Older Americans Month
May is Older Americans Month, a month created to recognize the contributions of older adults around the U.S. Though originally called “Senior Citizens Month” by President Kennedy in 1963, it was re-named by President Ford in 1976. It remains a time designated to pay tribute to older persons in our communities, and highlight their resilience.
On May 3, 2021, President Biden took the same opportunity to celebrate older Americans and the role they have played in
“sharing the wisdom and experience that inform today’s decisions and actions, and fostering the connection and engagement that build strong, resilient communities.”
President Biden also recognized the hardships imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic on older adults. But, he also underscored how this age group has also stepped up to support their families, friends, and neighbors. As he says, older adults have been “central in our country’s recovery efforts.”
Nice words of recognition, Mr. President.
The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) recently made a simple but profound statement: many of us are now spending nearly half of our lives over the age of 50. Half. We used to think of our senior years as the “third chapter” after youth and middle age. But, are we now talking about half? This is a lot of time, time to make the most of the years we are given.
What we know about flourishing
What does it take to stay strong and resilient, and flourish in our 50+ years? Learn about the work of Tyler VanderWeele, at Harvard School of Public Health, and Director of the Human Flourishing Program. He describes activities that improve our well-being, and spotlights what research studies keep telling us about how to flourish. For the latest article on well-being by Dr. VanderWeele, click here.
Most have heard about many of the important ingredients that contribute to well-being. These are ingredients like practicing gratitude, showing acts of kindness, having a religious or spiritual connection, volunteering, and maintaining strong relationships.
Signs of Flourishing
Here are five activities that are less well-known but have been shown in research to increase our sense of happiness; they allow us to flourish in our senior years:
- Imagining one’s best self – by first thinking about our future; then, imagining that everything has gone as well as it possibly could. Imagine what would life look like if you realized all your life’s dreams. And then taking the important step of writing about our best possible self. Remember, what we think about, we bring about!
- Recognizing, savoring, and appreciating the positive in our lives, includes thinking about the positive events, and increasing the focus on a positive experience. These all contribute to higher levels of happiness.
- Identifying our top 5 character strengths and using one of these 5 strengths every day. Examples include bravery, curiosity, forgiveness, creativity, and any of 20 others. For your own free survey of your character strengths, visit the VIA Institute on Character.
- Decisions to work at something, defined as sustained effort and contribution to meet the needs and desires of humanity, and not necessarily for income in and of itself.
- Recovery from depression, anxiety, and anger – each of these emotional states has a negative impact on health and hope. Interventions that reduce or remove these states, of course, can improve well-being and happiness.
For those interested in a “Flourishing Quiz” tapping our physical, mental, and social well-being developed by Dr. VanderWeele, click here.
My goal here at the Living to 100 Club
There is no shortage of good, reliable information about staying healthy – mentally and physically – into our senior years and beyond. This is at our fingertips. What we do with these tips and how we implement the strategies is another question. What gets in the way of acting on this information is yet another.
Here at the Living to 100 Club, my goal in sharing, or curating the good stuff is to make sure you always have reliable information at your fingertips. This way, you will consistently have resources to help you move forward. Forward means different things to different people. But resilience and nonstop engagement are beginning to look like the necessary ingredients to moving forward, wherever we are on our journey.
Happy Older Americans Month!
Dr. Joe Casciani is the owner and Chief Curator for the Living to 100 Club, a source of solutions to living longer and healthier, with a special focus on mindset and attitudes about aging. He has a 40-year history as a psychologist and manager of mental health practices specializing in behavioral health services with older adults. In addition to his work as a clinical consultant, he is an engaging and inspiring speaker, and helps audiences move beyond their questions and concerns about aging to create a vision of what is possible in the years ahead. He strongly believes there is value in helping people feel inspired about their future.
