In her latest work of nonfiction, the author, a self-described brain coach, primarily aims to help readers aged 40 to 60 craft their own personal AI (“autobiographical intelligence”) to stave off Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of mental deterioration associated with age. The key to her multistep approach is storytelling, which she views as crucial to mental health; she even adapts the Cartesian motto “I think, therefore I am” into “I narrate, therefore I am.” She contends that one’s personal story is like a rope made of words—a braided “mindDNA” that determines how that person will age. “Mental health,” she writes, “is a flawed concept that should be replaced by story health.” Strupp proposes seven steps for improving such health: “Reclaim,” “Reframe” (“By shaping the words you say to yourself about yourself…you can strengthen your mindDNA”), “Review,” “Renew” (which addressees the physical replacement rate of the body’s cells), “Redirect,” “Reset” (“the afternoon of life requires heroic action to strengthen the story rope”), and, finally, “Rejoice.” Each of these key elements can be strengthened, she says, by its own mental “tool,” such as the “Inner Compass Tool” in the “Reclaim” chapter, and she explains how to use each one. To illustrate the use of the tools in narrative terms, Strupp uses a fictional character named Grace, a recently laid-off, 46-year-old single mother raising her 11-year-old daughter. The book includes numerous, full-color illustrations by Myers to clarify its points.
The author makes the wise tactical decision to open her book on a personal note, describing how, during her own “afternoon of life”—when she seemed to have most of her lifetime goals—she still felt unfulfilled: “This acute, painful feeling—what I call a soul-ache—pushed me to seek what mattered most in life,” she writes. “I felt the need to make sense of my life: the good, the bad, and the ugly.” Cliches such as these appear throughout the book, and some aspects of the work feel oversimplified—especially regarding the biological factors of degenerative conditions that can’t simply be avoided by maintaining an active mind. However, the stories that she draws from her own experiences as a consultant, as well as the generalized precepts she inserts into the tale of Grace and her own family, paint an appealingly optimistic picture. The concept of “SuperAgers,” who work hard to enable their brain to outlast their body, underscores this combination of perfectibility and communal connection. The author notes, for instance, that counteracting the dopamine rush that accompanies over-indulgence involves a different, more powerful brain chemical—oxytocin, whose effect, she says, is strengthened by “activities people have been doing for millennia”: “dancing, empathy, eye contact, giggling, hugs, play, sex, singing.” Many elements of Strupp’s upbeat book embrace the notion of holistic personal effectiveness, urging people in their later years to look on the challenges of aging as potentially beatable.
English (US) ·