Personal Well being

 Personal well-being provides an important insight into people’s thoughts and feelings about their quality of life. Its measurement forms part of a much wider initiative and internationally, to look beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and to measure what really matters to people.

Previous research has shown the relationship between age and personal well-being to be U-shaped. That is, our sense of personal well-being is highest among younger people and older people and is lowest among people in their middle years. The following report builds on this, analysing responses from more than 300,000 individuals to further examine the relationship between age and personal well-being. Understanding more about how different age groups rate their personal well-being will help policy makers target groups in most need and concentrate on issues that are fundamental to a good life.

How people view their health was the most important factor related to personal well-being, followed by employment status and relationship status. This report analyses personal well-being data for over 300,000 adults and it finds that:

·       those aged 65 to 79 tended to report the highest average levels of personal well-being ratings of life satisfaction and happiness were at their lowest, on average, for those aged 45 to 59

·       well-being ratings fell amongst the oldest age groups (those aged 75 and over) - this fall was steepest for feelings that activities they do in life are worthwhile

·       those aged 90 and over reported higher life satisfaction and happiness compared with people in their middle years

·       average anxiety ratings increased through early and middle years, peaking between 45 to 59 years, but then subsequently falling and remaining relatively unchanged for those aged 65 and over

This shift towards an older population will impact on important policies and services including the labour market, pension provision, and health and social care demand. Understanding more about how the oldest age groups rate their personal well-being will help focus on issues that are fundamental to a good later life.

Average ratings of life satisfaction, a sense that what one does in life is worthwhile and happiness peak for those aged between 65 to 79 years, however scores for all 3 measures decline in later life. The extent of this decline in personal well-being ratings was largest for average feelings that what one does in life is worthwhile, where those aged 90 and above reported the lowest average worthwhile rating of all the age groups. This particular finding might have important implications for policy when considering provision of worthwhile building activities into care settings for the over 90s. Whilst ratings of life satisfaction and happiness also fall in later life, interestingly average ratings remain higher for those aged 90 and above compared with people in their middle years.

The fall in ratings of personal well-being amongst the oldest age groups might result from a range of personal circumstances such as poor health, living alone and feelings of loneliness. Self-reported health has one of the strongest associations with all the measures of personal well-being, with those reporting higher personal wellbeing tending to report better general health. As health problems generally develop with age, it is reasonable to expect that older people are less able to participate in activities as freely as they once were. The direction of the relationship between personal well-being and health could be either way. Therefore, it is possible that creating interventions directed at improving well-being could also lead to improvements in the population’s general health.

Previous evidence has found that those aged 80 and over were also twice as likely to report feelings of loneliness compared with younger age groups. What’s more, these feelings of loneliness were found to have a strong relationship with low personal well-being ratings.

Those who reported that their health or disability had a negative impact on their ability to work had lower levels of personal well-being than those who said it didn’t affect their ability to work. This suggests that it is when disability and ill health limit people’s activities that it affects well-being most.

Personal well-being is highest among younger and older adults and dips in middle age

Differences in personal well-being between men and women are small, but women report higher ‘life satisfaction’, ‘worthwhile’ and ’happy yesterday’ levels. Women also reported slightly higher levels of ’anxious yesterday’ than men

Thoughts on Ageing

I  was reading a post from Smart living 365 which focused on a review of a book, by Ann Jenkins, the CEO of AARP, called Disrupt Aging—A Bold New Path To Living Your Best Life At Any Age.  As part of the post, the following 10 myths were put forward as a reason why society sees ageing as an issue. The issues raised by the post may be true and have to be addressed. 

The problem I have with these statements is that they make broad statements about a group of people which are false. Try an experiment as you read each of the myths, substitute the word "women" or the word "Black" or whatever minority group you can think of,  where the word ageing is placed.  We have to reject myths that stereotype any group, because it is wrong. However, as more Boomers retire and continue to enjoy life to the fullest as do the people I work with, these myths will slowly fade into distant memory.

To be fair, and I have talked about this before I flunked retirement after three months and decided to go back to work part time not because I had to but because I love to work. While I was working part time, I started to focus on finding meaning in things that I did to help people. I am lucky to say I found it, first through my work at SHARE Family Services and now in my role as a Workshop Facilitator on senior issues.

