Dr. Levy demonstrates how our beliefs on aging impact our longevity and health status. Age beliefs, it turns out, can steal or add nearly eight years to your life. In other words, these beliefs don’t just live in our heads. For better or worse, those mental images that are the product of our cultural diets, whether it’s the shows we watch, the things we read, or the jokes we laugh at, become scripts we end up acting out. She highlights America’s cultural view on aging as something to avoid and undesirable. She contrasts this with Japan, where growing old is something to enjoy and appreciate being alive. Keiro No Hi is a holiday that translates to “Respect for the Aged Day” celebrated in Japan. It’s a day that people visit and celebrate with their elders. Restaurants provide free meals to seniors and children deliver meals to those that are less mobile.
If we adopt our culture’s negative views on aging, it impacts us psychologically and we develop low self-esteem and low self-efficacy. Behaviorally we will have a fatalistic attitude about declining health which makes it more likely we won’t be proactive about our health. Biologically, increased stress about aging raises cortisol and C-Reactive Protein levels (CRP is an inflammatory marker in the blood), and frequent spikes in these biomarkers have been shown to lead to an earlier death.
Dr. Levy outlines the ABC’s to counter our culture’s negative age beliefs and exercises that can be done to combat them. Here are a few of the exercises:
Awareness: Identifying where negative and positive images of aging are found in society
Exercises: Identify positive older role models and the qualities you admire in each one. Reflect on the relationships you have with people from different generations. Are there ways to increase the number of intergenerational interactions you have?
Blame: Understanding that health and memory can partly be the result of negative age beliefs.
Exercise: Monitor yourself when age stereotypes influence how you feel about unpleasant events. When you forget something and call it a “senior moment” could you be more objective about it? Maybe it was a moment of forgetfulness, or you were rushed, stressed, and distracted.
Challenge: Taking action against ageism so that it is no longer harmful.
Exercise: Know the difference between facts, assumptions, and opinions about growing older. Some of the myths about aging are: cognition declines with aging, all older people experience dementia, and older people are technically challenged. These have all been shown to be false, yet they are commonly assumed to be an inevitable part of aging.
Reflection on the Book
Aging is an individual experience and when we complain about getting older it sets a poor example for younger generations. We are all aging, so how can we embrace it?
If an older person talks about their aches and pains and says “you’ll see when you get older.” They are relaying their experience of growing older, but it’s not going to be everyone’s experience.
“I’m [age] I can’t do [activity] anymore.” Look for evidence that there’s someone their age or older that is doing the thing they say they can’t do which means it’s still possible. When someone says they’re unable to do something it could just be a result of not believing they can or that it’s possible.
Watching Jumanji: The Next Level, the grandpa played by Danny Divito says at beginning of the movie “getting old sucks, don’t let anyone tell you differently.” By the end of the film, he discovers a new appreciation for aging and says “growing old is……a gift.” YESS! It is a gift, so let’s think twice before we complain or make assumptions about the inevitable process of aging.
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