How to age well: messages from the social sciences
Part II: Advice to my Ageing Self
In my last article I drew on some of the philosophy that informs theories of ageing, concluding that growing old can be seen as the final stage in human development and not simply a period of decline. In this article I want to share with you what I am learning from my reading about the ageing process. I am new to this ageing lark, both as a researcher and a participant, but feel like I have made enough inroads into the theory of growing old well to give myself five signposts, which I share here, in case they are of any use to you too.
1. Old age is not an illness — you can keep going
My mother-in-law, before she died at the age of almost 90, went right off her doctor. She had always found him helpful, sympathetic and proactive in dealing with her health problems. In the last few years of her life, she complained that he wasn’t doing anything to “make her better”. That was because there wasn’t actually anything wrong with her. She had a little less energy, her appetite was on the wane, she was breathless at times, she had a few aches and pains. In short, she was old, not ill, and no medicine was going to turn back the clock. She struggled to see the difference between being old and being ill.
Let’s be clear: the body signals that indicate something rather more sinister than creaking joints must not be ignored at any age. Yet there seems to be a recurring theme in research papers that ‘good’ ageing involves an acceptance of physical decline as an inevitable part of growing old, as long as this is accompanied by a determination to keep doing whatever one has always done: continuity theory.
As an example, let me introduce you to Mr Hopkins: “I have arthritis in my shoulders and hands but I don’t let that stop me. I keep on moving. I do my thing”, and Mr Scott, who still gardens at 100 years old: “You’ve got something that needs to be done, get your tail out there and do it”. These were among 20 centenarians interviewed in 2017 by Melinda Heinz et al for the Oklahoma 100 Year Life Oral History Project. The purpose of the study was to look for real-life evidence of the various theories of ageing studied by gerontologists. Activity theory — a proposition that ageing well involves staying active and engaged — was evident in these 100 year-old participants, even in those with quite debilitating conditions.
Advice to myself number 1: Don’t see old age as a barrier to doing what you enjoy. But….
2. Become more selective
You slow down when you are older, but there are still only 24 hours in the day. I remember the days when I was up at 6.15 am, out for a jog before getting the kids out of bed and to the breakfast table, did a full day’s work, drove the kids to swimming/violin lesson/their mate’s house, cooked dinner, picked the kids up from swimming/violin lesson/their mate’s house, ate dinner, did my prep for work the next day….you get the picture, and it’s one that will be all too familiar to you if you are in your middle years. Until recently I thought that I could still operate like that. I learned a very valuable lesson a couple of Christmases ago. My son was living in New York City, coming back to the UK for a few days at Christmas, and everyone we know wanted to see him. Could he pop round for a few hours to various friends and family members? He had four days; take out Christmas day and Boxing day, eight households to fit in. The maths didn’t add up. The obvious answer: a lunch party — everyone coming to us on one day. So in addition to all the other Christmas stuff — you know — the planning, shopping, card-sending, gift-wrapping, tree-dressing, I set about planning and cooking for a buffet for 36 people and organising kids’ festive games. It was great fun, but exhausting. At five in the morning on the day of the party I woke knowing that I was more ill than I had been in a decade. My body had finally taken charge and was forbidding me to leave my bed for a whole 24hours. I had thrown sensible precaution to the wind, and look where it had got me. I knew I needed to be more careful. There is a dilemma here though: where is the line between sensible precaution and over-caution, and how would I recognise it? To make a start, I decide to me more selective in what I choose to do. The second bit of advice to myself is:
Advice number 2: Do stuff. Lots of it. But be choosy about what you do. And take time to rest in-between your selected activities.
(If you’re interested, the party went ahead with the sterling support of my son and daughter-in-law and my best friend, who turned out mid-morning and put on her apron.)
3. Optimise and compensate
There is more to being selective about what you do with your days. I am learning that there are ways of doing things that I wouldn’t have dreamt of in the past. With hindsight, I could have planned that party differently. Why didn’t I ask everyone to bring one dish, and hire a karaoke machine for entertainment, or get the older kids to run party games for the younger ones? Why didn’t I optimise my considerable organisational skills to compensate for my falling energy levels? Baltes and Baltes developed the Selective Optimization with Compensation Theory to illustrate how adults can successfully adapt to old age by focussing on gains rather than losses and facing challenges by adopting compensation strategies. The Oklahoma centenarians provide evidence of this in abundance; despite physical decline and the loss of their peers, they continue to find pleasure in their day by optimising what they still have rather than dwelling on what they have lost. “Just enjoy as things come along. Ms Culvern commented. “Do the best you can.” They compensated for physical decline by adapting the way they do things. Ms. Koelsch, for example, has learned a whole new way of cooking now that her eyesight is practically gone.
