{"id":7127,"date":"2022-11-11T16:06:52","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T21:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=7127"},"modified":"2022-12-18T18:01:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-18T23:01:09","slug":"why-you-probably-shouldnt-cancel-your-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2022\/11\/11\/why-you-probably-shouldnt-cancel-your-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"Why You Probably Shouldn’t Cancel Your Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You\u2019re going to get old no matter what, but\u00a0how\u00a0<\/em>you get old is a completely different story. Aging involves a lot of changes. To name a few, our hair may become grey, our hearing slowly gets worse, and reading a menu in dimly lit restaurants becomes a well fought battle. You\u2019re probably thinking to yourself, \u201cwow, aging sounds awful!\u201d Sure, it kind of stinks to know that our cognitive processes will inevitably decline as we age (wow what a downer!) but the truth is, it\u2019s just a normal part of life. In fact, it means you\u2019ve lived an entire life of experiences (congratulations!). Furthermore, there are actually ways to prevents certain age related changes. In other words, the idea of getting older doesn\u2019t have to scare you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aging process of a man from young to elderly (image from study.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When we get older, our cognitive abilities change and, in some ways, don\u2019t operate as they once did. Cognitive abilities include things like attention<\/a>, memory,<\/a> language<\/a>, speed of processing (how quickly you can comprehend information) and much more. They are crucial for everything we do; however, they can change over time which is why it is important to work on maintaining these functions. As mentioned earlier, there are strategies that can be used to slow, or improve the effects of aging. A really great way to maintain your abilities is actually through socializing with other people. Yup, it\u2019s as fun as it sounds. By hanging out with your friends, family, or anyone else in your life, you\u2019re actually helping yourself in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Social relationships are a great strategy for maintaining cognitive functions\u00a0<\/a>because they require you to use all of your mental abilities quite frequently. By engaging in various relationships, you\u2019re getting exposed to different ideas, conversations, stimuli, and activities. You learn so much from the people around you. This is why it is important to surround yourself with people from diverse backgrounds (Fingerman et al., 2021). Different people make you think about and do different things. For example, your relationship with your childhood friend may involve a lot of reminiscing, and therefore using your memory. Meanwhile, another relationship might involve complex thinking and problem solving. These are two different relationships that use cognitive functions in different ways. It has been found that by having diverse types of people to engage with, we experience slower cognitive decline when we get older (Ellwardt et al., 2014). Therefore, socializing isn\u2019t just about hanging out with friends but it\u2019s also about talking to professors, colleagues, family members or even the barista at a coffee shop.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Social relationships make you feel good. (Image from imgflp.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

One area where you can see social relationships helping cognitive aging is in terms of attention<\/a>. When you hang out with your friends, you try to eliminate distractions and focus on what your friends are doing \/ saying. You try not to think about the exam that\u2019s coming up next week, or the beeping coming from a truck passing by. Instead, you just want to pay attention to your friends. Therefore, attention is an important tool for relationships. Older adults often experience attentional changes such as difficulty focusing and inhibiting distractions (Kramer et al., 2006). In other words, divided attention can become more challenging. So, it is important to work on maintaining your attention and focus. By spending time with friends, you are practicing using attention. So, socializing is a great, and often fun, way to do maintain attention!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an actual theory called the \u201cuse it or lose it\u201d hypothesis. The general gist is that by participating in everyday activities and doing intellectual things, you protect yourself from having cognitive issues as you get older (Hultsch et al., 1999). In other words, if you don\u2019t use cognitive skills, you will find them more difficult to use as time progresses. Use it or you\u2019ll lose it! Socializing is a great example of one of these \u201ceveryday activities.\u201d Essentially, socializing makes you keep using cognitive skills, and this helps you maintain your cognitive abilities later in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s think of the \u201cuse it or lose it\u201d hypothesis in another context. If you like running, you need to run pretty frequently. If you stop running for long periods of time, then you might start to get worse at it. While running a couple of miles would be effortless and easy before, after stopping you now would struggle to run the same distances. If you kept running consistently, then you would maintain your ability to run far. In terms of aging, socializing helps us practice using our cognitive processes by putting us in situations where they are necessary. If you stop socializing, you are no longer practicing these skills. It makes sense that they would therefore start to change at a faster rate due to this. Since you stopped using your cognitive skills, they start to be more difficult to use. But, if you use cognitive skills a lot by socializing, you will maintain them much better in later life.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Spending time with friends has positive effects! (Image from smithsonianmag.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

