A fine red wine, an Italian leather couch, and denim jeans all get better with age. Do people? The prevailing stereotype of age holds that mental and physical abilities begin to deteriorate before we enter our 60s and are substantially diminished by the time we reach our 70s.
Stereotypes are harmful because they imagine all members of a stereotyped group are the same. Society has long recognized that some people are more capable than others as they grow older. At the age of 26, long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad set a speed record for swimming around Manhattan. About two years later, she tried to swim from Havana to Key West but could not complete the journey.
At the age of 60, Ms. Nyad began training for another attempt. She gained muscle and improved her mental stamina as she made multiple attempts to swim from Havana to Key West. She finally succeeded on her fifth attempt at the age of 64. While her record-setting swim has not been fully verified, there is little doubt that Nyad’s long-distance swimming ability — a function of both mental toughness and physical endurance — improved as she entered her senior years.
Getting Better With Age
New evidence suggests that improvement in physical and cognitive abilities as people age is not an exception to the stereotype of deterioration but is relatively common. A study at Yale, published in 2026, asked “whether later-life improvement in cognitive and physical functioning not only occurs among extraordinary older persons but also among those in the older general population.”
Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, a biennial survey of Americans who are 50 or older, researchers compared participants’ attitudes toward aging to their cognitive and physical improvement. They assessed cognitive improvement by comparing test scores over time that measured short-term memory, delayed recall, and math skills. They assessed physical improvement by measuring changes in walking speed.
The researchers discovered that nearly half of participants who were 65 or older improved either their physical or cognitive performance over a period of up to 12 years from their first tests. They also found that seniors who had a positive attitude toward aging were more likely to show improvement in both physical and cognitive functioning.
The improvements were “not only due to participants with deficits recovering to a normal level of functioning, but also occurred for those who started at normal levels of functioning.” The researchers concluded that improvement derives from “a cognitive and physical reserve that is available to the general population of older persons.”
That “reserve” might be attributed to the power of positive thinking. Earlier research, focusing on negative stereotypes of aging, suggested that “the brain, which governs much of health,” is influenced by beliefs about aging. Older adults who internalize negative feelings about aging are more likely to have biomarkers associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The new study suggests the opposite may also be true — having a positive view of aging may help older adults improve their cognitive and physical performance.
Implications of Study
Most research addressing the effects of aging has focused on declines in cognitive and physical performance. Perhaps that research has reinforced the stereotype that decline is an inevitable consequence of aging.
Standard measurements of cognitive and physical ability among aging adults classify individuals as showing or not showing decline. Those measurements do not assess improvement of those abilities and therefore fail to capture the full range of outcomes associated with aging.
The Yale researchers note that scientists have long described aging as “a process of loss.” Most people view physical and cognitive decline as inevitable, while a majority of people who don’t work in healthcare (and many who do) believe that all people acquire dementia if they live long enough. Those mistaken beliefs lead to harmful stereotypes about older adults.
It is well understood that negative stereotypes of aging tend to be self-fulfilling. People who internalize the beliefs that poor physical health and cognitive decline inevitably accompany aging are more likely to experience those outcomes. On the other hand, people who have a positive attitude about aging — those who describe themselves as feeling younger than their chronological age — show less decline than other members of the same age group.
This is not to say that a positive attitude prevents all the adverse consequences of aging. All people — even Arnold Schwarzennegger — lose muscle mass as they age. Yet the former bodybuilder/actor/governor continues to train daily, using lighter weights, more reps, and a focus on keeping his joints healthy. While he can no longer lift the massive weights that helped him sculpt his body in his 20s, his exercise regimen allows him to maintain and even build muscles after the age of 75.
Few people start their senior years with Schwarzenegger’s history of bodybuilding, but that simply means they have more room for improvement. The important takeaway is that, with effort and a positive attitude, seniors can not only delay the negative physical and cognitive consequences of aging but can improve their physical and mental performance, maximizing the number of years they can live independently and productively.