It's interesting how what we believe about our brains can actually influence how we end up using them. I subscribe to the neuroplasticity theory -- that your b

It's interesting how what we believe about our brains can actually influence how we end up using them. I subscribe to the neuroplasticity theory -- that your brain adapts to whatever you're doing the most. So some pathways become super-familiar (and harder to break out of) -- but you can start a new pattern with consistency. (One way people do this is with a carefully-chosen new routine.) As far as aging goes, its impacts are more diverse than I thought, according to a really interesting book called "The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind." Aging brains really haven't been studied until recently, and newer research (cited in the book) suggests that in some ways the brain improves at certain kinds of thinking during aging. (A rough model is that you spend your youth acquiring a raw mass of experience, and as you age it gets consolidated into actionable chunks.) So while you may have trouble recalling specific facts, aging brains also out-perform when it comes to synthesizing existing information and extrapolating solutions. That's just one example from the book. Basically, aging brains are a lot more interesting than we give them credit for.