It is worth noting that Heinz et al propose that the participants in this study cope well with the hardships of old age because they have lived through hard times in the past, such as war, the American Dust Bowl and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Perhaps this is a small comfort to those who will suffer hardship during the current Covid pandemic and its aftermath.
Advice number 3: Make the most of what you have, don’t dwell on what you’ve lost. Find new ways to do things if the old ways now seem hard.
4. Stay tuned in
How tech-savvy are the over 70s? Cowgill and Holmes applied Weber’s Modernization Theory to ageing in order to explain the phenomenon that as society becomes more modern, the status of older people declines. The industrial revolution and the subsequent urbanisation of many societies is a good historical example, and the technical revolution of the last thirty years is a current one. Older generations who are not in the frontline of social and economic change can feel left behind.
I was fortunate. I was in full-time employment when personal computers landed on our desks, when fax machines made urgent communication possible and when the internet transformed where and how we worked. I learned all that stuff alongside everyone else — it was new and exciting for all of us. I am of the generation who can remember what life was like before on-line shopping, instant messaging and social media, but I do not inhabit that tech-free space now. But some people do. During the Covid pandemic my neighbour across the road, 20 years my senior, relies entirely on others for her shopping because she has no internet. I make on-line grocery orders and have despatched Christmas gifts all over the country without leaving my study. I feel very lucky to be able to do this, and want to ensure that I do not lose touch with developments since I retired. I don’t need to engage with the latest database applications, but I want to be open-minded about the ways in which technology can enhance my life. My granddaughter is 10 years old this week and I will be hosting a Zoom quiz for her and seven school friends who under current restrictions cannot spend time together in person. Before the pandemic I hadn’t heard of Zoom. And as I age there will be more technology to embrace.
Advice number 4: Keep up with the technology to stay tuned in to this ever-changing world.
5. Enjoy the people in your life
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines healthy ageing as “the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age”, and it defines functional ability as “having the capabilities that enable all people to be and do what they have reason to value” (my emphasis). This phrase really strikes a chord with me, and I reflect: What do I have reason to value? And what ‘functional capability’ will I need to have in order to do what I value?
The first answer is easy. I value other people above all else. My family: son, step-son, daughter, their families, the grandchildren. My friends: folks of all ages: some from my university days and early career going back half a century, some from more recent times — neighbours who are so much more than the folks next door or across the street, new friends we met on holiday, and some — the children of my friends and the friends of my children — less than half my age. In pre-Covid times these friendships were conducted in many different ways, depending on the distance between us. I drove long and short distances, took long and short train journeys, opened up our guest room so often that a neighbour once asked me how my Airbnb business was going!
The second part, about my ‘functional capability’, requires more thought. Since March 2020, like everyone else, I have fallen back on technology to nurture friendships, except for friends close by, with whom there have been many “doorstep chats” and a few socially-distanced walks. This has given me a taste for what life would be like if old age, rather than coronavirus, confined me to the house. I dread the thought of being that old woman sitting in the window, hoping that every movement on the other side of the net curtain might materialise into a caller, prepared to spend a little time with me.
As I age, the nurturing of friendships feels like it has never been more important: the wisdom and empathy of the old, the exuberance and distraction of the young and the innocence and enthusiasm of the children all feed my soul. I am not alone in feeling this. Social studies going back to the 1940s consistently link high levels of social activity to life satisfaction in old age. So how do I keep up my friendships, maybe even acquire new ones, over the next decade or more? If the current lockdown has taught me to value social media as a means of keeping in touch, it has also made clear that virtual contact is no substitute for snuggles on the sofa, conversation over claret or belly laughs in the bar.
To have those moments in abundance, my final piece of advice to myself is to never lose sight of points 1–4 above. Plans will be made through my laptop and mobile phone: friends will be contacted, news shared. But nothing beats the physical presence of family and friends, and there will be new ways of being together when the old ways become hard. Too long a drive? Taxi and train. A day in the kitchen seems daunting? Takeaway supper. By the way, I already have one very good friend who always brings her own bed linen when she stays.
Advice number 5: Enjoy the rich mix of friends and family every day, even when you have to find new ways of doing so.
Here’s to another decade of togetherness!
