Have We Been Looking at Aging All Wrong?
“Stop telling people in their 20s that these are the best years of their lives. They’re not” ~ Dr. Laura Carstensen, Ph.D ~
Dr. Laura Carstensen is the founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity and she is urging us to look at aging in a very different way. In looking at previous studies on aging, older people were asked how well they were doing emotionally. When they responded that they were doing very well indeed, the researchers decided that rather than actually believing the respondents, they decided that the feeling of being emotionally well was a product of a deteriorating brain that could not process emotions any longer.
When I read this I have to admit that I was a bit outraged. The arrogance!! It can be a characteristic of younger generations to look with contempt at their elders and see them as childish, feeble, not with it…almost as if they are naughty children that have zero experience of life and need to be lectured and sent to their rooms. They are readily blamed for everything from the climate disaster unfolding before our eyes to all the wars past and present, and everything in between. How many times do we hear angry millennials snarling out their frustrations at ‘boomers’. I suppose it stands to reason that this kind of ageism would extend to some very wrong assumptions about the aging process and the emotional well being we experience as we get older, especially from younger researchers who have high degrees but little experience. New research done in a non-biased manner reveals that, on the contrary, those who are older often have a much more balanced experience of emotions and mental health. It is only the worship of a fleeting youth in our culture that gives us the idea that aging is something to be avoided, pasted over, stretched and hated. Women are especially vulnerable to this phenomenon. We have to retrain our thinking about the second half of our lives. Here are some things that need to be re-assessed. First, the idea of working for 30 years and then retiring is no longer a realistic paradigm. Years ago, retiring at 65, life expectancy was quite a bit lower and we were not as cognizant of our own health and wellness. If you got to 20 years of retirement you were well beyond the normal. One example is that a very large portion of the population were lifetime smokers. A habit that shortened lives significantly. Now there is a pretty good chance of living into your nineties or past 100 if you take care of yourself. Your own eating and lifestyle habits must be taken into account of course. Obesity is now the new smoking and it is a tragic and grievous factor in life expectancy. Many are now not living TO retirement age because of this. However, if you are a reasonably healthy person, working for 30 years and then facing 30 years of retirement is not realistic any longer. The people who age in an emotionally healthy way today are leaning more towards retiring for a year and then going back to work in a new and different capacity. And they are reaping the benefits of that decision! Both for the mind and body but also because we have dwindling resources to take care of 30 or 40 years of retirement in the population. We are now living long enough to entertain the idea of two full careers! And across the board, Dr. Carstensen found that people were not as cognitively sharp after they retired as when they were working if they decide to take a cruise and then sit at home and watch the telly. We also need to look at doing different things throughout our lives. Instead of finding one thing, working hard for a few decades and then going full stop, we need to train in different areas and be creative. Another thing to avoid is the idea of “seeking happiness”, an agenda that has sprouted up over the last few years. Carstensen says “Seeking happiness is almost doomed to fail. It’s constantly hurting people when we tell them they should be happy and making happiness a goal.” This includes the idea that other people should make you happy…friends, partners, kids…and when they don’t, your own unhappiness increases as these relationships tend to be strained or discarded because of the inevitable disappointment that expectation garners. The real key to satisfaction, contentment and acceptance is mastering a system within yourself of processing mixed emotions. There is no such thing as pure and lasting happiness. And honestly, it sounds like something a cult would try to sell you. I mean, when I think of the traditional idea of Heaven where there is not much to do for eternity except lounge around in the ether and listen to the racket of trumpets and harps all day and night, it sounds pretty dull. Carstensen says: “The richest emotional states we have are the ones with mixed emotions.” And older people are much better at processing a complex mix of emotions in different scenarios. They are able to appreciate the complexity, having so many more experiences and memories to ground them. Having a bittersweet feeling or a feeling of excitement and trepidation at the same time are experienced with a much higher understanding and appreciation as we get older. Another way to cultivate a better emotional state, no matter what age you are, is living in the present moment. Younger people have a harder time doing this. As kids we spend much of our time imagining what we will do when we grow up. As young adults we are told to plan for the future. But the future never actually arrives, does it? We can only ever remember the past and be in this very moment. And often, what we imagined the future to be is very different when we arrive at the moment in time we planned for and dreamed about. The good news is that older people have an easier time being content in the moment. They tend to focus on and remember more positive than negative information. Something Carstensen calls the “positivity effect” Carstensen has found in her research that older people have a much easier time living in the present, likely because there is a cognizance that eventually time will run out. The clock is ticking from the moment of conception but as younger people, we feel immortal. Another way to have a stable and rich emotional life as you grow older is to focus less on the idea of being wise and more on being creative. Wisdom comes from experience so, when it comes to solving a familiar problem, older people do have an edge. But studies show that when it comes to solving personal problems, or new problems, older people don’t fair any better than their younger counterparts. Instead of focusing on the idea of wisdom, which is fine as far as teaching and guiding goes but in the end is solving the same problem more efficiently, there is also great value in fostering creativity by participating the arts and learning new skills. Many older people are returning to school after retirement or even entering university for the first time and graduating with degrees alongside their much younger counterparts. More and more people are learning later in life how to live a healthy life and become more vital. In fact, those who do, report feeling better than they did when they were in their 20s! Especially because they are in a better place to appreciate health and emotional stability. Creativity, health consciousness and learning builds resiliency. This doesn’t mean you can’t take a break. You can. But make it a thinking break to decide what you are going to do next in a creative life journey that isn’t over until it’s over.