I never imagined that one day I would grow old, just as I find it incredible that my parents are already over seventy years old.
My dad is over 70 years old, but his hair is only gray and his appearance has not changed much. In the house I bought in the suburbs, he is busy in the small yard all day long, planting his two-cent vegetable plot.
My mother was not in good health. She suffered from rheumatism when she was young and often had leg pains. But in my impression, she only had leg pains and a weak digestive function.
I couldn't associate their real ages with them until my dad was hospitalized a few days ago.
He was hospitalized due to an accident, but the accident instantly caused him to lose his previous vitality. His voice became weak and weak. The hospital only allowed one person to accompany the bed and was not allowed to go out, so my mother, who was over 70 years old, was quarantined. When I entered the hospital, I could only sneak into the ward quietly during the shift handover in the morning and simply deliver something.
They are aging visibly to the naked eye at a speed that I can't even imagine. Or maybe they didn’t just start aging recently, but I have been selectively ignoring them. It suddenly occurred to me that I was discussing the issue of my family of origin some time ago, and suddenly I felt a little confused - all my memories happened when I was a child, when I was still a child and they were in their prime. I never thought that one day, they would be so old that they might not be able to live with me for too many days.
Compared with my numbness, my parents themselves may have experienced "aging" for a long time. Although my dad still does a lot of work, he also started to tell me: I may have to rely on you to maintain this house in the future. I can't climb. . My mother still gives me this and that as usual, but she also occasionally says: "I'm tired."
what? Will they also get tired? Will they also feel powerless?
It’s scary to think about it.
I recently read a book "Hello, My Life with Gray Hair". As the name suggests, this book tells about the psychological life of people after they enter old age. This book is actually a professional psychology book, but for some reason, when I read it, I couldn't help but get distracted and needed to calm down before I could continue. I knew it was my fear.
01 happiness
Everyone is busy throughout their lives, what are they pursuing? Just two words: happiness. American psychologist Ed Diener believes that happiness is a subjective psychological experience, with higher life satisfaction, more positive emotions and less negative emotions. In other words, happiness only needs to be composed of two aspects, one is satisfaction with life, and the other is emotional experience.
When most people talk about old age, they will feel sad. They think that the body functions of the elderly are gradually declining and life is coming to an end inexplicably, so they must have no chance of happiness. However, this is not the case. According to surveys by psychologists, people's experience of happiness shows a U-shaped curve: happiness is strongest in the early stages of life and in old age, but happiness is lowest in middle age, making it easy to fall into a midlife crisis.
Returning to the two elements of happiness, in fact, the elderly’s ability to regulate emotions and their tolerance for the external environment will be greatly improved. This is why many elderly people can still control their bodies despite their declining sense of control. Reasons to maintain a sense of well-being.
I go to the park every morning. There are very few young people in the park, and most of them are old people. They are walking, playing swords, boxing, or flipping bars, in small groups, and they are happy beyond words.
As an elderly person, it is not useless. Similar research has also been verified in cognitive aspects, such as human intelligence. Fluid intelligence is based on neurophysiology and will decline with age. But on the other hand, Crystallized intelligence will remain stable in adulthood. It is greatly affected by social culture and education, and can still remain relatively stable in old age. In other words, older people may have slower reflexes, but their wisdom often increases.
Therefore, whether it is from the U-shaped curve of happiness or from the changes in human intelligence, we can draw a conclusion: life is a complex entity, and there is no single form of trend. Just like the question of "how to treat old age" itself, it will As it directly affects happiness, old age is not a scourge, but like all ages, advantages and disadvantages coexist.
The purpose of happiness can also be extended here: our subjective happiness about a thing comes from "how we see it", not "what it is like".
Psychologists also gave the elderly 2 tips for happiness:
- Record 3 things that make you happy every day
- Compare more with those who are not as good as you
02 Nostalgia
Many elderly people like to be nostalgic. As the saying goes, a good man also mentions his courage in the past. . Related to this, many elderly people like to hoard old things, which is very different from the habits of many young people.
In fact, nostalgia is also called "return psychology". When we are rushing on the road, occasionally stopping to look back often helps us reflect on the past and absorb emotional nourishment. Therefore, the nostalgia of the elderly is actually a kind of wisdom in life. .
Psychologists have discovered through research that nostalgia has a stable and positive significance for the elderly to stay happy, find themselves and maintain relationships.
- Nostalgia is the storehouse of positive emotions for the elderly
- Nostalgia is the ladder for the elderly to find a better self - it is a protective mechanism that helps the elderly see themselves in a more positive light and improve their self-esteem levels. At the same time, nostalgia can also make people kinder and softer. Most importantly, nostalgia can provide individuals in old age with the opportunity to integrate themselves and face death.
After reading the above content, as younger generations, can we understand the nostalgia of the elderly? Can we give the elderly greater tolerance and permission? Just as we ourselves hoped.
03 Loneliness
Loneliness is a topic that many elderly people cannot avoid, especially in today's busy society. With the increase of empty-nest elderly people, the loneliness of the elderly will only become more intense than before. Many elderly people show varying degrees of inadaptability in social interactions, which can lead to feelings of loneliness or even depression.
There are two manifestations of loneliness among the elderly. They are either taciturn and depressed, or they are irritable and irritable, often getting angry over trivial matters. The former is easier to understand, while the latter often causes disputes and resentment. In fact, the irritability may be to attract the attention of the people around you, which makes people feel sad - how similar to the behavior of young children, using crying to attract attention. I wonder if we can gain a little more understanding by re-examining the irritability of the elderly from this perspective?
Some studies have shown that long-term loneliness will make the cognitive function of the elderly decline faster, make them more susceptible to cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease, and shorten their lifespan by about 6 years compared with elderly people who are less lonely.
Some of the loneliness of the elderly comes from the social environment, such as empty nesters, only children, etc., and some comes from communication barriers with relatives, especially children. As children, this is where we can do our homework. As an elderly person, you can also adopt more active coping methods to get rid of loneliness.
- Self-integration, regain the meaning of life
- Develop new interests and learn new things
- Go out of the house and fully enjoy your old age
In short, loneliness, like happiness, is a subjective feeling, and this subjective feeling , in fact, we have the initiative to choose. By choosing appropriate strategies and responding proactively, you can maintain a high quality of life in your later years.
[Written at the end]
Each of us has elders, and each of us will eventually grow old. With the rapid development of my country's aging society, how to deal with the problems of the elderly has become an increasingly urgent topic.This book "Hello, My Gray-haired Life" covers many key topics such as intergenerational parenting, successful aging, cognitive health, lifelong learning, prevention of deception, psychological needs, positive emotions, happiness, etc. It is a book that deals with the elderly. A guide to life. Perhaps through this book, we can not only understand and be more tolerant of our parents, but also have a clearer understanding of our future.
I am Tangtang with dreams:
❤️ National second-level psychological counselor
❤️Multi-platform contracted author (unified ID for the whole network: Tangtang with dreams)
❤️One psychological certification writer
❤️ Cold outside and hot inside
❤️ Passionate about in-depth information
❤️Published "Being Emotionally Stable Parents: You Are Your Child's Original Family"
If you have any psychological confusion, please feel free to send a private message in the background. I write for myself, hoping to meet "fellow travelers" with whom I can resonate
