Video: Brain health in retirement

Reading time: 4 minutes

In this video Tracey Spicer talks to clinical psychologist Deanna Pitchford about ways that retirees can look after their brain health.

Transcript

Tracey Spicer

Hi, I’m Tracey Spicer. Today we’re going to talk about brain health with clinical psychologist, Deanna Pitchford. Deanna, how are you?

Deanna Pitchford

I’m very well. Thank you, Tracey. Thank you for inviting me to do this with you today.

Tracey Spicer

You’ve got a particular interest in this area. What sparked your interest in brain health in particular?

Deanna Pitchford

One of the things that has interested me is the fact that I am getting older as well. My husband has just retired and I’m getting close to that time as well. This has been the start of this journey.

But as a student, I also worked in a memory clinic at Griffith University. We looked at ways of helping retired people to improve their memory capabilities. We taught them all kinds of strategies and we gave them some social interaction and we looked at what the factors were that improved their cognitive capacity.

Tracey Spicer

We’ll go through some of those strategies in a moment, but first of all, what are some of the trips or traps or patterns that we fall into as we age that are not good for our brain health?

Deanna Pitchford

One of the big things that we tend to do is we think that when we retire we can just let go of all our challenges. And it is true, that we don’t want to stress at that time of our lives, I can see this with my husband as well, but we shouldn’t let go of everything that is challenging.

A new study that has just come out in the Psychology and Aging Journal has shown that people who give up too easily if they have obstacles in their way, if they give up too easily on challenges that they face, they are more likely, and women are particularly susceptible to this, they are more likely to show cognitive decline.

So I think it’s not a time when we let go of everything that challenges us, but we choose our challenges carefully. So we choose the things that we want to be engaged with and even though there may be some obstacles or difficulties, we should keep going, it’s good for our brain.

Tracey Spicer

Are there other ways of reducing stress around approaching new challenges? Because you’re absolutely right, it can be quite scary to try new things as we get older.

Deanna Pitchford

It’s part of staying engaged with life, which I think is the most important thing in terms of staying cognitively sharp, is the fact that we should stay interested in life and staying engaged in life. And if you stay interested and engaged with life, you are going to come across challenges. So it’s good sometimes also to put some extra things out there for ourselves to do, to be interested in the world, in world affairs, maybe do word puzzles, do anything that challenges the brain and keeps us going. All those things are important.

Tracey Spicer

You’ve given a really good list of suggestions there. Are any of those better than the others, or is it just about finding what suits you individually?

Deanna Pitchford

I think what suits you individually is the thing that you’re going to stay engaged with. So it is a very individual thing.

But there is another very important factor, Tracey, and this is something that we found when we did our research with the retirees at Griffith University. We had a group where we taught them strategies like memory tricks and keeping diaries and things like that, physical tricks that they could use, strategies they could use.

Then we had another group that we got together and all we did was we brought them together for social interaction. So we did social things, we watched some stimulating clips, we talked about them. We found that these two groups actually did the same when we tested them on cognitive tests in the end.

So our conclusion was that the social interaction is a very important factor as well. So not only do we need to keep going with challenging things, but we also need to not let go of our social interaction.

Tracey Spicer

It’s really terrific advice, Deanna. And is there different advice dependent upon whether people are in their fifties, sixties, seventies, or eighties?

Deanna Pitchford

You can never start too early to build up your social network. So if you have an outward focus, you may regard yourself as being quite a retiring person in the sense that you are more of an introvert and you may think that, well, I’m not that socially inclined, but you may do better in having small groups of people together.

Do not let go, build up those social networks even from the fifties, sixties, and then they will stand you in good stead as you get older.

Tracey Spicer

Has this changed, given that we’re in the middle of a pandemic? Are you seeing or hearing instances of people who are becoming too isolated.

Deanna Pitchford

I’m really encouraged because many of our friends who are already retired have managed to connect with things like Zoom, for example. We haven’t had physical bodily interaction in the sense of we’ve been in the same room, but we have been able to have lots of connection.

I don’t think we’re ever too old to learn new things. There was a challenge, and I must say most of our friends rose to the challenge quite magnificently and they were able to get things going and connect with others in that way.

Tracey Spicer

There’s also been research in recent years about rebuilding neural pathways in our brains. I guess one of your key messages is it really is never too late.

Deanna Pitchford

Never too late. Never too late to learn, never too late to try something new, never too late to engage socially. I think it’s just good. Whatever we do, Tracey, whenever we do to improve our physical health, whatever’s good for the body is also good for the brain. Whatever we do for the body, we’re also doing for the brain.

Tracey Spicer

Wonderful. Thanks very much for your wise words, Deanna.

Deanna Pitchford

You’re so welcome, Tracey.