Thoughts and Suggestions from an Aging Psychologist.

When we think about what gets us through each day, what helps us cope with the myriad challenges of advancing age, we are advised to exercise, eat healthily, socialize, learn something new, and stay away from dangerous behaviors. Repeatedly embedded in the universe of social media, we are both warned and encouraged to refrain from the bad stuff and partake of the good stuff. And act quickly because many of the anti-aging and youth-maintaining prescriptions change rapidly.

For example, recently I read that we should walk 7,000 steps per day to delay the aging process, while a day before the recommendation was for 10,000 steps.

“Living means aging. We cannot not age as long as we are alive. We can, however, aim to be the best we can at whatever age we are.”

Coping strategies: Building Your Toolkit

Coping strategies in the aggregate embrace how the individual thinks, acts and feels as they attempt to meet their needs. The success of a particular strategy reflects how appropriate it is to the specific challenge. If one strategy doesn’t work, the individual can try another in their repertoire.

It helps to be able to call on multiple strategies. Those who have a very limited repertoire are at a disadvantage. If an attempt to meet a need fails them, they tend to keep on doing it over and over again, only harder and faster. And so, their needs continue to go unmet.

Certain coping strategies are considered to be more mature and others more primitive, such as denial, projection, and passive aggression as examples. Chief among the more mature strategies are altruism and humor.

Altruism: Giving of Oneself

Altruism can be defined as the giving of oneself—being able to use the self in the service of helping others. It also helps the individual in that it can detract from one’s negative feelings, such as sadness. This is one reason why volunteer work is often suggested as it is recognized as being helpful bi-directionally, for both the giver and the recipient.

Humor: Finding Relief in the Ridiculous

Humor is another mature coping strategy that can be helpful in many ways. Finding the humor in surreal, ridiculous, annoying and inevitable situations—note age-related changes—can offer relief. Humor has been shown to elicit positive affect, a feeling that we can experience and share.

Negative and Positive Ageism

Ageism can be both negative and positive. Negative ageism is what we generally think of as ageism. It’s easy to recognize as it focuses on all the usual markers that accompany the aging process:

• Memory changes
• Sensory deficits
• Motor limitations
• Decreased balance
• Slowed reflexes
• Changes in appearance

An example of positive ageism might be when an older woman is spoken of as being a sweet little old lady when in fact old women are not necessarily sweet nor little. Describing her that way can be demeaning and infantilizing and certainly denying her of her individualism.

Ageism and Humor: A Delicate Balance

Working as an advocate for good mental and social health for older adults is my job and my passion. And as an older person myself I am well positioned to recognize ageism. Ageism did not exist as a construct in my grandmother’s time, or even my mother’s time. The language for it wasn’t there, but I feel certain that it existed.

What we now know is that the -isms, including ageism, develop very early in life. Little children learn to identify old people and react to them. Society is a powerful teacher.

I am sensitive to how ageist sentiments have burrowed into our social media, mainstream media and all aspects of our lives. While I support calling out ageism when it is offensive and hurtful, I also want to make sure I don’t drift too far in the opposite direction. It is true that there are challenges en route to becoming old that are expectable and occur frequently. It is also true that a little humor can go a long way to help ease the passage and rein in the negativity.

The Power of Shared Experience

Humor can also facilitate connections with others who have been through a similar challenge or facing one currently. The adage “misery loves company” reminds us that connections with others who are experiencing or have experienced similar situations free us up to share our own experience and feel understood.

Sharing what we’re going through with others who “get it” can reduce feelings of isolation, shame and secrecy. Feeling safe enough to laugh is especially liberating.

The Holy Grail of Anti-Aging

“The truth is that there is only one way to not age, and that is to not live.”

Anti-aging is not only impossible, but even unrealistic. What we might aspire to is to be the best self we can be at the age we are. Poking a little fun at our age-related changes might include having a good laugh with our friends, our children, and even with our grandchildren—maybe especially with our grandchildren, allowing them to see that humor engenders and reflects the energy in our life and spirit.

It is unwise to waste this energy on what is impossible, such as avoiding change. There will be changes, but only if we are fortunate enough to get to be an old person.

Prescription: Humor & Laughter

We have learned along the way to becoming an older person that laughter is good for us. And that has been well supported by science. Laughter is good for the body, mind and spirit, and maybe even the soul. We have also learned that laughter is shareable and highly contagious. No mask is needed, however. Contagion is even encouraged.

Spread it around.

Contact me. I’d love to hear back from you, especially about any creative ways you’ve put this to use.

Photo by the Rosowsky Family