Superager

Uh, we've got a great episode.

We are gonna be talking about SuperAgers.

Mm.

And if you ask, "What are...

And you can find these great podcasts at seniorresource.com/podcasts.

So yeah, we are, uh, getting into today's topic for the week.

Um, we are gonna be sharing five tips from, quote, unquote, SuperAgers-

Yes

[laughs] Um, thank you very much, Colin.

It is a, uh, treat to be ba- to be back here, and thank you for all you do to turn, uh, Canberrans into SuperAgers.

Norman, uh, welcome to your, uh, your fourth ANU Meet the Author.

Just before we kick off, I'd say for those who've just arrived, there's about 10 seats sitting over on the right-hand side, so feel free to move across and populate those spots.

It's that the brain cliff need not be inevitable, and the brain cliff itself, as I discovered when I researched the book, is a very different phenomenon from cognitive function itself, how well our brains work, our general intelligence.

It's a different phenomenon with, with, uh, much less of a genetic determinism about it.

So your book contains these wonderful cameos of, uh, SuperAgers, uh, extraordinary people in their 90s or, uh, even past 100.

Uh, can you tell us the tale of, of one of your favorites, and, and what are some of the, uh, uh, reasons that that person attributes for their, uh, their good health?

It's actually about cognitive reserve.

It's about how people are using their brain."

brain."It also reminds me of SuperAgers, which we've talked about before on the podcast, who are these people who live well into their 80s and 90s, but remain really mentally sharp.

And some of these people have then been found to have such bad accumulation of Alzheimer's plaques in their brains that they should have severe dementia, but they were completely lucid and somehow protected.

So somehow they've got this cognitive reserve that's allowing them to bypass the damage to, to get around some of that, um, the Alzheimer's plaques and tangles, and all the things that have caused other people to, to start losing their memory and have this cognitive decline.

Somehow they're getting around that.

Yeah, and the thing that w- has been identified with SuperAgers as really important is social connection.

So Yaakov's talking about education is one thing.