Yale Scientists: 45 Percent of People Age in Reverse. Here Is the Simple Mindset That Triggers It

A new study busts the myth that aging means inevitable decline. Aging in reverse is far more common than you probably think. 

EXPERT OPINION BY JESSICA STILLMAN, CONTRIBUTOR, INC.COM @ENTRYLEVELREBEL

Most metaphors of aging suggest that after a certain point, we are ‘over the hill’ and face an inevitable decline. If you eat your veggies and get in your steps, the common sense view goes, you may be able to slow your slide. But barring the intervention of a plastic surgeon or some truly heroic lifestyle overhaul, there’s no way to turn back the hands of time and actually age in reverse. 

Except it appears that on this point common sense might be wrong. A huge new study out of Yale finds that rather than decline at faster or slower pace, major markers of aging can actually reverse and improve later in life. 

This isn’t a rare occurrence, in fact. A full 45 percent of us actually age in reverse at some point, the scientists discovered. And helpfully, they suggest one incredibly simple way to increase your own chances of seeing the clock spin backwards. 

When the Yale researchers first combed through 12 years of data on some 11,000 Americans over the age of 65, they found exactly what you’d expect they’d find. Over time average scores on two important measures of healthy aging—a walking speed and cognitive test commonly used by experts in the field—declined steadily. If you are 75, you are statistically likely to do worse than if you are 65. 

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But the team out of Yale didn’t stop there. For the study, recently published in the journal Geriatrics, they also zoomed in, looking at how the scores of individual participants shifted over the course of the study period. Then the picture appeared very different. 

Rather than showing inevitable decline, the data revealed that 45 percent of the study subjects actually improved on one of the two tests over time. Like fine wine, nearly half of the population seems to improve with age.

“If you average everyone together, you see decline. But when you look at individual trajectories, you uncover a very different story. A meaningful percentage of the older participants that we studied got better,” commented lead author, Yale’s Becca Levy. 

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