This aging expert says this one thing can help your cognitive and physical health

By Jessica Hall

The way you feel about getting older can actually change the quality of your retirement, new research finds

Cognition and physical health can be improved by embracing more positive beliefs on aging, research found.

Is decline inevitable as you get older? A new study says it may depend on your attitude.

In fact, older adults can and do improve their cognitive and their physical health over time - and people who have more positive views on aging are more likely to show gains.

"There is this dominant stereotype that old age is a time of inevitable and continuous decline," said Becca Levy, a Yale University professor of public health and psychology and the author of "Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long & How Well You Live."

In a new study, Levy and her Yale colleague Martin Slade found that about 45% of participants showed improvement in either cognitive or physical health up to 12 years later. And those with more positive beliefs about aging were "significantly more likely" to be in that improvement group, she told MarketWatch.

The new research, which was published in the journal Geriatrics, comes as people are living longer - but their health and wealth may not last their entire lifetime.

Opinion: These 8 drugs could help fight dementia - and they're already on the market

Some people harbor fears about getting older. In 2025, research in the journal Nature Medicine estimated the lifetime risk of dementia at 42% after age 55, more than double previous estimates. Meanwhile, 64% of Americans worry more about running out of money than about dying, according to the 2025 Annual Retirement Study from the Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement.

But Levy's new research, along with previous studies, indicate that your older years may be what you make of them - and how you think about them. The latest study builds on Levy's earlier research that found that adopting a positive mindset and shifting internal thoughts on aging can give you seven and a half more years of life, with less anxiety and depression.

In the latest study, researchers followed more than 11,000 participants and tracked changes in cognition as well as physical function using walking speed - which is seen as a vital sign of health in older adults due to its links to disability, hospitalization and mortality.

Over a follow-up period of up to 12 years, 45% of participants improved in at least one of the two areas, according to the study. Those older adults with more positive age beliefs were significantly more likely to show improvements in both cognition and walking speed, even after accounting for factors such as age, sex, education, chronic disease, depression and length of follow-up, the study found.

"One of the messages is that there's a lot of different pathways of aging health. One of the pathways can include improvement," Levy said. "People can still see improvement even if they have a health challenge in another area."

An example of the aging beliefs that study participants were asked to review and rate was the phrase "The older I get, the more useless I feel." Participants were asked to rate a range of beliefs, and the more positive their age beliefs were, the more likely they were to be in the category of showing improvement, Levy said.

"We're not studying just general positive beliefs. It's really these specific images and beliefs about aging that predict different outcomes," Levy said.

Ageism is so deeply rooted in our society that it can be difficult to combat negative views. Levy said individuals take in age beliefs by age 3, and they are reinforced over time. As a result, you may be bombarded with age stereotypes your whole life, and those can be hard to unlearn.

Society as a whole has its work cut out for it. Even some medical professionals misunderstand the aging process, Levy said.

"It would be great to reduce ageism and reduce some of the negative messaging in media, marketing and advertising showing aging as an inevitable period of decline. Reduce the negative messaging," Levy said, adding that another approach would be to "bring scientific knowledge to different people and make sure people are exposed to correct science."

Until ageism is tackled on a larger scale, it's up to individuals to fine-tune their own beliefs on aging and embrace different views of people who show growth and development at different points as they grow older.

"I think until we reduce ageism on a societal level," she said, "it's really important to think about also practices we can carry out on an individual level so we can resist the negative messages and strengthen the positive messages."

Do you have questions about retirement, Social Security, where to live or how to afford it at all? We want to hear from you. Join the conversation in our Facebook community: Retire Better with MarketWatch.

-Jessica Hall

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-10-26 1347ET