What is Successful Aging?

Successful aging is a dynamic process that involves the ability to adapt and modify one's lifestyle to ensure a high quality of life. This adaptability is rooted in the effective utilization of both internal and external resources. Internally, individuals draw upon their resilience, coping strategies, and emotional intelligence, allowing them to navigate the challenges that come with aging. Externally, social support networks, access to healthcare, and community resources play a critical role in enhancing well-being. By fostering a positive mindset and actively engaging with their environment, they can continue to enjoy life. This holistic approach to aging emphasizes the importance of embracing change and cultivating a sense of purpose, ultimately leading to not just survival, but a fulfilling life in later years. Whether through hobbies, social connections, or physical activity, the focus remains on achieving a satisfying quality of life regardless of the challenges faced.

Successful aging was thought to be the absence of disease and physical limitations for a long time. As a young nurse, this was the prevailing opinion of people I knew. While we all dream of being as healthy and capable at 90 as we were at 30 this simply is not reality for most. Aging comes hand in hand with the loss of functions and the deterioration of our bodies. Patients are always telling me not to get old or that getting old is a terrible thing. I tell them it beats the alternative. The alternative is to die young and miss out on seeing your kids grow up and grandkids being born.

Successful aging means adapting to the changes that time brings to our bodies. If your diabetic that may mean changing your diet or if you suffer a stroke that means adapting to less mobility. How well we adapt and accept that change is a measure of our success. I have had plenty of patients and friends over the years who refuse to accept their new reality. I am sure you have met some of these people as well. They are the ones that every time you get together you hear how hard life is now. How depressed they are over the loss of the ability to walk as far as they used to. Even when we try to steer their thoughts around to all of the things they can still do, they are stuck in their previous glory days, and bemoaning the present.

I strive to be like a friend of mine at church. He unfortunately has suffered from debilitating pain for many years now following being cured of cancer. I never hear him complain about the treatments and doctors who inadvertently caused his current pain when curing his cancer. Instead, he is always upbeat and excited to be working for God, helping others to learn about salvation and the wonderful God who cured him of cancer.

Part of aging well is the acceptance of our new condition. The fact that God made us to age and not to remain perfect and whole forever. In the bible, the Levites were told to stop carrying the Ark of the Covenant when they were 50. That did not mean to stop living but just to move on to other areas of service and leave the heavy lifting to younger men. Fighting reality by trying to do what our older bodies are no longer capable of leads to injuries and further limitations.

Refusal to accept limitations leads to being a burden, instead of a blessing to your family. I hear all the time from people that they do not want to lose their independence or be a burden. Ironically too often this is the very person who becomes a burden.

My grandfather is an example of being a blessing. He had a stroke at 79 and ended up having problems with speech for his remaining eight years of life. Instead of complaining and being difficult to care for, he accepted the change in his reality. With all that he lost with that stroke, he did not become angry and was thankful to those who were there to help him. Contrast this with the 85+ year old woman that I once took care of who had refused help with taking her garbage to the curb. She did not want to be a burden, so she got up in the dark before her neighbor could take the cans out for her. Unfortunately, she fell on her way back to the house, and had to lay in the dark with a broken hip, until the neighbor found her, when he came to take the garbage to the curb.