Accessing the Power of Gratitude

The practise of gratitude as a tool for happiness has been in the mainstream for years. Long-term studies support gratitude’s effectiveness, suggesting that a positive, appreciative attitude contributes to greater success in work, greater health, peak performance in sports and business, a higher sense of well-being, and a faster rate of recovery from surgery.

But while we may acknowledge gratitude’s many benefits, it still can be difficult to sustain. So many of us are trained to notice what is broken, undone, or lacking in our lives. And for gratitude to meet its full healing potential in our lives, it needs to become more than just a Thanksgiving word. We have to learn a new way of looking at things, a new habit. And that can take some time.

That’s why practicing gratitude makes so much sense. When we practice giving thanks for all we have, instead of complaining about what we lack, we give ourselves the chance to see all of life as an opportunity and a blessing.

Remember that gratitude isn’t a blindly optimistic approach in which the bad things in life are whitewashed or ignored. It’s more a matter of where we put our focus and attention. Pain and injustice exist in this world, but when we focus on the gifts of life, we gain a feeling of well-being. Gratitude balances us and gives us hope.

There are many things to be grateful for: colourful autumn leaves, legs that work, friends who listen and really hear, chocolate, fresh eggs, warm jackets, tomatoes, the ability to read, roses, our health, butterflies. What’s on your list?

Some Ways to Practice Gratitude

•                Keep a gratitude journal in which you list things for which you are thankful. You can make daily, weekly, or monthly lists. Greater frequency may be better for creating a new habit, but just keeping that journal where you can see it will remind you to think in a grateful way.

•                Make a gratitude collage by drawing or pasting pictures.

•                Practice gratitude around the dinner table or make it part of your nighttime routine.

•                Make a game of finding the hidden blessing in a challenging situation.

•                When you feel like complaining, make a gratitude list instead. You may be amazed by how much better you feel.

•                Notice how gratitude is impacting your life. Write about it, sing about it, express thanks for gratitude.

As you practice, an inner shift begins to occur, and you may be delighted to discover how content and hopeful you are feeling. That sense of fulfillment is gratitude at work.

Lonliness and isolation

 I belong to three senior groups that provide information and support for seniors, and the issue that keeps coming up over and over again is the issue of social isolation and loneliness for seniors.

The issue is not what we can do about it, or what causes it, but how do we identify those who are isolated and lonely. Many seniors live alone, because they have lost loved ones, but they live full and healthy lives, they are not lonely and not isolated. A recent study of a representative sample of Americans between the ages of 57 and 85 found that their average circle of friends was just under 4 people. However, one of the underlying factors determining the prevalence of people considered “isolated” is whether they live alone. According to a recent study by the National Council on Aging, an estimated 17% of all Americans over the age of 65 are isolated because they live alone, and face one or more barriers related to geographic location, language, or disability or income. One of the reasons may be that the older a person is, the more likely they are to have smaller networks, fewer primary network members, and more distant relationship ties.

Many researchers agree, however, that a solitary lifestyle alone is not an accurate indicator of isolation. A few studies have examined isolation in representative samples of older Americans, used a representative sample of older Americans to explore the relationship between loneliness and health. Isolation, defined as loneliness, was present among 16.9% of adults over 50 years old, 8.8% of which were considered chronically lonely. The prevalence of isolation has been explored internationally as well, with rates ranging from 2 to 20% among community-dwelling older adults (as opposed to those living in residential skilled settings).

Although a higher prevalence of isolation may occur at older ages, certain adaptations, such as increased interactions with neighbors and friends or use of technology, could serve as protective factors.

Our issue as organizations is that we do not have any good means to identify the 17% of seniors who self-identify as lonely. There is a lot of research that tells us what types of intervention work, but these interventions are used when people identify themselves as lonely. Because there is a stigma about mental health or asking for help for mental issues, in my generation and the older generations, there is a reluctance to identify as lonely as admitting it would be a sign of mental illness or being seen as weak.

Intervention types can be placed in the broad categories of one-on-one (professional or volunteer), group-focused (support groups, participation in group activities), or community-focused (village model, intergenerational intentional communities, modifying built environment).

One of the groups I am in used an intervention that incorporate technology by providing telephone support. Other interventions may be emailing with friends and family, facilitating communication or coordination of support with social network and group interventions virtual senior center, discussion group sessions held online, etc.

Most commonly targeted in terms of subjective isolation are loneliness and quality of relationships with social networks. Interventions targeting objective isolation often focus on size of social network (primary and secondary), frequency of interaction with contacts, and participation in socially engaging activities.

