Lesson 40: Successful Aging

Attention

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Reflect on the factors associated with successful aging.

Teaching

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In addition to this video...you can also check out "Seasons of Life: Late Adulthood" by clicking HERE. You can view this video online as well.

"Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon." -Woody Allen

Old age is full of enjoyment if you know how to use it. -Seneca, 4 B.C.-A.D.65

Successful Aging

More people are living into late age

Consider the following list of findings from the Vaillant study at Harvard University:

  • It is not the bad things that happen to us that doom us; it is the good people that happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.
  • Healing relationships are facilitated by a capacity for gratitude, for forgiveness, and for taking people inside.
  • A good marriage at age 50 predicted positive aging at 80. But, surprisingly, low cholesterol at 50 did not.
  • Alcohol abuse - unrelated to unhappy childhood - consistently predicted unsuccessful aging, in part because alcoholism damaged future social supports.
  • Learning to play and create after retirement and learning to gain younger friends as we lose older ones adds more to life's enjoyment than retirement income.
  • Objective good physical health was less important to successful aging than was subjective health.

Psychosocial health contrasts the Happy-Well person with the Sad-Sick person. One has to consider, however, that there are many ways in which a person can be "sick". This is psychosocial sickness...

  • attitudes
  • depression
  • motivation
  • emotions
  • friends
  • etc.

Consider the six dimensions used to differentiate between the Happy-Well and the Sad-Sick person:

  • Absence of objective physical disability
  • Subjective physical health
  • Length of undisabled life
  • Objective mental health
  • Objective social supports
  • Subjective life satisfaction

Successful Lifespan Development

The traditional view (biologically based) is prepresented by an inverted U

inverted u

This model works well with physical and biologically based measures of intelligence
However, it does not represent cultural and Crystalized Pragmatics as well

Crystalized Pragmatics

This is a more accurate measure of the intelligence (and sometimes wisdom) of older people (these things tend to remain stable):

  • Wisdome
  • Personality
  • Creativity

S-O-C

  • Selection
  • Optimization
  • Compensation

We engage in these activities as we age and they are key to successful aging.

Consider "Dependence" as a compensation...a compromize to get around a problem

Emotional Maturation

"A test of successful living, then, becomes learning to live with neither too much desire and adventure nor too much caution and self-care." (Vaillant, p. 61)

As we age we may begin to cope better with our lives and out emotions. Our dysfunctional coping mechanisms may include:

  • Projection
  • Passive aggression
  • Dissociation
  • Acting out
  • Fantasy

More functional tools may include:

  • Submlimation (turning a negative into a positive)
  • Humor
  • Altruism
  • Suppression (often seen as a negative, suppression postpones memories, and even according to Freud, was a "hallmark of maturity")

Summary

So...how do we sum up all of what we have learned about successful aging? I like what Vaillant does in the beginning of Chapter 12 when he refers to old age AA watchwords:

  • Let go and let God
  • First things first
  • Keep it simple
  • Carpe diem
  • Use the telephone

References

Vaillant, G.E. (2002). Aging Well: Guideposts to a Happier Life.  New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Assessment

Lesson 40 Discussion

Based on the content of this video, discuss what you think you can do NOW to help yourself age successfully.