Aging Successfully: Mrs. Stein’s Story

      The sun shone on Mrs. Stein, making her silver hair sparkle as she sat on a bench under a tree outside her apartment. Her son had arranged a party for her 90th birthday, and the garden was filled with chatting groups of people, from high school girls, young married couples, and middle-aged matrons to dowagers and people her own age, all somehow connected to Mrs. Stein through her many varied activities.

      Mrs. Stein was holding court, vivaciously telling stories. She introduced the man sitting next to her as her “latest squeeze,” telling the story of how they had met and fallen in love. “He came to one of my lectures on Emily Brontë, and I went to one of his lectures about astronomy, and that was that.” She had been divorced 35 years previously and had had no man in her life until now. She was an intellectual and a scholar on Emily Brontë and now she lectured at the senior’s university alumni center.

      Although Mrs. Stein had physical problems, she made light of them. She had arthritis in her knees, which made walking difficult. She had trouble seeing and needed very strong light and a strong magnifying glass to read. It was slow going, but she persisted and talked to her friends about what she had read. She even did needlepoint under the same circumstances, although the stitching was no longer as minuscule as it had been in her earlier work. Also, Mrs. Stein was getting deaf and had trouble hearing her classical music unless she turned it up quite high. By so doing, the deafness did not bother her. She could still hear people talking to her as long as background noise was minimal.

      Mrs. Stein had always been active in the affairs of her cooperative housing project and was responsible for drawing up the bylaws that governed their living. Her apartment co-op was an early government project with rent geared to income, so this helped to keep her financially independent and enabled her to pursue her many interests.

      Mrs. Stein was known to the continuing care division of her regional health board and had a homemaker once a month to clean her apartment. She cooked for herself, and a neighbor got her groceries because she had stopped driving a couple of years ago.

      Her only son lived out of town but came to visit every couple of months. She phoned him occasionally to keep in touch. Her family included her vast number of friends in the apartment townhouse complex, and she was always meeting new people and making new friends. She had a vast knowledge about many subjects, was terribly opinionated, but had a rare sense of humor and a delight in living that enchanted everyone.

      She was interested and contributed to her community. She was responsible for establishing a group in a senior center that advocated for elder rights. Over the years, when she took an interest in anything, she devoted her great mind to seek solutions and solve problems. She was an activist, and some of her early efforts had flourished into growing organizations in which she was still involved in their daily affairs.

      Making the Choice to Age Successfully

      Aging is a beautiful, normal process. Aging successfully means living a long and healthy life. It is a personal task steeped in choices. How you act and how you think can to a large degree determine how well you age. By optimizing your strengths and compensating for your disabilities, you can overcome the challenges life throws at you.

      Everyone has the capacity for change, no matter what age they may be. You are not in a process of inevitable decline, and you can be as active as you choose to be. Modern aging studies show that old ideas about aging are largely inaccurate. For example, it is not normal to be stiff and have trouble walking. Inactivity or illness causes this. Studies show that two-thirds of the signs usually attributed to aging are the result of disuse or disease, while only one-third is actually due to aging itself. In fact, normal aging does not result in slower, less efficient physical, mental, or spiritual activity.

      Our motivations and actions are largely influenced by three factors: the body, mind, and spirit. The balance between these three can be delicate. Like Mrs. Stein, you may be vulnerable to physical, psychological, economic, social, and environmental challenges. For example, the pain and discomfort of disease may result in depression. Retiring from work may leave you with very little disposable income. Physical inactivity may prevent you from pursuing a social life, making you dependent on people coming to see you. This can lead to isolation and loneliness. You may be at risk of falling because of environmental hazards and adverse drug combinations. By consciously trying to balance your body, mind, and spirit, you can to a large degree reduce the effect of these challenges.

      Dealing with the Physical Effects of Aging

      Elders of today are surviving longer and living better than in the past. On the whole, they are a healthier group than they were a decade ago. In fact, as your children age, they will probably be healthier than you are. One of the major reasons that elders are living better is because less disability is caused by illness than in the past, and drugs control many symptoms.

      Modern medicine has made great advances in curing acute illnesses. The discovery of antibiotics was a milestone in the cure of many acute illnesses such as ear infections, gall bladder infections, measles, mumps, rubella, and whooping cough. Advances in surgical techniques for replacement and removal of diseased body parts have contributed to fewer people dying from acute disease.

      However, we are currently only managing, not curing, chronic illnesses such as arthritis (inflammation of the joints), osteoporosis (porous or holey bones that break easily), and macrimal deterioration (nerve-ending damage to the eye that leads to blindness). We can treat the symptoms, but not eliminate the cause.

      Depending on the cause of your illness, medical, alternative, or nonmedical interventions may help increase your physical capacity. You may suffer from a chronic illness that affects your body, but in the process of coping, you may gain a new emotional sense of well-being in your mind.

      Your body structure will change throughout your life. The changes start from the moment you are born. Take the skin, for example. A baby’s skin is soft and flexible. The skin cells slough off as growth occurs until, in old age, the skin loses some of its elasticity and ability to be soft and flexible, which results in wrinkles and lines. The skin changes at different rates. Some 80-year-olds look no older than 60, and some 60-year-olds look older because of their wrinkled skin.

      Your muscles also change as you develop from babyhood. However, if you continue to use your muscles, you will find that your physical capacity can be amazing. You may not have to change the way you live your life, as your body changes gradually and enables you to accommodate. So when you see elders doing physical activities such as hiking and skiing, you’ll notice that they have more efficiency of movement and don’t “hot rod” it up or down the hill as they did in their youth.

      Physical well-being is a major part of happiness and life satisfaction. It provides you with the means to do what you want to do, when you want to do it, and it helps you achieve purpose in your life.

      How to enhance your physical well-being

      You may choose to enhance your physical body development through exercise. Consider some of the following tips for further taking care of your body:

      • Be aware of and strive for balance in your life between exercise, nutrition, and rest and relaxation. Be cautious of the drugs you take, including nonprescription over-the-counter drugs, such as vitamins, allergy pills, herbal medicines, or laxatives.