As we get older, our physical and mental abilities decline, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Research suggests that the way we live our lives—our diets, our exercise regimes—can have a big impact on how we age. And it’s not just about the things we do to age well. It’s also about the things we avoid.
There is a large field of research that seeks to understand the factors that cause different rates of age-related decline. In particular, scientists look at how these factors change our ability to remember and pay attention to things in everyday life. We call such changes “cognitive aging.”
Many of the negative aspects of cognitive aging seen in older people appear to be linked to the amount of stress they have experienced in their life.
