Positive aging mindset boosts memory and walking speed

Prof Velandai Srikanth is at the peak of his career. As the director of the National Centre for Healthy Ageing, he has spent decades producing research for leading scientific journals and securing funding from some of the world’s largest scientific bodies. But upon turning 60, he encountered a sudden shift in how the world viewed him.

Someone asked him, so when are you going to retire?

For Srikanth, a geriatrician, the question shocked him. He realized this was the stigma of aging. In his clinical practice, he observes a broad spectrum of reactions to the passage of time: some view the later years as an inevitable slide into decrepitude, while others approach the third age with excitement and a sense of opportunity.

That distinction in attitude is more than just a psychological preference. According to research from the Yale School of Public Health, it may be a predictor of biological health.

The correlation between mindset and physical mobility

Prof Becca Levy and her colleague Dr Martin Slade analyzed a group of more than 11,000 people between the ages of 50 and 99 to determine how beliefs about aging impact the body and mind over time. Their findings, detailed in The Guardian, suggest that a positive outlook can actually improve a person’s trajectory.

The researchers found that individuals with positive attitudes to aging performed better in memory tests, mathematics, and walking speed than those with negative views. More strikingly, a significant number of these participants actually showed improvement over the 12-year study timeframe compared to their baseline at the start.

The data showed that 44% of participants experienced improvements in cognition and walking speed over an average eight-year follow-up. Those who entered the study with a positive perspective on aging were more likely to be among those who improved.

To quantify these attitudes, researchers used tools like the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale. This scale asks participants to rate their agreement with statements such as The older I get, the more useless I feel or I am as happy now as I was when I was younger. Levy also asked participants to list five words or phrases they associate with aging. While negative beliefs often surface early in the list, Levy noted that by the fifth word, people often identify something positive.

Cognitive resilience and the danger of ‘mental models’

The impact of these beliefs extends into the brain’s ability to adapt. Prof Ian Robertson, a clinical psychologist, neuroscientist, and Prof Emeritus of Psychology in Trinity College, has highlighted how highly inaccurate and out of date mental models of aging can hinder a person’s actual functioning.

For more on this story, see Positive aging outlook boosts memory and walking speed in older adults.

Robertson pointed to data from TILDA, the Trinity College tracking survey on aging, which found a clear link between expectations and outcomes. Specifically, the data indicated that people who had negative expectations on ageing walked significantly slower two years later compared to those with a positive view. Beyond physical speed, those with negative expectations showed a slight decrease in social activity and a significant reduction in cognitive flexibility.

This decline is often exacerbated by a cycle of anxiety. Robertson suggests that older adults often misinterpret normal lapses in memory as pathology. While a 30-year-old might ignore forgetting a name, a 70-year-old might view it as an early sign of dementia.

Prof Ian Robertson, Prof Emeritus of Psychology in Trinity College, explains that worrying about one’s memory is comparable to consciously thinking about your feet while walking downstairs, which creates a state of anxiety.

According to Robertson, this anxiety is not just a feeling; it is a biological burden. He explains that anxiety interferes with memory biologically and psychologically, essentially using up available memory space.

Distinguishing normal aging from disease

A critical component of maintaining cognitive health is the ability to distinguish between the natural process of aging and the onset of disease. Robertson emphasizes that the two must not be conflated.

“We must not confuse disease with age. It is not a disease,” Prof Ian Robertson, Prof Emeritus of Psychology in Trinity College

The tendency to view aging as a disease can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of decline. Robertson notes that the incidence of dementia has not increased, even though the prevalence has risen because more people are living longer. He suggests that a 60-year-old today is less likely to develop dementia than someone of the same age was twenty years ago.

This follows our earlier report, How Optimism Protects Against Dementia and Boosts Longevity.

This shift in capability is further evidenced by the impact of retirement. While early retirement is common in countries like Italy and France, Robertson warns that it may not be healthy. He describes retirees in Italy playing boules and sitting coffee in the piazza, noting that their memory function can be significantly lower than 65-year-olds in Ireland, the UK, or Florida.

Robertson uses these observations to highlight how a lack of professional demands in certain retirement cultures may correlate with lower memory function compared to those who remain active in different regions.

The necessity of effort and purpose

If a positive mindset is the catalyst, the actual mechanism for maintaining health appears to be active engagement. Robertson identifies two primary drivers in managing the aging process: effort and purpose.

Purpose is intrinsically linked to effort. Robertson suggests that engaging with the world and meeting its various demands helps maintain cognitive sharpness and reinforces the brain’s functional pathways.

This does not necessarily require a traditional career, though he encourages people to keep working as long as possible. Purpose can be found in voluntary work, joining a charity committee, or sorting out a community project. The key is the application of effort.

“We must ensure we don’t become lazy – it is too easy to become lazy,” Prof Ian Robertson, Prof Emeritus of Psychology in Trinity College

The evidence suggests that doing something with effort is more rewarding than activity without effort. By rejecting the highly inaccurate belief that decline is inevitable, and instead replacing it with a commitment to purpose, older adults may find that their physical and cognitive capabilities remain far more resilient than society expects.

The trajectory of aging is not a fixed line. While biology plays its part, the mental model a person holds about their own future acts as a governor on their physical and mental speed. Choosing to view the later years as a period of potential improvement rather than inevitable loss is a positive approach to the aging process.