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How many of the following statements would you agree with? 1. Aging means you
are probably sad, alone and not very productive.
The good news is that none of these statements necessarily have to be true. The bad news is that they are true for so many older people. Perhaps the next significant step in health care for the elderly is to teach everyone to dismiss these ideas, which have for so long gained a foothold in the thinking of the entire population. I can remember hearing an elderly woman many years ago advise me, "One of the blessings of older age, is that you lose your interest in sex." Personally, I found that difficult to believe because I was a teenager at the time, and it seemed that all I ever did was to think about sex in one form or another. But I also remember thinking that perhaps it would enable one to concentrate easier because sex wouldn't always there as a topic for diversion, say from school work. As I have gotten older, I realize that my interest in sex in part keeps me young and interested in life. Believing that getting old and losing interest in sex probably speeds aging up enormously. It's true that we have to die at some point, but when you look at overall statistics of the elderly, what you see is more and more people avoiding many of the diseases that typically afflict the elderly. Consumer Reports On Health writes, "Researchers estimate that if people born today practiced good habits, the average life span could soar from the current 76 years to 100 years." Certainly if we are going to stay around for 100 years, we don't want the five opening statements to be our condition of existence. Perhaps the way to begin to approach this issue is todispute yourself every time you hear yourself getting close to one of those categorical judgments about yourself and aging. We should ban from our vocabulary, "When you get to be my age..." Or, "Well, I'm ____ years old, and therefore...." It might be a very good idea for us to stop defining ourselves by our age, and rather define ourselves by our health—independent of our age. Hang out with
the elderly who are alive, vital, and still making a contribution
to life. Get to know role models who are older and still enjoying full,
healthy lives. Teach yourself that those opening five statements are myths,
and not reality.
Janelle M. Barlow,
Ph.D.
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