There’s a popular myth that our brains finish developing at 25 (not remotely true) and from then on, stays pretty much the same with no new growth (also not true), and in terms of cognitive performance, the only way is down (have a guess whether this is true).

If you guessed “no”, you guessed correctly!

The first two myths we’ve previous covered here: Building Your Brain At Every Age

And for more about the terribly misrepresented study that inadvertently launched the “brain finishes developing at 25” myth, see: The Brain As A Work-In-Progress

So, what about cognitive performance?

Limitless?

Researchers (Dr. Lori Cook et al.) set about this question, by means of a large (n=3,966) and exciting 3-year longitudinal study with adults of all ages (well, 19–94), using the BrainHealth Index (BHI), a first-of-its-kind multidimensional metric that measures holistic brain fitness.

They gave these participants a comprehensive set of brain-healthy practices to do, and then measured to see if there would be improvements, and if so, how much and for whom and what factors affected it.

In few words, they found:

• No ceiling on improvement: significant gains in brain health were observed across the board. Even top-tier performers continued to improve over 1,000 days, suggesting there is no known limit to brain optimization.
• Advantage for “low-starters”: participants who entered the study with the lowest baseline scores demonstrated the most significant rates of improvement, demonstrating that poor brain health is not a life sentence.
• Small habit changes; big difference: gains were directly correlated with consistency of utilization. Participants who engaged the most in 5 to 15 minutes of daily micro-training and adopted brain-healthy habits in their everyday lives achieved the highest brain health scores.
• Age was not an issue: young and old participants alike enjoyed similar brain gains!

…which is really quite groundbreaking! And as one of the researchers put it:

❝For too long, we’ve operated under the outdated notion that we need to wait until something bad happens to our brain before we do anything for it. This study reminds us that our brain is not defined by age, it is defined by possibility. Humans have already expanded how long we live. Now, we are expanding how long the brain can continue to improve, disrupting the trajectory of decline that often begins in our early 30s. Because the true promise of longer life is a brain that allows us to thrive year by year.❞

~ Dr. Sandra Chapman, whose work we featured in our article: How (And Why) To Train Your Pre-Frontal Cortex

…and who was also a co-author on the study we’ve been talking about today, which study you can read in full here: Measuring and increasing the brain health span across adulthood: a public health imperative ← you will need to click on the PDF option to read it in full, otherwise it’s just the abstract on the page

Want to learn more?

As for how to do it for yourself, consider:

• Do Try This At Home: The 12-Week Brain Fitness Program
• Synergistic Brain-Training
• The Physical Exercises That Build Your Brain
• Sharper Minder & Body In 3 Weeks With 1 Supplement
• Seven Exercises To Strengthen Your Brain
• Ways To Boost Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)
• Reading As A Cognitive Exercise ← there are specific tips here for ensuring your reading is (and remains) cognitively beneficial

Take care!

ADHD—not just for kids!

Consider the following:

• If a kid has consistent problems paying attention, it’s easy and common to say “Aha, ADHD!”
• If a young adult has consistent problems paying attention, it’s easy and common to say “Aha, a disinterested ne’er-do-well!”
• If an older adult has consistent problems paying attention, it’s easy and common to say “Aha, a senior moment!”

Yet, if we recognize that ADHD is fundamentally a brain difference in children (and we do; there are physiological characteristics that we can test), and we can recognize that as people get older our brains typically have less neuroplasticity (ability to change) than when we are younger rather than less, then… Surely, there are just as many adults with ADHD as kids!

After all, that rather goes with the linear nature of time and the progressive nature of getting older.

So why do kids get diagnoses so much more often than adults?

Parents—and schools—can find children’s ADHD challenging, and it’s their problem, so they look for an explanation, and ADHD isn’t too difficult to find as a diagnosis.

Meanwhile, adults with ADHD have usually developed coping mechanisms, have learned to mask and/or compensate for their symptoms, and we expect adults to manage their own problems, so nobody’s rushing to find an explanation on their behalf.

Additionally, the stigma of neurodivergence—especially something popularly associated with children—isn’t something that many adults will want for themselves.

But, if you have an ADHD brain, then recognizing that (even if just privately to yourself) can open the door to much better management of your symptoms… and your life.

So what does ADHD look like in adults?

ADHD involves a spread of symptoms, and not everyone will have them all, or have them in the same magnitude. However, very commonly most noticeable traits include:

• Lack of focus (ease of distraction)
  • Conversely: high focus (on the wrong things)
    • To illustrate: someone with ADHD might set out to quickly tidy the sock drawer, and end up Marie Kondo-ing their entire wardrobe… when they were supposed to doing something else
• Poor time management (especially: tendency to procrastinate)
• Forgetfulness (of various kinds—for example, forgetting information, and forgetting to do things)

Want To Take A Quick Test? Click Here ← this one is reputable, and free. No sign in required; the test is right there.

Wait, where’s the hyperactivity in this Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?

It’s often not there. ADHD is simply badly-named. This stems from how a lot of mental health issues are considered by society in terms of how much they affect (and are observable by) other people. Since ADHD was originally noticed in children (in fact being originally called “Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood”), it ended up being something like:

“Oh, your brain has an inconvenient relationship with dopamine and you are driven to try to correct that by shifting attention from boring things to stimulating things? You might have trouble-sitting-still disorder”

Hmm, this sounds like me (or my loved one); what to do now at the age of __?

Some things to consider:

• If you don’t want medication (there are pros and cons, beyond the scope of today’s article), you might consider an official diagnosis not worth pursuing. That’s fine if so, because…
• More important than whether or not you meet certain diagnostic criteria, is whether or not the strategies recommended for it might help you.
• Whether or not you talk to other people about it is entirely up to you. Maybe it’s a stigma you’d rather avoid… Or maybe it’ll help those around you to better understand and support you.
  • Either way, you might want to learn more about ADHD in adults. Today’s article was about recognizing it—we’ll write more about managing it another time!

In the meantime… We recommended a great book about this a couple of weeks ago; you might want to check it out:

Click here to see our review of “The Silent Struggle: Taking Charge of ADHD in Adults”!

Note: the review is at the bottom of that page. You’ll need to scroll past the video (which is also about ADHD) without getting distracted by it and forgetting you were there to see about the book. So:

1. Click the above link
2. Scroll straight to the review!