Researchers disagree in their hypotheses about how our minds tend to get worse with age. What can be observed is the following:

• Older individuals do struggle more with Stroop tasks, where an automatic habit needs to be overridden by instructions.
• Older individuals have a harder time with multitasking.
• Older people find it difficult to bind information that occurs in a combined context. It impacts their ability to remember life events.

However, older people seem to be better at emotional regulation.

Some people seem to age mostly with minds intact and others notice dramatic slowdowns. The brain appears to have a lot of redundancy built-in - known as cognitive reserve.

Education seems to have a protective effect on aging, possibly because education contributes to cognitive reserve.

• Classical conditioning: a paired association with a trigger and a behavior. Going to the gym after you wake up each morning is this kind of habit.
• Operant conditioning: you not only associate a trigger with a behavior, but you reward that pairing, to accelerate the habit-forming process.

You commit to some change for 30 days, then tou can go back to your old ways. But having spent thirty days applying a new behavior is often enough to convince you to stick with it.

Pros:

• Can handle more significant/difficult behavior changes you might be unlikely to start with a perpetual commitment.
• Fosters an experimental mindset, rather than assuming you already know what’s best.

Cons:

• 30 days probably isn’t enough to actually make something a habit.
• Without a long-term plan, many 30-day trials will revert back to the original behavior.