By Teresa Carr

Adams County Senior Council

Administrative Assistant

From seniorsguide.com: A Positive Attitude on Aging Has a Positive Effect – by Terri L. Jones

“Eighty-eight-year-old Ginny lives independently, frequently drives herself to the casino to play the slots, has a hot pink streak in her bleached blond hair, and takes more selfies than any teenager. In her head, Ginny is still 30 and has never let her advancing age define her.

While it may seem that older folks like Ginny are in denial or out of touch with reality, many scientific studies have shown that a positive attitude on aging can actually have significant health benefits and could even add years to your life.

The impact of beliefs on aging is a subject that Dr. Becca Levy has pursued for more than two decades. First studying this topic as a Harvard graduate student, she investigated why the Japanese have the longest life spans in the world, learning that Japanese elders receive much greater respect than the older generation in the U.S. She also found that for the Japanese, old age is a period to be relished rather than feared.

Levy, now a leading expert on the psychology of successful aging and author of “Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Well and Long You Live,” has demonstrated that many health problems like memory loss, poor balance, hearing problems, and even cardiovascular events, once almost exclusively attributed to aging, can also be influenced by negative aging beliefs.

Perhaps most significantly, after conducting a 23-year study of 600 aging Ohioans, Levy concluded that those who were optimistic about their golden years lived a median of 7.5 years longer than others who dreaded this time. (This benefit remained after other factors such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, loneliness, and functional health were considered.) In other words, when you think you’re going to decline, you often do.

Changing your outlook – There are many strategies for starting to change your own personal narrative about aging. Here are a few to get you started. Strategies for embracing a positive attitude on aging:

1. Keep a list. Levy suggests writing down both positive and negative portrayals of aging for a week in everything from social media to your favorite TV show. She refers to this strategy as “age belief journaling.” If a show or book doesn’t include older people, note that as well. At week’s end, add up the number of mentions that are positive and negative and with those that are negative, try to think of a better, more upbeat way to portray that person.

2. Consider a different reason. If you or another older person can’t remember something, don’t immediately chalk it up to age. Perhaps you weren’t paying attention when you first learned that information or didn’t have a good reason to remember it. Remember that younger people can be guilty of forgetting things, too.

3.Create positive images. To offset your fears about aging, Karen Hooker, co-author of an Oregon State University study on how self-perceptions of aging impact stress and, in turn, physical health, advises imagining your older self in a favorable way. To help create this positive image, think of older people you know or even characters in books or historical figures who you admire and would like to emulate.

4. Develop intergenerational relationships.

Throughout your life, it’s important to cultivate relationships across generations. Having friends of different ages keeps you from buying into stereotypes (about both those older and younger than yourself) and keeps your aging beliefs based in reality.

Aging can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you embrace a positive attitude on aging; when you stop facing the impending years with anxiety; when you start thinking of the years as a promising time, filled with activity, opportunities and insight – your future will look – and likely be – so much brighter!”

Just A Thought: “A good time to laugh is any time you can.” ~Linda Ellerbee