Mental and auditory acuity, and aging

Taking your post to lean to the audio hobby: 

Not far behind you, for sure things change. As we age, the fluid in our inner ear thickens reducing our high frequencies. Getting old stinks, but I don't like the alternative. 

Going through life most people have some hearing loss from loud sounds. Gunfire ( defective Military ear plugs), Who concerts, Lawn mowers etc. We have been pretty careful, but where I had been tested to 22K in my 20's, the last tweeters I tested on the bench seemed to roll off above 15K. Not bad for an old fart though.  My father loved his AR-2's, but he flew both seats in B-25's so had no HF hearing at all.  Everyone ends up in a different place. 

How important music is and can you continue to get evolved for listening I do not think is directly age related.  Not for me at least. I want music almost all the time and I still just sit and listen. 

How to keep your mind sharp is a topic that fortunately has been studied a little. Good old crossword puzzles, constant reading, thinking and discussing not just watching the news.  Basically, to keep your brain, use it. The topic of age and retirement comes up occasionally. I have known people in their 90's who were sharper than I ever was, and people in their 50's that should be put to pasture.   It depends.  ( I have also known people in their 30's that were dumber than a stick in the mud, so age may not treat them well) .

How we deal with stress effects our thinking. I loved the quote from Junior Johnson ( NASCAR driver, chief, owner)  " I don't get stressed, I cause it".  I suggest, just my personal view, stress has a lot more to do with health than just food.  I have been on a "seafood diet" all my life. I see food. I eat it.  We are learning it all has far more to do with genetics.  I am so far very lucky to not be on any medications. I should take Glucosamine for my joints, but I forget. ( it does work) 

Clearly our auditory acuity is reduced with age, but often our listening skills and appreciation go up… so it is pretty easy to have that a wash.

I’m 71. And I appreciate music and my system much more than ever. My system is better than it has even been before, I have more time to enjoy it and without work and so many other “have to” activities it allows greater opportunity to just be. Mindful meditation has further uncluttered my mind to be able to experience music and deep rumination’s on philosophy and science.

I try to walk a line with a healthful lifestyle and indulgence.

So I ride my bicycle to h]get fresh vegetables, a steak, and red wine.

Also, while I can tell I have some diminution in hearing (part of which is periodically restored by ear cleaning) I do not have it measured because like a flaw in a sound system, once I am specifically aware of it, I become conscious of it and cannot “un-hear it”.  I prefer to enjoy life, focus on all that I have, not at what I do not have.

Well said ghdprentice!

I am 72 years old and i had tuned my room 100 resonators by ears in a one year period...Use what you have for what you have : your ears/brain...

Perceiving sound is not explained by frequencies Fourier linear analysis , it is way more complex... If the window of your house is more narrow now than it was before because you decrease his wall dimensions , you can anyway see and RECOGNIZE the scenery as well than before... Why ? it is because you had learn how to perceive sensible qualities of sound which cannot be described and understood only by mere references to the frequencies responses maps...There is other acoustic, psycho-acoustic factors...And concepts cannot be erased by a decreased frequencies perception...We can think with half or almost no brain , in the same way we can listen and conduct an orchestra in old age with a lower high frequencies perceptive ceilings... For sure we need some level of frequencies perception and not a too low level ...Nobody want hearing aids... But old age of healthy people dont erase music and sound PERCEPTION...

My wife with better measured hearings than me could not have tune my room because she never learn how to perceive sounds in a small room... Perceiving is also conceptualization...Without concept you cannot identify the song of a bird as the "song of a bird" only as an unknown noise...

😊

«We see sounds , we do not only hear them» Anonymus acoustician to a deaf patient learning echolocation

Last night, after what's been a rather emotional week, I sat down and listened to Jennifer Warne's SACD of "The Well", and had tears in my eyes for nearly the whole disc. Not tears from sadness, but from joy from what a wonderful and well done, but understated disc of music this is.

This after finishing Beethoven's Complete Symphonies by The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, and to finish it off as I was falling asleep, Doug MacLeod's "Brand New Eyes". This kind of music making (or I should say music listening), for a 76 year old guy that's had a stroke, and looks after his 77 year old Dementia affected wife, makes the world go 'round for me.

In spite of difficulties, it makes life worthwhile. Some of the difficulties are due to learning of my current limitaions (and they are hard lessons), but my hearing hasn't been affected in a manner that diminishes my enjoyment of music. 

Thank God for that!

Regards, and enjoy,

Dan