man who competed with a 17 year old boy. Researchers wanted to see who could learn a new language most effectively in a brief time span.
Both males were considered bright from their IQ scores and both expressed a keen interest in learning German, a language that neither had been exposed to prior to the experiment.
In the end the scores were very close and the senior beat the teenager by one point only. Like the other accounts shared here, we can see a senior brain alive and plastic, and ready to learn in growth mindset approaches! How so?
Check out the growth mindset responses to challenges, and let’s ask ourselves how many times do we allow for the wonderful mental and emotional gift of plasticity to guide our words and actions as seniors.
Fortunately our growth mindset can begin to reboot our brains at almost any age while we still have cognitive health. For example, in relation to a growth mindset to prevent dementia we seniors would do things such as ensure we exercise daily, or eat a balanced diet. Check out further tips to take advantage of plasticity and to develop an ongoing growth mindset as an effort to prevent dementia where possible.
Dementia is not to be feared because fear causes cortisol that shuts down mental and emotional health. Instead it’s to be fought off with an awareness of plasticity’s ability to make our brains into the best engines they can be!
| Growth mindset approaches help us engage plasticity to prevent or delay dementia | |
| Growth mindset possibilities regarding a senior’s effort to prevent dementia | Fixed mindset problems regarding a senior’s likelihood of getting dementia |
| 1. We’ll eat a well balanced diet | 1. We’ll eat what we want as we only live once |
| 2. We’ll sleep for 7 to 8 hours nightly | 2. We’ll grab a few hours sleep when we can |
| 3. We’ll avoid obesity | 3. We’ll call out those who discourage weight |
| 4. We’ll try to use all our intelligences | 4. We’ll admit we are not gifted like others |
| 5. We’ll remain open to learn new skills | 5. We’ll tell them we’re too old to bother |
| 6. We’ll quit smoking | 6. We’ll smoke to calm our nerves |
| 7. We’ll lower alcohol drinks | 7. We’ll drink what and when we want |
| 8. We’ll manage and reduce anxiety | 8. We’ll recognize we’re stuck with anxiety |
| 9. We’ll get help to heal depression | 9. We’ll avoid any who say we’re depressed |
| 10. We’ll reach out to others socially | 10. We’ll agree we’re introverts and lonely |
| 11. We’ll take risks and avoid boredom | 11. We’ll see that boredom comes with age |
| 12. We’ll take care to avoid head injuries | 12. We’ll avoid all sports we used to love |
| 13. We’ll find ways to increase serotonin | 13. We’ll see cortisol as a senior’s life |
| What one or two areas can we shift from a fixed mindset to enjoy plasticity’s change tools? | |
Dementia is ravaging the brains of 50 million people worldwide and yet experts assure us seniors that we can fight back effectively if we become aware of our lifestyles and make changes where necessary. The above approaches represent a few ways to start, and you can likely think of many more…
When our brains are plastic we’re happier, most productive and more fun to be around! Opposite a plastic brain lies a rigid, opinionated, or stuck-in-a-rut brain. Specific words and actions we choose will decide which one (plastic or problematic) gets shaped, rooted and operational in our day. Yes, we can move back and forth from growth to fixed mindset and back here.
Plasticity is our brain’s ability to change itself and it occurs when we deliberately act differently. The iconic namungo PLAS is the fictional character with real brain parts who represents our brain’s ability to change itself. One of six namungos that show inner workings of our brains, PLAS illumines a brain’s capacity to change in a way that can be awakened to help energize improvements to problems we face. Let’s say the problem is that we worry or feel upset with family, peers or friends. PLAS helps us to act in ways that replace worry with wonder for a far finer day with mental wellbeing at the helm!
What deliberate action would bring your choice of these calm and peaceful spaces in our minds? Breathing in slowly and deeply, for instance. Or do yoga, or mediate or listen to classical music. Do these actions and plasticity will make the growth mindset you desire.
We simply act – and the brain does the rest to get new results that replace old neuron pathways and head us toward our targets.
Before Michael Merzenich became the world’s leading researcher on neuro-plasticity, cynics with hard science credentials insisted brainpower and intelligence are fixed and plasticity fictitious. Thanks to persistence and the power of innovation, we now know that learning and leading not only increases one’s intelligence, but also changes the very structure and operation of the brain itself.
Step toward targeted change and plasticity does the rest. Start with inner care and kindness and we open our minds and emotions for growth. Growing new skills and honing old talents does not mean doing everything perfectly. Simply believing in our intelligence and emotional acumen develops our ability to change and grow.
Do we have a plastic or a rigid brain?
PLAS or plasticity is seen to be alive and well in Bach-y-Rita while not so in some health care systems. We see the brain changing itself in those 100 nuns who lived a full and purposeful life in spite of cognitive decline. And we see the kind of mental change and growth possible in the 97 year old man who conquered the German language in competition with a 17 year old student.
Choices and actions tend to determine mental fuels for angst or adventure as illustrated below.
We track our plasticity by tracing evidence of our contentment
Plasticity relies on our embracing the change we hope to become by risking, and acting on the possibilities rather than focusing on the problems. Canadian philosopher and scholar, Manly Palmer Hall sees that as wisdom which he says “lies not in seeing things, but in seeing through things.” This is the wisdom that sustains plasticity and removes dementia fears for seniors who risk change, see through and thrive on the other side of chaotic challenges tossed at seniors from many stagnant settings, such as certain care facilities that get constructed without the senior community’s input.
Enter the namungo gang! We can see PLAS namungo’s role below, and how change fits into the senior brain that takes risks, feels confident and bounces bask from difficult breaks with lessons learned and a resilience to run with new adventures and a growth mindset.
Session 6 – PLASTIC BRAINS OR DEMENTIA FEARS FOR SENIORS?
Two – Footed Questions to Address Mita Growth Mindset Senior Sessions
1). What most ensures our ongoing mental health and what threatens it most?
2). How do you see adventures as the hallmark of plasticity in senior brains?
3). What story have you witnessed of a senior who has used plasticity well and how so?
4). How are seniors blocked from allowing plasticity to create change that adds mental health?
5). What advice or wisdom would you have for families of seniors regarding dementia?
6). What connections do you see between our brain’s plasticity and dementia problems?
7). What makes a senior community especially vibrant and open to changes from plasticity?
8). Do you think entire senior communities could become more plastic? How so if so?
FINAL Question: What’s one activity we can do to remove a fixed mindset and add a growth mindset for this topic? Individually or with a friend, transform one disliked activity in your life into a transformed alternative and show how you used fun and growth mindset possibility thinking in so doing.