¿Am I Turning Into My Parents?

 

I am at the age where I have a number medical diseases and condition that can’t be cured.  This isn’t anything that people don’t associate with aging.  My primary doctor told me not to worry.  The rule of thumb amongst internal medicine docs is:

 

50’s = heart attack

60’s = cancer

70’s = stroke

80’s = a hospital visit terminated by pneumonia

 

As you age your “baseline” changes.  If I had gotten up feeling like I do now when I was 30, I’d be asking myself what it was I did yesterday and make sure I don’t do that again.

 

So why is it that people keep telling me that I’m looking good?  Are they just being polite or am I so good looking that people can’t see through my beauty?   All of a sudden it dawned on me…maybe it’s my attitude.  Maybe I act younger than others of my age.

 

So I took a bunch of those less than scientific online tests that purport to tell you your mental age.  Most of them are pretty simplistic with questions clearly aimed at the younger crowd; particularly women in their teens and twenties.  It was hard for me to come up with good answers to questions about how I handle my homework assignments or boyfriend problems.  In the end my “mental age” averaged over eight different tests was 33.5.  What?

 

I suspected that it might be impossible for me to come up with a mental age that was even close to my real age.  So I took all the tests again answering all the questions as my mother might have (a bitter curmudgeon who died at 82).  The average results of those tests was 50.2 years.; 35% less than my physical age  That seems to lead credence to my impression that these tests aren’t the most reliable.

 

I did some more research and found that there really is a scientific concept of mental age.  At the beginning of the 20^th century Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, developed the Binet-Simon Scale at the request of the French Ministry of Education to determine which students did not learn effectively in standard classroom environments.  Below is a picture of a sample of one of the test questions.  The test has since fallen out of favor since it was designed only for children 6 through 14 and later used by the eugenics movement to show that whites were smarter than other races; among other things.  It has since been replaced by the IQ test.  But before the IQ test became generally accepted, intelligence quotient was determined from one’s mental age using the following formula (this is where the “Q” in IQ came from).

 

(mental age ÷ physical age) × 100 = IQ

 

Well that’s disappointing.  If those online tests are valid my average IQ is 49!  That means more that 99% of the world’s population has a higher IQ than I do.  I’m a knuckle dragging drooler! I took an IQ test once long ago when I was in my twenties and had a “very high” IQ; I don’t remember what it was.  So I took another IQ test.  Plugging the results into the formula above shows my mental age to be 78.6—I’m mentally slightly more than 10 years older than my physical age.  Ugh!  Though if you have an IQ over 100, which indicates you are better than normal, then your mental age will always be higher than your physical age.

 

So much for that.  I found an article called, “8 Habits Of People Who Look Younger Than Their Actual Age” written by Nancy Collins.  She seems to have about as many creds on this topic as I do.  Neither of us have a degree in psychology, mental health, or psychiatry, so it must be fairly reliable.  Though from her picture she hardly looks as experienced in life as I am.  She says the secrets are:

 

1. Age Gracefully
2. Add Some Spice to Your Diet
3. Accept Life for What it Is
4. Sing!
5. Spend Quality Time With Your Dog
6. Wondering How to Look Younger? Sleep!
7. Get Religion
8. Google Can Help You Appear Younger

 

I noticed that plastic surgery isn’t on the list, thank goodness.  I have a few still work on, but maybe those are really the secrets to aging and looking good.  It does seem clear that looking good doesn’t necessarily mean you’re healthy.  I think a lot has to do with your attitude, which clearly isn’t related to one’s mental age.  The better your attitude, the better you look.  Perhaps I do act and think younger than many of my peers.  So go out there and “just do it.”