Impact of age on human brain – factors which get adversely affected with passage of time

Time and tide wait for none, and with the consistency in passing of time, the ability of all the parts of a human body, unfortunately, tends to decline. One such crucial part of the human body is the brain – the core of the entire nervous system.

The ability of the human brain to manage and recollect things naturally reduces with the passage of time, and once someone enters the old-age, especially after the age of 60-70, this loss in efficiency of the human brain becomes more evident.

Following are the different aspects of a human brain which tends to reduce the thinking ability of it.

1. Memory – We all know that memory is nothing but the ability of a human brain to recollect the information and things from the past. With age, the ability of the brain to hold information and calculate things on its basis, remember events from the past and keep hold of things and processes to do in future begins to decline. At the same time, however, the ability of the brain to remember more prominent facts and knowledge points as well as the working process of a particular activity has little effect of age.

2. Processing speed – This is one aspect which determines how fast the human brain can process particular information and then revert back with a suitable response. With age, the processing speed of the human brain declines as compared to that of a human in his twenties and thirties. The processes which might require multiple things to keep notice of might get affected with age, like driving, which requires a lot of attention on the road regarding by-passers, trespassers on the road, traffic signal lights, speed limit, right gear to drive in, etc. An aged mind might not process all these processes at once with spontaneity like one would have done in its early days.

3. Language skills – The human mind is able to learn, understand and write different languages much faster and clearer in its early stages, than how it can do when it gets aged. The aspects of language skills which have little effect of age on them are vocabulary and comprehension of written language. However, there are certain aspects of language skills which get affected with age are speech comprehension and language production. Due to gradual hearing deficiency and decrease in processing speed of the human brain, the speech comprehension and language production respectively do decline.

4. Attention – The human brain requires a particular thing to focus on and reverts back with a suitable response based on the correct amount of focus it has put on that thing. The magnitude and efficiency of attention on something determines the efficiency of the results. With age, this very efficiency of the human brain to put attention on one particular thing declines gradually. In the later stages of age, while the human brain might be able to concentrate on something for a period of time, it surely loses out on the ability of multi-tasking and focusing on something despite distractions around it.

5. Executive functioning – At a younger age, the human brain is able to carry a lot of tasks such as planning, calculating, organizing and abstract thinking, all at once or subsequently, much faster and with more precision as what it can do on a later stage. With age, the ability of the human brain to adapt to new surroundings and practices as well as make complex decisions reduces, which does reduce its social exposure as well.

6. Emotional processing – It is not the mathematical calculations and multi-tasking which requires the processing of varying data which gets affected with age. Even the ability of a human brain to process and conclude things based on emotions which affect too. It might be strange, but the fact is that the human brain is able to process positive emotions more rapidly than the negative ones. Under varying circumstances, the human brain is able to concentrate, remember and reactive to positive feelings and outcomes more than the negative things. Normally, when human ages, the ability to recover from negative circumstances in a happier way is easier, as he/she tends to avoid negative issues more prominently.

The decline in the efficiency of working of a human brain is a common and natural phenomenon, which happens gradually with age. However, if one starts experiencing at a point of age much sooner than recommended or normal, he/she should consult with a trained medical professional or psychiatrist and follow his/her suggestions to sharpen the skills of your brain.