If socializing can help us age better, can the opposite make us age worse? Yup. Loneliness<\/a> and social isolation are actually two factors that can negatively impact our cognitive aging. Loneliness can be defined as the feeling of being alone, whereas social isolation is actually physically being by yourself. A study done over the course of many years looked at the association between social isolation and cognitive functioning (Evans et al., 2019). The participants who spent the least amount of time in isolation maintained their cognitive functioning the best. In other words, isolating yourself can mean a more rapid change of your cognitive processes. It is important to make sure you aren\u2019t experiencing high amounts of social isolation and instead spending time with others. Even if you don\u2019t consider yourself a particularly extroverted person who likes to socialize with tons of people, that\u2019s okay! Social relationships are all relative, and as long as you engage with others in some sort of way, you are still socializing.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Image by Kate Rogers<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Picture this, you just got home after a long day of school or work and all you want to do is curl up in bed and fall asleep as early as possible. You\u2019re just turning off the lights when suddenly you get a text from your friends saying, \u201cdo you still want to hang out later?\u201d You\u2019re about to respond and cancel when suddenly you remember this blog post. You remember that by meeting up with them you\u2019ll be helping the older version of yourself maintain their cognitive abilities like memory, attention, and language. Socializing can and WILL have extremely positive effects on your life. So, if you\u2019re thinking about cancelling on that plan you made with a friend last week\u2026 you probably shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fingerman, K., Huo, H., Ng, Y., & Zarit, S. (2020). Social Relationships and Cognitive Development in Adulthood. The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Aging: A Life Course Perspective<\/em>. 350-366.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hultsch, R., Hertzog, D., Small, C., Dixon, B. (1999). Use it or lost it: engaged lifestyle as a buffer of cognitive decline in aging? Psychology and Aging<\/em>. 14<\/em>(2), 245-263. https:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/buy\/1999-05372-006<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I. Evans, A. Martyr, R. Collins, C. Brayne, L. Clare. (2019). Social isolation and cognitive function in later life: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Alzheimer\u2019s Disease. 70<\/em>(1), 119-144. https:\/\/content.iospress.com\/articles\/journal-of-alzheimers-disease\/jad180501<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kramer, A. F., & Kray, J. (2006). Aging and Attention. In E. Bialystok & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), Lifespan cognition: Mechanisms of change<\/em> (pp. 57\u201369). Oxford University Press. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/acprof:oso\/9780195169539.003.0005<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L. Ellwardt, T. G. Van Tilburg, M. J. Aarsten., (2014). The mix matters: Complex personal networks relate to higher cognitive functioning in old age. Social Science and Medicine. 125, <\/em>107-115. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.socscimed.2014.05.007<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeman, T. E., Lusignolo, T. M., Albert, M., & Berkman, L. (2001). Social relationships, social support, and patterns of cognitive aging in healthy, high-functioning older adults: MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging. Health Psychology, 20<\/em>(4), 243\u2013255. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1037\/0278-6133.20.4.243<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re going to get old no matter what, but\u00a0how\u00a0you get old is a completely different story. Aging involves a lot of changes. To name a few, our hair may become grey, our hearing slowly gets worse, and reading a menu in dimly lit restaurants becomes a well fought battle. You\u2019re probably thinking to yourself, \u201cwow, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40864],"tags":[130432,105928,130430],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7127"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7285,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7127\/revisions\/7285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}