SHARES
“Fleeting time brings me not much wisdom. It brings me.. wrinkles. They tell my stories. Every single time that I smiled and chuckled; every single moment that I cried and mourned. The funny thing is how I wake up in the morning and look into the mirror – I look more like myself with every passing day.” Martin, 83, is living his life at its best.
Ageism (discrimination based on a person’s age) is as harmful as negative attitudes towards aging. People tend to form stereotypes around age and personality such as elderly being more wise while youngster being more energetic and sharp. However, this is not the exact picture.
In the book “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom, Morrie, who is at an advanced age, suffers from a condition called ALS. He gradually loses control over his bodily muscles. To him, it is impossible for the old not to envy the young. This is not because they are better. Yet, we do have fond memories of our younger self. The issue is to accept who we are now. After all, as Morrie would say, “Inside, I’m every age I’ve ever been. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I had my time to be in my thirties, and now is my time to be seventy-eight”.
Photo by Lore Armen from Flickr
Can Attitude Towards Ageing Affect Our Well-being?
People who are socially excluded because of their age do lose their sense of belonging to groups of people. This gives a person huge amount of mental stress in face of threatened relationship. The impact is even greater if these prejudices are internalized as how they see themselves. In fact, studies are showing that person with more negative attitude to their age are more at risk of depression, memory loss, dementia, and poor physical function.
On the other hand, people who have more positive attitude towards their age tend to walk faster, exercise more, eat well, recover faster from disability, and have better self-esteem on body image. On average, those who see themselves positively live a longer life (7.5 more years).
Find Out Your Stressor And Manage
You may want to pay more attention to your feelings. Find out what stresses you and how you react. Keep them in your little diary or talk to someone who truly invest their interest in you. Having said that, even though your reaction can help you feel better, if the stressor happen frequent enough, you will be worn down firefighting it.
In this sense, you would want to think of ways to prevent them from occurring in the first place. You may first check on your expectation. Clean your mind off some doubts or unrealistic expectation. Then, once your intention is clear, find practical ways to get the message across. For example, stick a note to your mirror and make yourself read it out aloud if you have a message to yourself. Similarly, maybe you would like to talk to a person in private when both of you are relax and comfortable about how his/her behavior can stress you out unintentionally, and how both of you can solve it together.
Potential Source of Stress and Ageism
These are common sources of ageism. You may want to look deeper into these issues and how they make you feel about yourself. Manage them accordingly.
1. Fixed Retirement Age in Workplace.
Do you think age determine your ability to produce quality work?
2. Anti-aging Healthcare and Beauty Product (including product influencers, advertisement and marketing)
Do you think aging makes you unhealthier? Or do you believe aging makes you any less beautiful?
3. Generation Gap
Do you think age determine your ability to socialize and communicate with others?
Photo by Merijn Geurts from Flickr
Conclusion
Getting old does not mean becoming different from the young. It is a growing process of being more on top of our younger self. May we find delight in being a childish kid when appropriate, and delight in being a wise old person when appropriate.
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References
- Discrimination and negative attitudes about ageing are bad for your health [WHO]. WHO. 2020. (Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/29-09-2016-discrimination-and-negative-attitudes-about-ageing-are-bad-for-your-health; last updated on 2016 Sept 29; last accessed on 2020 Feb 5)
- That age old question – how attitude to ageing affect our health and wellbeing [Internet]. Royal Society for Public Health. United Kingdom. 2018. (Available from: https://www.rsph.org.uk/uploads/assets/uploaded/010d3159-0d36-4707-aee54e29047c8e3a.pdf; last updated on 2018; last accessed on 2020 Feb 5)
by Chang Xian
View all articles by Chang Xian.
