Across different cultures in the world there is a notion that old people tend to live slower, are usually happier and also savor the small positives in life.

Some say it is because they don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter or social media in general but in truth there is a deeper reason to this.

It turns out that old people have subconsciously trained their brains to be “happier”.

I was going through my index card notes and out popped an index card that mentions a study done by a Stanford Psychologist. (this is from the book Deep Work by Cal Newport)

Laura Carstensen conducted an fMRI study where she studied the brain response of young and old people towards positive and negative imagery.

For young people their Amygdylla fired up with positive as well as negative imagery however for old people it only fired up with the positive stuff.

This means that the brain of someone who is much older actively bypasses the negative stuff almost completely ignoring it automatically while increasing their acceptance of positive imagery!

But here is the kicker, have you heard of Neuro Plasticity? Well, it simply means that all of us can rewire our brains in specific ways no matter who we are and our age.

So we too can train ourselves to be more stoic in our daily lives with more practice.