Physiology of Midlife Crisis and Brain Aging

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

By the age of 30, many begin to experience psychological discomfort. Someone thinks that life is wasted. Others become disillusioned with their values. Still others feel that they are alone. These are all consequences of the same cause - dopamine withdrawal.

The brain, throughout life, does not develop at the same rate. More than 90% of the growth occurs in the period up to twelve years. From twelve to twenty-five, there is an active cleaning of unnecessary neural connections. During this period, the brain also changes a lot, but after 25 years it gradually reaches a plateau: the dynamics of changes noticeably decreases.

These two periods (1-12 and 12-25) are called sensitive. They are needed so that an animal called "man" adapts to the environment and passes on its gene. The author is based on research by neuroscientists Wong Sam and Amodt Sandra. There are other models describing the process of the decline in neuroplasticity.

How does this all relate to depression around the age of thirty? Dopamine. It is a neurotransmitter hormone. It is developed, among other things, as a reward for obtaining new information. It helps the brain work faster and causes a feeling of joy, happiness, buzz.

An animal receives a reward for new information for a simple reason: the more the animal knows about the world, the higher the probability of survival. However, actively developing the brain and maintaining its size is a huge energy cost for the body. Therefore, this process lasts for a limited time: up to twenty-five years. Then the dynamics of changes in the brain slows down rapidly.

Let us formulate simple consequences of what you now know. The more actively the brain grows, the more dopamine, and the stronger a person is high. Children under the age of twelve are dopamine addicts. Therefore, they have a tremendous need for something new, so they laugh all the time (maybe you yourself noticed). Children smash bottles against the wall because they get new information and dopamine when they see the whole shatter into pieces.

Until the age of 25, a person lives with high hopes for the future. He has the illusion that later it will be the same as now, only better. That he will be in time for everything, he will be able to do everything. And then BAM! It crashes into the physical limitation of brain growth with tremendous speed. The body begins to age (I wrote about this earlier), dopamine ceases to be produced.

Closer to the age of thirty, when the pleasure from the new becomes very little, a person for the first time realizes that further will not be better, but worse. And there is no way to correct the mistakes of the past. It was an illusion. Breakdown begins.

People overcome this state in different ways. Someone goes into religion, or refuses to believe. Someone closes a business and leaves to look at butterflies, someone tries to start a business. Some begin to change jobs like gloves. Others, like gloves, begin to change partners. THEY ARE DOING THE SAME TIME: trying to artificially make the brain grow again. They put themselves in an environment where there will be a lot of new information, a lot of dopamine.

What to do? What happens to a drug addict after the drug has ended, and after it has passed and withdrawal? He stops going with the flow and begins to take control of his life.

The crisis of thirty years is a chance. A chance that not everyone can take advantage of. This is an opportunity to start managing your life. If a person looked back and saw only emptiness, it means that he has learned to distinguish emptiness from meaning.

The only thing you can't do is run away from yourself in search of a new drug. Man is already what he has become. The brain has finished its formation. You need to take the best from what happened in a past life and strengthen this by setting new goals. Life is under control for the first time - one should rejoice in this.

Well, what about dopamine? Do not give up the same buzz? Yes, you shouldn't. However, it makes sense to start avoiding situations where it is thrown out artificially, and not as a result of new information. This is unpleasant, but we must avoid: marijuana, KVN, Comedy Club, +100500, etc. All humor breaks the system of cognition. A joke is an imitation of new information, a deception of the brain.

As mentioned above, after 30 years, a person simply does not want to learn new information, since he does not receive the usual dopamine reward. There is good news: if you continue to load new things into the brain, through force, then very soon the dopamine high will return.

From the point of view of the brain, new information is a dynamic change in the environment. Since the environment is changing, then the process of adaptation to it must be continued. We must continue to give dopamine as a reward for receiving new information. In short, it's like going to the gym. First, the most difficult stage, then only have time to catch the buzz from the growth of the brain.

Now specifically. After 30 years it is necessary:

- to see the best that happened to you in the past, to understand what skills you have;

- understand how these skills can be developed to achieve more;

- set new conscious goals (most likely, you will want to benefit society, as this is laid down by evolution);

- start consuming more professional information that develops your professional skills;

- start playing sports (the brain also grows when playing sports);

- to leave the comfort zone (in food, people, places, clothes, etc.) so that the brain cannot use the previous experience and develop;

- to study the practice of self-observation (when a person begins to follow his thoughts, he gets a new environment for studying).

Kesha Skrynevsky