10 Myths About Aging That Need to Be Retired

There’s a lot of baloney out there about growing older.

Misinformation about aging — warnings that memory loss is inevitable or sex is for younger people, for example — may discourage us from doing things that can improve our lives. It turns out that believing ageist myths and stereotypes doesn’t do us any favors.

“Cultures that are more age positive may have more age-positive messaging, and that can have a beneficial impact,” says Becca Levy, a professor of epidemiology and psychology at the Yale School of Public Health and author of Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long & Well You Live.

Levy has spent the past three decades studying how beliefs about aging affect us. She’s learned that people who have a more positive view of the years ahead maintain more volume in the hippocampus — a part of the brain important to memory. Those people also have fewer of the brain plaques and tangles that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease. Negative aging myths, on the other hand, can undermine a person’s confidence and increase stress, producing unhealthy levels of the hormone cortisol, she says. And consistently high cortisol levels can lead to chronic inflammation, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and a weakened immune system.

Levy suggests a three-pronged “ABC” approach to changing views: Awareness of the myths that surround us; Blaming ageism, not age, when someone dismisses us (or we dismiss ourselves) as too old to matter; and Challenging myths about aging on both a personal and societal level.

Let’s start with crushing these 10 myths.

1.  There’s no avoiding dementia

Yes, we see more cases of late-life dementia because more people are living longer. But only about 10 percent of U.S. adults 65 and older actually have dementia, according to a 2022 report led by neuropsychologist Jennifer J. Manly at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and colleagues. And we can do things to help lower our risk, says Miquel Arce Rentería, an assistant professor of neuropsychology at Columbia, pointing to really strong links between heart health and brain health.

“It makes sense because it’s all connected, it’s all one big system,” he says. One important finding: Health issues in midlife, such as hypertension, which affects a third of people age 40 to 59, have long-term effects on the brain. Don’t wait to do something about conditions like high cholesterol or high blood pressure. And if you do notice a significant mental change, get it checked out. The problem could be something other than dementia — and treatable.

2.  New tech? Better call a grandkid!

The idea that you need a young brain to figure out technology is nonsense, says Thomas Kamber, executive director of OATS (Older Adults Technology Services) from AARP, which provides online and in-person technology training. Yes, we may get more frustrated than a digital native when new tech doesn’t work, Kamber says. But that doesn’t mean our brains are the problem (maybe we just believe a product should actually do what it’s supposed to).

“Older people learn technology at an absolutely decent clip wherever there’s a life relevance for them,” he says. Need to up your tech game? Ask at your local library or senior center, or at oats.org. And if you’ve got a grandkid willing to help, go for it.

3. Aging! It’s just like high school

Remember the pressure to be cool, not a loser? Now we’re supposed to excel at aging. But Debra Whitman, chief policy officer of AARP and the author of The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond, argues that turning aging into a competition shames us if we fail. For example, 80 percent of people in their 80s have at least one chronic condition, such as high blood pressure. But having a meaningful life doesn’t require perfect health, she says.

“There’s a viewpoint that you’re successful if you’re healthy, wealthy and wise; that if you have any cognitive decline, if you haven’t saved hundreds of thousands of dollars or if you have a health issue, then you are not successful,” she says. Rubbish.

4. The days of getting good sleep are over, and that’s OK

True, it can be harder to get good sleep, but it’s a myth that you should grin and bear it. Our need for seven to eight hours of sleep a night does not lessen with age, according to a 2022 report from the National Sleep Foundation. And the lack of sleep contributes to higher risk of physical and mental health disorders, dementia, obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, impaired physical and cognitive functioning, and falls. And as we age, all kinds of things interfere with sleep — sleep apnea, medication side effects, nighttime trips to the bathroom, anxiety, even the rhythm of life in an assisted-living community, the report says.

But there are solutions: treatments for apnea, developing good sleep habits and mindfulness training. Don’t let your health care provider dismiss sleep deprivation as unimportant.

5. Hearing aids are a waste of money

Yes, it’s infuriating that most insurance plans don’t cover hearing aids. But prices are coming down, and research has uncovered an even higher cost of not having them: Hearing loss is responsible for about a 37 percent increased risk of dementia, says Alison Huang, faculty member and epidemiology researcher at the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health.

