Retire? My guest today has a phrase that better captures this phase of life than the word retirement: The Vintage Years. So how are you planning for your vintage years? Dr. Francine Toder joins us to discuss how to do so with your brain in mind. And that means including novelty, complexity and problem-solving into your day-to-day life. Taking up an artistic pursuit, even without any prior experience is one way to bring those elements into your vintage years.

Dr. Toder joins us us from the San Francisco Bay area.

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Bio




Francine Toder, Ph.D. is an emeritus faculty member of California State University, Sacramento and is a clinical psychologist retired from private practice. She is also the author of The Vintage Years: Finding your Inner Artist (Writer, Musician, Visual Artist) After Sixty.Her most recent book is Inward Traveler: 51 Ways to Explore the World Mindfully.  Her extensive writing on diverse topics appears in magazines, professional journals, newspapers, blog sites and as edited book chapters. She resides in the San Francisco Bay area.

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For More On Francine Toder, Ph.D. 


Website



The Vintage Years: Finding your Inner Artist (Writer, Musician, Visual Artist) After Sixty

Inward Traveler: 51 Ways to Explore the World Mindfully



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Podcast Episodes You May Like

A Round of Golf with My Father – William Damon

Retire Happy – Dr. Catherine Sanderson

How Can You Be Better with Age? – Alan Castel

If You Love Your Work, What Challenges Will You Face in Retirement? – Michelle Pannor Silver

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Wise Quotes

On the Power of Novelty

"Basically, neuroplasticity means it's plastic, it can continue shaping itself. And the way it does that is through novelty, complexity and problem solving. So let's say you play golf and you like to play golf and you've been playing golf for 40 years. Well, I'd say either you take up another sport or you learn to hold a club in your opposite hand, which is almost impossible and very counterintuitive, and most people would not like it. But that has the benefits of what I call novelty and problem solving. It would be the same way if you were a knitter, I'd say take up a different craft or knit something totally different or in a different way. So you don't have to change hobbies, you just have to change the way you do it. Or find a new hobby. Even if you didn't know what you wanted, you could go back to something you did as a child."

On Wisdom and the Richest Stage of Life

"This is the richest stage in life. For one thing, I am a psychologist, so I look at the world through psychologist eyes. When you get to this stage of life, your mental health is probably better than it's ever been. And partly, and this may surprise some people, it's because the drop off in certain hormones, estrogen and testosterone and some other ones, that pull for other kinds of activities. And when those are gone, there is more room for taking up something new. And besides that, at this point, we have wisdom. I'll give you an example. Kids have little bookcases full of half a dozen books, and by the time they're out of school, you've got a big bookcase, and by the time you're 60, you've got a huge bookcase. Well, it's the same way in your brain. You have a huge amount of storage in your brain, and excellent problem solving skills that young people don't even have. Those two things together make this the richest stage in life."

On Staying Sharp



"The most important thing is exercise. And while that isn't an art form, it certainly can be added to an art form. Many of the artists who I interviewed did some kind of physical thing to facilitate their readiness for pursuing their art form. Even the 90-something artist who was a wood sculptor who I mentioned earlier, when I went to interview him,