I'd like to welcome everybody today's presentation on mental health and aging, how physical changes impact mental health.

I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipez.

In this presentation, we're going to explore physical changes that result from aging and discuss how those physical changes impact each piece of a person's life.

Beginning at about age 40, our mind and bodies start to slow down a bit, and that includes

how quickly we are producing human growth hormone, estrogen, testosterone. we start slowing down. And that's not

necessarily a bad thing, but we need to recognize it and figure out how to adapt to it instead of

digging in and pretending that we still have the body of a 20-year-old because we don't. And that's in and of itself a whole grief issue for a lot of people.

There are changes in every aspect of our bodies.

These changes themselves can contribute to mood and cognitive issues.

For example, reductions in testosterone and estrogen actually directly impact

cognition and you lose a level of neuroprotection. And they also, these issues also contribute to grief

over loss of functioning as we realize that we're thinking more slowly, as we realize we ain't 20 anymore,

there's a grieving period. Now, some people kind of shake it off. Some people have what we'll call

a midlife crisis. Some people go into a deep depression and have difficulty feeling empowered and

hopeful about the future. So that's really what we're going to talk about today. Think about it.

Older people, and just think about older people that are in your life. And when I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about my grandparents and, you know, my mom and stuff.

So they tend to be more set in their ways.

Well, that's kind of a, that's a generalization.

But it's very true for a lot of people.

Why is that? Well, cognitively,

they've slowed a little bit, and that slowing means it takes more time to register new things.

And people who, when they keep their ways the same, when they're more set in their ways, it's more predictable. So it's easier. It doesn't take as much cognitive energy. It makes

...