Joyful Ageing: Awe And Wonder

Attending cultural events, social activities church, movies, sporting events, or cards is said to decrease the mortality rate among senior citizens.

This is because of the good experiences, along with forming deep relationships and social connections, that increase the feeling of belongingness.

We are always as young as we would ever be in the course of our lives.

Society is youth-obsessed and gives us constant signals that having grey hair, and showing other signs of ageing means our value has declined. But as we grow old, we become expansive and confident, as we understand the world better, can communicate more effectively and are wiser than in our teens.

Older adults are not that good with technology, and that leads to an increased feeling of disconnection, and even doubt and disempowerment.

Once they learn the tech skill sets, senior citizens feel an increased cognitive function, interpersonal skills, and a sense of freedom and independence.

An intriguing experiment called the Time Warp involves being in a special zone where everything is as it was a few decades ago. Gadgets, furniture, news and sports, photos and surroundings, all create an illusion of being in a different era, like the 70s.

The participants of the Time Warp experiment reported better vision, greater cognitive dexterity, better posture, and even better looks, just by living in the zone for a week.

Everyone cannot create such elaborate zones, but we can create mini time wraps by reading old books, meeting with old friends, or visiting old places that remind us of how we were.

Our brain shrinks as we age, and exercise prevents that from happening as fast as it would if one was living a sedentary life.

Apart from better brain health and healthier heart, exercising provides joy by releasing dopamine inside our brain and body. We need to take care of our bodies, as it is the only thing that will last us our lifetime.

Ageing has often been associated with negative tropes, like calling the empty home(due to the children going away to start their own life) an empty nest.

We need to rephrase and reframe such negative tropes, calling them a re-feathered nest instead, a place of creativity, possibility and delight.

We have mistakenly made ageing, a natural process, into a battle, something that we have to defeat and conquer.

We could embrace our growing old and enjoy the wisdom and respect that comes from having years of life experience, but we chose to hide our years, clinging on to the last strands of youth, or going under the knife and becoming a joke to others.