But before I get to what they had to say about working memory across the lifespan, I want to explain working memory as the Alloway's define it. According to them your working memory is your ability to work with information and more precisely it is the conscious processing of information as you go about your daily round. It is particularly about focusing on making decisions, interacting with others, reading, solving problems and simply getting from here to there using the knowledge you already have stored in your brain. It's also about connecting the dots of information in your brain which may seem on the surface to be unconnected - this is call synthesis of information. It's also about disregarding and tuning out those things in your environment which are unnecessary for the task at hand, such as the noise of someone talking near you, the telephone ringing on someone else's desk or any number of distractions that can occur when working memory is being used by you for a task.
Use Your Mind or Lose your Mind
What I found fascinating is how my own research and my own findings in terms of myself, my friends and my clients is that the Alloway's agreed with me - retirement is a mistake, at least in terms of working memory and keeping your intelligence intact. Here's the deal - use it or lose it. It really is that simple. The mind,like the body, needs to be used for complex tasks, not simply playing and having fun. And what's interesting about this is the mind and in my opinion, the soul, knows the difference between a real mental challenge and a made up one. In other words playing word games or doing puzzles may seem like ways to keep your brain sharp, and I suppose they are better than no stimulation at all, but if you really want to keep your mind and therefore, your entire being sharp, then you need to do something that actually tests it where there will be negative consequences if you don't. In other words, you have to keep working. Work is what uses our minds and our working memory and it does this because there are consequences for failing to do the task. Whereas when you are retired, who is going to know if you take on a challenge or not. You may chose to abandon it because it was either too difficult or you lost interest and except for a spouse or other family member, whose gonna know? But when a person is working, the work requires concentration and follow through or you lose the job. At home, when you are retired, well, you can get away with quite a bit without negative consequences - your wife nagging you about her Honey Do list, not withstanding.
Vacations to Exotic locals Don't Engage Working Memory
Many Baby Boomers reaching retirement age now and in the near future are, in many cases financially well off enough to travel and see the world. I know people who see this as a great adventure and are planning now or have already gone on a number of these trips, but from what I know about the mind and what I have seen with my own eyes, these trips do not, in and of themselves, do anything to keep the person sharp witted and cognitively with it. Oh, you might use a bit of your working memory on vacations but not very much of it. Unless you go somewhere that requires you to plan and execute the entire thing and where there are challenges you must face along the way such as what you see on the television show The Amazing Race. But for most people, they book a flight somewhere, the airline figures out all the details, then they stay at a hotel where, again, everything is figured out for them and then they take a tour with a tour guide - very little working memory is needed for any of this. They may tell themselves that they are learning new things and maybe they are but unless they come home and use this information in a way that tests them, such as becoming a high school geography teacher - going to Rotary and showing their slides is not going to cut it. Any new information the brain collects is either used via working memory or it is lost, again, use it or lose it.
Here's What Research Shows About Retirement
According to recent research (2012), retirement may make you dumb. Susann Rohwebber and Robert Willis studied the data of thousands of retirees from America and twelve European countries and found that retirement puts you at a cognitive disadvantage. Retirement marks not just a reduction in work but, a reduction in thinking which they call "mental retirement". What these researchers found was that the earlier you retire, the earlier you hasten cognitive decline. The bottom line is the old adage - use it or lose it. What I see about this is the using of and what the Alloway's call your working memory, or what I see as meeting and acting on challenges that have consequences, that keeps you vital and your mind sharp as a tack. By the way, this is an evolutionary process - the old survival of the fittest idea proposed by Darwin. The species that were challenged and fought the challenger and won, were the ones that survived, not the ones who hid from challenges and backed away - those got eaten sooner or later or died of starvation since they were not willing to go out and fight for their survival.
Why We Need Consequences and Accomplishments
The reason I advocate that people don't retire and instead listen for the call of their soul's and get busy doing what it is calling them to do at midlife and beyond is that this will keep them actively engaged in the world and not off on the sidelines with nothing of consequence to do with their time. The human mind needs consequences and accomplishments in order to stay sharp. If there are no consequences to what you do and you have managed to save enough money to support yourself once you retire, then what point will the mind have for staying alert, focused and able to solve problems and negotiate life? My experience and my research says there is no point and this is why you see so many people declining into senility as they age. There is no point to their minds staying alert and well oiled if it's not being used to solve problems and deal with challenges and consequences. It's like parking a good running car in the garage and never taking it out on the road. Eventually rust starts to build up, the tires rot and the spark plugs will lose their ability to spark and within a few years that car won't even start, much less take you on a trip somewhere. The same is true of the human brain - park it in the pasture and it will lose all power to meet challenges or do anything but take up space.
But with challenges and particularly ones that produce something of value, the human mind goes into action to figure out how to do this, because this is what the human mind is designed to do. The idea of retirement is a recent concept in history. According to an article on ehow.com "German chancellor Bismarck introduced the idea in the 1880s, establishing the retirement age of 65 years. Few people at that time were lucky enough to reach 65 and collect pension checks. Those who did were too weak and sick to continue working. Society provided a means for these individuals to cease work and meet their living expenses. A lot has changed over the past century. A large percentage of retirees today are healthy and active."
Resting on Your Laurels - A Good Thing in 1940 - Not in 2013
Back in the 1940's when the idea of social security first came into the mainstream consciousness, the average person who retired was really not healthy enough to keep working and Social Security was created as a stop gap measure to keep old, worn out people. off the streets and not a burden on their families. At that time it made sense for these people to rest on their laurel's, that is, feel proud of what they had accomplished in their working lives and this enabled them to accept their pensions and or their social Security check without feeling like they were simply taking a handout from the government. But times have changed and the average sixty-five year old is healthy and well equipped to keep working for quite a long time and resting on their laurel's and putting themselves out to pasture no longer makes sense.
Answering the Call of Your Soul by Creating Meaningful Work
What I advocate and what my book, Second Act Soul Calls - Your Guide to the Re-Invention of Your Life at Midlife and Beyond with Passion, Purpose and Possibilities is all about is not continuing in a conventional career or job and simply doing what you have always done, but indeed creating a new life and new work for yourself that comes from the depths of your soul and makes a contribution to the greater good. In fact, the very idea of continuing to work for a corporation or other major employer in a slot figured out by someone else, is not, in most cases, anywhere close to a soul call. In addition, I do not see working a standard work week where you go somewhere and punch a clock, whether this is an actual clock or simply a metaphorical one, as what I am talking about here. I'm not talking about getting a job or keeping a job but creating the work of your soul.
This work could be full time, part time or simply when your soul calls you to take action. It could be something to do with the career you had before you got the call or it could be something totally different. You might do it alone or you might band together with other like minded people. It might be one you make money on or one where you simply volunteer your time. It might be some kind of, save the world, or it might be a provide comfort and joy to the world - the only way you will know what it is, however, is to get quiet with yourself and listen for the voice of your soul and begin to act on it's message. If this all sounds daunting to you then you might want to take my 12 week program - if so check out my website where you can learn more about me and my work. But no mater what you decide to do, remember you have to use your mind for challenging and passionate work or you will lose that mind from lack of meaningful use, there is simply no getting around this.
