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198 PILLAR 2 Development and LearningPhysical Changes and Transitions 12-2 What are the physical changes that occur in middle and late adulthood? Right now, you are less than a decade from reaching your performance peak for reaction time, sensory awareness, and cardiac output. Most of these physical abilities will top out sometime during your twenties. Olympic sprinters notice their times slowing as they age regardless of how hard they work out, and they start to lose races they used to win. For the rest of us, the early signs of physical decline are harder to detect. Middle Adulthood%u2019s Physical Changes The midlife years, from around age 36 to 64, are a time of noticeable physical changes, and these changes bring their own transitions. Twenty-five years ago, I was always told to run as fast as I could toward the end zone during my family%u2019s annual Thanksgiving Day touch football game. Sprinting down the field, I would look over my shoulder for a high, arching pass that would score a touchdown if I managed to catch it. Now, though, my nieces, nephews, and daughters are the touchdown threats. Me? I hike the ball and pretty much just stand there while the quarterback throws the ball to someone who can, well, run. Some cultures welcome the outward signs of growing older, believing that the older members of society deserve status and respect. This is not the case in the United States, where cheating the aging process is a billion-dollar business that just keeps growing. I can remember sitting in church as a child, trying to figure out how many people around me dyed their hair. If I played this game now, the count would be much higher. Fewer middle-aged adults, male or female, carry the heads of gray hair I saw as a child. Many people seek medical treatments, Botox injections, and plastic surgeries to reduce wrinkles in the skin or reverse age- related baldness. A clear signal of aging in women is menopause, when the menstrual cycle ends. Menopause typically occurs between the ages of 45 and 55. It is the final phase in a transition that typically lasts from 7 to 14 years, during which women might experience symptoms that include hot flashes and irregular periods. 7 Habits such as smoking can cause early onset of menopause and make symptoms much worse. 8 Unfortunately, menopause has the potential to increase vulnerability to depression, possibly due to fluctuations in the level of estrogen, a hormone. 9%u2013 11 However, most women express %u201conly relief%u201d once their periods stop, with a mere 2 percent expressing %u201conly regret.%u201d 12 There is no male reproductive event equal to menopause. Men%u2019s levels of testosterone (another hormone) drop with greater age, but not at the sharp rate at which estrogen levels decrease in women. Although sperm counts decline, men do not lose their fertility. And for men, as for women, the notion of a midlife crisis is more a Hollywood fiction than reality. Midlife crises are the exception, not the norm, and when they do occur, they usually coincide with a traumatic event, such as the death of a spouse or a close friend of a similar age. Later Adulthood%u2019s Physical Changes When I was a young boy, my grandmother would turn on every light in the room when she saw me reading. I%u2019d tell her there was plenty of light; she%u2019d tell me it was too dark. Now I know that we were both correct: the light was fine for me but not menopause When the menstrual cycle ends; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines. Contrary to popular belief, most of us%u2014men and women alike%u2014go through our forties, fifties, and sixties with very little drama. The %u201cmid-life crisis%u201d is the exception, not the norm! %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.