Hearing loss means your brain works harder to ungarble sound, “leaving fewer cognitive resources for anything else like memory or other cognitive tasks,” Huang says. Hearing loss also contributes to social isolation, loneliness and disengagement, and fatigue, she says. AARP offers the National Hearing Test, and hearing-test apps like Mimi are available for smartphones (the Cochlear Center is about to release its own app, Huang says). Quality over-the-counter hearing aids now start at under $1,000, and Apple just released software that makes its Airpod Pro 2s ($249) usable as hearing aids.

6. I’m going to be sad and lonely

In reality, older adults tend to be happier than younger people because they are more focused on meaningful social relationships, says Jee eun Kang, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Healthy Aging at Penn State. Loneliness can hit at any age, but there’s no evidence it’s worse or inevitable in older adults, she says. The effects of loneliness, however, may be damaging to older adults, according to a study of people ages 70 to 90 that she led this year.

“We found that even short-term feelings of loneliness can immediately impact cognitive performance in older adults,” she says. “On days when the older adults felt lonelier than usual, their cognitive performance worsened, both on the same day and the next day.” And when cognition dipped, so did their confidence to interact with friends and family, compounding the issue. Good news: Any social interaction — in person or virtual — can help, she says.

7. It’s too late to get in shape

If just the thought of exercise — or yikes, the gym — is overwhelming, try this strategy: Think less about exercise and more about movement, says Paige Denison, director of Project Enhance, a nonprofit initiative that develops older adult fitness programs and is available in 45 states. Stand up during TV commercials. Take a walk. Garden. Vacuum. Dance. You don’t need to be a performance athlete.

“There’s a little bit of ageism that comes into … how we think, ‘I’m just too old.’ But physical activity can actually stave off or delay a lot of things that we think about being age-related decline,” Denison says. There is no downside to exercising even a little, and it doesn’t take much to improve your health, fight cognitive decline and maintain a healthy weight, she says.

8. Sex? Ha, ha, ha, ha …

Talk about ageism. The idea of old people having sex is funny to everyone but older people themselves. It’s true that body mechanics change as we age, so we just need to adjust our sexual style, says Joan Price, a sex columnist for AARP’s Senior Planet and the author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex.

“The old ways don’t work the way they used to,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean sex is over. It means that we find new ways of having satisfying sex.” Think of sex less as performance and more as enjoyment, she says. “And if someone gets aroused, and if someone has an orgasm, that’s great, but if we take the goals away from sex, then we’re more apt to be able to enjoy it fully.” [And don’t dismiss sex toys or self-pleasure, she says. “There are many health benefits to having orgasms, and it doesn’t matter how we get them,” she says. That said, sexually transmitted infection rates among older people are on the rise, so know how to practice safe sex.

9. Quit smoking? Nah, the damage is done

No matter when you quit, you will notice a difference in the way you feel and even how the medical world treats you, says Andrea King, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Chicago Medical Center. King runs smoking-cessation programs that are successful with smokers of all ages. Even quitting at 75 can give you longer life, research shows. Quitting also allows your body to respond better to medical care, King says.

“Some surgeons won’t even operate on you if you haven’t quit because the wound healing is worse,” she says. And don’t kid yourself about vaping. It also carries risks, especially if you’re using nicotine products, according to a 2020 report by researchers in the U.K. These days, stop-smoking programs use all kinds of tools — texts, medication, groups, telehealth.

10. Therapy can’t change me now

You might think therapy is just a lot of useless navel gazing. But don’t dismiss it for mental health challenges. Adults 65 and over actually respond better to psychotherapy than younger people, according to a study of 100,000 patients reported in 2021 in the Journal of Affective Disorders. But too often clinicians or older people themselves don’t think of therapy as an option, says Katherine Lou, a Boston-based clinical psychologist who works with older adults.

“Some older adults and other groups have this belief that it’s normal to develop depression and anxiety as a normal part of aging when that’s not actually true,” she says. Online counseling and telehealth have expanded the way therapists connect with patients. While there are barriers to getting help, such as insurance and a shortage of providers, Lou suggests asking your primary care physician or your insurance company, or consulting directories such as the one maintained by Psychology Today.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct information on the impact of loneliness.

About the author
Susan Moeller is a contributing writer who covers lifestyle, health, finance and human-interest topics. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she writes features and essays for Boston’s Globe Magazine and her local NPR station, among other outlets.Stan Sack, M.D., practiced pediatrics for 33 years in Massachusetts and Florida. He now works as a freelance health writer and editor. His articles have appeared in several outlets, including Keys Weekly, Rural Health Quarterly and AARP.