I focus on mature adults and seniors and helping them understand what a healthy and active ageing looks like. Over the last two years of doing these workshops, I have met with over 1,200 seniors that I had not met before, and I listened to what they have to say and what they think is important. So, I am going to address the 10 myths from my understanding of these issues as seen by seniors that I interact with on a weekly basis as to why these ways of thinking of ageing are out-dated. (My thoughts are in Italics)

Myth One:

Society tends to collectively believe that ageing is a huge societal problem and older people are seen as a burden or mostly a problem that needs to be fixed. Seniors don’t think we are a problem, we are too busy building or rebuilding, relationships with family, pursuing our hobbies, meeting with old friends, working part-time or travelling to worry about how society sees us. No senior I have met sees themselves as a burden, we all believe we are contributing to our society.

Myth Two:
While we do share responsibility for certain parts of aging like taking good care of our health and our finances—the choices, options, and abilities are not equal for everyone. Depending upon our sex, our race, our education, and our socio-economics, we either have advantages or disadvantages that should be considered. This is an interesting point, the seniors I have met, believe that at every age, the individual has responsibility for their health, their finances and choices. We know that options and abilities are not the same for everyone, but we understand that this is true no matter your age.  

Myth Three:

The best we can hope for as we age is a life of ease, comfort, reasonably good health (and a little entertainment) while we wait out the remainder of our lives. This is so far from the reality of the people I meet and interact with it is laughable. I am not sure if there are many seniors that believe this nonsense. For the seniors I meet with, life is about learning new things, taking new adventures and sharing stories and life with liked minded souls.

Myth Four:

Getting older is all about increasing decline and dependency. Seniors are living longer, working longer, and are healthier longer. An average 70 year old is in as good as shape as a 50 year ole was 30 years ago.  We fight to maintain our independence and we value our ability to stay independent.

Myth Five

We must do everything we can to be young, or at least seen as young because only the young have something valuable to offer the world.

The men and women I talk to on a regular basis, are young, young at heart. They are not as concerned about being seen as young and understand that with age comes wisdom we lacked when we were young. Some segments of society and media like to think that all seniors want to be young, but the people I meet with value their age.

Myth Six

We tend to blame most of our age-related limitations on getting older when many of those limitations actually come from an environment and culture that was designed to encourage and support the young. Seniors understand that we have political muscle. Although we do not see many issues with the same view, some of us are Conservative and some of us are Liberal we understand that politicians know we vote. Issues that affect us are taken seriously by our elected officials or they may get thrown out of office. Media portrays seniors as a group that wants to stay young, but Boomers have always accepted the realities of whatever age we are.

Myth Seven
Seniors who work are taking jobs away from young people and adding nothing to the economy.

I and many of the people I meet continued to work while after we retired, not because we had to but because we wanted to and we realized that our skill sets were in demand. Many of the positions that seniors fill would be left vacant if we were not filling them. There is a myth we are taking away jobs from the young which is not true. 

Myth Eight

Instead of seeing all of life as a continuous process of growth and development, many of us consider ageing as either having “arrived” or over the hill. I am not sure which group of people think this, maybe some youngsters that are daydreaming about retirement. None of the people I meet with, see being retired as “over the hill”, they are too busy growing and developing, going on trips, taking courses reading new books, volunteering or going to the theater. I think this myth goes back at least two or three generations, when people retired and died soon after, because of health issues.

Myth Nine

We stop celebrating the achievements and milestones of a growing and evolving human once we retire as though nothing worthwhile is occurring. The people I meet love any reason to celebrate, to mark the milestones of growing and evolving as people. Boomers always loved any reason to party, and we continue to do so.

Myth 10

Once we retire or consider ourselves a senior, we often stop planning who we want to become in the days ahead—Jenkins calls that “mindless aging.” I have yet to meet any senior that has stopped planning, most of the people have goals, that focus on their needs. Now I admit that I only meet people who are motivated to learn, and who come to our workshops on Healthy Ageing, but I suspect that they are a representative sample of my cohorts. Many people do not come to a workshop because they are too busy. Go to your local Senior or Community Center any day of the week, and you will see a lot of people engaged, active and excited about what they are doing. There are, of course older people who don’t have goals and don’t plan, but when I was in my 20’s I met people who did not plan and who did not focus on what they could become. We have to stop thinking about these issues as senior issues they are issues for all ages.

MELTING CANDY & CLASSIC MUSIC

Another fun musical interlude enjoy

Playing Against Type: The Typewriter Orchestra

Back in my teaching days, I taught Typing 9 and 10. Too bad I didn't think of this idea when I was teaching those courses. I taught some very talented people we could have made those old typewriters sing.