"Age Is A Factor, Old Is A Mindset"
We listened to an interesting podcast last month (Peak Performance Aging: Growing Old, Staying Rad) that highlights the protective nature and importance of flow as we age, how your mindset can influence aging, and more.
It left us curious and inspired to dig into the research.
It’s no secret that as we age our body goes through changes. The reality is that our body declines with age. Honestly, even diagnoses like ‘Degenerative Disc Disease’ should just be called ‘aging’…why label it when it happens to everyone…?
Depending on what studies you look at, you’ll find a range for rate of muscle decline, generally 3-8% per decade after age 30. What does that actually mean? An average of 4-6lb of muscle loss per decade for adults who don’t regularly participate in strength training.
We are learning more and more that regular resistance training will help offset these normal effects from aging. A meta-analysis of 49 studies with individuals >50 years found that after an average of 20.5 weeks of resistance exercise, both men and women experienced an increase in 2.4lbs of lean body mass. Put simply: they gained 2.4lb of muscle after 5 months of regular strength training.
Strength training is a vital tool for offsetting muscle loss with age.
Muscles aren’t the only thing that can breakdown as we age, it’s also well known that VO2 max declines, too.
V = Volume
O2 = Oxygen
Max = Maximum: Max amount of oxygen your body uses during exercise
VO2 Max is essentially reflective of how well your heart pushes blood to your muscles and how efficiently your muscles are able to extract the oxygen from the blood. VO2 Max is reflected as a number (measured as mL of oxygen consumed in a minute per kg of bodyweight) and the higher the number, the better!
Studies have shown that VO2 Max declines by 10% each decade after the age of 25 and that number bumps to 15% between the ages of 50-75. Wowza! These reductions are traced back to changes within our cardiac system, for example, reduced maximum heart rate with aging.
Interestingly, when you consider the masters times in the NYC marathon, the finishing times are decreasing — people are running the marathon faster. The finishing times between 1980-1989, 1990-1999, and 2000-2009 are reflective of decreased finish times with each decade in both males (age > 65) and females (age > 45).
Another study compared changes in VO2 Max between sedentary individuals and masters athletes. The sedentary individuals demonstrated a decline of 12% per decade and the age-matched masters athletes reduced by 5.5%.
What can we learn from all of this?
It’s pretty clear that staying active and exercising has protective features against normal body aging declines, and these declines increase with folks who are sedentary.
Does your mindset influence this?
This is the most fascinating, in our opinion. The Ohio Longitudinal Study on Aging and Retirement followed over 1000 people who were over the age of 50 between 1975-1995. In 1975, folks were mailed questionnaires. The questionnaire asked about issues of retirement, leisure activities, life satisfaction, as well as basic demographic information such as age, employment status and history, marital status, etc. Follow up questionnaires were mailed to participants in 1977, 1979, 1981, and 1995.
In the late 1990s, Yale University psychologist, Becca Levy, PhD, began to analyze the research to determine if people’s attitudes on aging could influence how long they lived.
The findings? She discovered that the folks who had more positive views of their own aging lived an average of 7.6 years longer than folks with more negative views. This advantage remained after age, gender, socioeconomic status, loneliness, and functional health were included as covariates. Meaning, a positive mindset towards aging proved to help people live longer than one’s socioeconomic status. In fact, age beliefs had better survival advantage than even some of the most widely accepted forms of longevity hacks, ie avoiding smoking, which demonstrated an extra 3 years of life.
We will likely see the research on this topic continue to grow as it appears that beyond the age-combating tactics of exercise, your mindset could play an even stronger role.
For now, your age is a factor, but “old” is a mindset - it’s up to you to decide how you think about it.
If you’d like to learn more about “growing old and staying rad,” Steven Kotler’s book Gnar Country releases on February 28, 2023 and will highlight all of these topics and more.