Housing options in retirement

 Senior care and housing that allows seniors to age in place are crucial to help our economy. We do not need more nursing homes. Rather than "ageing in place the idea that people should stay forever in the family home where they raised families. U.S. gerontologist Stephen Golant makes a strong case for  Aging in the Right Place.

Population ageing is a product of two good things, increasing life spans and control over our fertility. And while healthy ageing may improve with medical progress, experts have shown that even where it has been tried, policy to encourage significantly more births has not been successful.

In BC the government believes there are only the following four housing options for older adults.

·       Owning a Home

·       Renting a Home

·       Living in a Group Setting

·       Living in a Nursing Home

By making sure older people have housing that can be adapted for factors such as reduced mobility and easy in-home care, governments can effectively increase the availability of family homes.

What is interesting to me is the concept of co-housing is not on the list. Back in 2014 Margaret Critchlow who is an expert on Cohousing spoke at the 2014 John Friesen conference, “Housing Alternatives for an Aging Population” held at Simon Fraser University’s downtown Vancouver campus May 28-29, 2014. Here is some of what she said:

Fear arises easily when I look at the options available to our parents and realize that I don’t want those options and, worse, I couldn’t afford them. Baby Boomers had fewer children than previous generations so our potential for being a “burden” is spread among fewer offspring, and for those without children, where do we turn for family-like support as we age? We live 25 years longer than people did in 1900, so the prospect of outliving our savings increases especially as our generation has saved so little for retirement. Beyond the level of the individual, the “system” worries about everything from Baby Boomers’ potential demands for medical care, to our history of degrading the health of the planet.

For this conference, a central question becomes, how can housing support flourishing through a social connection in an ageing society? Harbourside Cohousing in Sooke, BC, is a prototype.  It is the second senior cohousing in Canada, after Wolf Willow in Saskatoon. It is the first, however, to include (1) a suite for a caregiver in the common house, and (2) an emphasis on the development of “co-care” or voluntary, neighbourly support. (3) Harbourside is the only cohousing in the world, as for as we know, to have a required course weekend for membership.

As I see it, the demand for senior cohousing is limited by three barriers: (1) affordability. Cohousing is basically market housing. People need equity to buy into senior cohousing under the current model of strata-titled homeownership. (2) scarcity of project management capacity. It is limited to the energy and skills of a very few firms, concentrated in BC and California (3) inertia. People want to age in place.  They are wary of change. They are “not ready.”

Working to soften these barriers, CSCS believes that senior cohousing can be a major social innovation if we focus on the “software” – i.e., adapting cohousing principles to a wide range of housing forms and potential demand – I said we would be lucky to build senior cohousing for 0.1% of the senior population. So what happens to the other 99.9% of the elderly population? This is where we get really inventive. How about retrofitting the culture of existing buildings and strata councils, neighbourhood houses for seniors, and housing co-operatives with the values (e.g. co-care, participation, shared leadership, social connection, reduced energy use) already developed in cohousing? In this way much closer to 100% of the elderly population can benefit from what co-housing has to teach us.

 

This is another option for Boomers and it is one worth considering.

 

Live long, and stay healthy

 I read this quote somewhere, but I am not sure where I read it, but it got me thinking. “Based on their own fears of becoming dependent, people approaching 65 expect everyone will go into a long slow decline of illness and decrepitude. That's just not what happens, instead, the vast majority of us remain vigorous until 85 or 90. Essentially you live very healthy for a long time and then sort of drop off quickly.”

I am surprised every time a younger person says to me that they admire how active I am. I guess I should not be because I realized that many young people believe what the quote says.  I do not have the energy that I once did, but I also realize that I don’t have to do things in the same amount of time. I have more time, therefore I can, with the luxury of time, complete all the things that I want to do.

When I was working, I would work and then go home and take care of family, and work needed to be done around the home, and then I would tackle the volunteer activities I wanted to do. I was always pressed for time. Weekends always seemed to be hectic, as we tried cramming everything, we wanted to do into a very compressed period.

When I retired it took me a while to realize that I had the luxury of time, and I had my health. With time I could accomplish everything I wanted to do, without feeling exhausted and worn out and without jeopardizing my health. I and most of the seniors I know, spend time looking after our health. Take a walk on any afternoon and you will see the majority of walkers are seniors (at least in my neck of the woods). Go to your local pool and most of the swimmers are seniors but there are a fair number of mothers with toddlers as well. My generation knows that if we want to age well, we have to work at looking after ourselves. I am in my mid-seventies, but I have many friends and acquaintances who are in their early eighties, and they are still active and healthy. If the quote is true, I have a few more years and I plan to use them to enrich my family, friends and my community.