Laugh all you want but it will happen to you too.
Over the years, your face will start to undergo noticeable changes. Fine lines will start to appear around your eyes and above your lips. Later they will become darker and more clearly visible.
Some hair on your body will suddenly appear from places you did not expect and it will be much darker than the rest of the hair.
We don’t want to get into the gray hair debate that doesn’t really improve your already receding hairline.
Nor will we mention the pain that hits your joints and muscles the moment you step out of bed or suddenly hits you when you’re doing the most mundane of tasks. .
Welcome to old age. Or at least about the idea we’ve been sold about aging.
In a society where youth is highly valued, it feels as if it is a crime to go beyond the age of 35 or 40.
Gemma Molland of the Center for Aging Better, a non-governmental organization in London, says: ‘The popular perception is that aging is actually a step towards deterioration and inevitable breakdown, and this perception is actually based on age discrimination. It comes from behavior that exists in many societies and is so embedded that people readily accept this false doctrine.’
“In reality, aging should be seen as a process of becoming better, with new possibilities awaiting you, new hobbies and interests you can pursue,” she says. Can go on a campaign or do something better in society.’
However, Molland says we need to be careful about looking at age as an indicator because ‘our experience of aging can change based on a number of other factors such as where we live, what our economic and social situation is like, What race do we belong to or do we have any kind of disability or not?’
Nature is very intelligent
I am over 50 years old and I can proudly say that this pessimistic view of aging that is being peddled is both outdated and largely false.
People say that nature is intelligent. I think that is exactly the case. Do wrinkles increase over time? Of course, but at the same time you don’t want to see them. Are you gaining weight and your clothes don’t fit? But at the same time, it doesn’t matter to you what people think about your clothes or your body shape.
It is true that your self-esteem and self-esteem improve over time.
Not only that, but there are many other things that get better with age and some don’t go away as quickly as thought. Some skills that can be improved not in the 20s and 30s, but in the 40s, for example, according to a study, the best age for women to participate in an ultramarathon is 40 to 44 years, while for men, it is 45 to 49 years. Is.
Apart from this I can give some other examples.
Cognitive habits
Previously, popular thought was that your brain peaked in your 20s, recovered in middle age, and then slowly declined in old age.
However, we now know that our brains continue to change throughout our lives, but where certain abilities become weaker over time, such as memory, the short-term ability to remember to process it. Some even improve.
According to a study published in the Harvard Health Magazine in the US, with age ‘the brain becomes able to find relationships between different sources of information, it is easier to see any problem from a different angle or its bigger picture. And the global impact of any aspect can be estimated.”That is, wisdom increases with age.
According to the research of Professor Michael T. Allman of George’s University in the United States and João Verissimo, Assistant Professor at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, two mental abilities improve with age.
One is the right use of your mind’s resources and the other is to keep aside such information that is not necessary for us and focus on the important thing.
“Like right now I’m thinking about your face and I’m ignoring Joao’s smile,” Alman told BBC Mundo on Zoom, which was also attended by Joao.
“But it also improves abilities that were previously thought to deteriorate, and we’ve been able to see in research that they do improve,” he said. Like increasing vocabulary and controlling your emotions. All these things probably improve with experience.
Al-Man is 61 years old and says that in his experience, he is still getting better with time at “hard things like writing scientific papers and doing research.” I think I will reach my peak 10 to 15 years from now. I’m still getting better.’
Immune system
While our body’s immune system weakens with age (as our body produces fewer white blood cells and they work less efficiently), there is another part of our immune system that changes over the years. Becomes stronger due to exposure to pathogens.
Here we are talking about the memory of the immune system which works like the memory of our brain.
John Upham, professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Queensland, told BBC Mundo that ‘the first time our body is exposed to a certain type of infection, it gets very sick, but the second, third or fourth time you get it. When confronted, you have already learned to respond appropriately and effectively.
“That way you don’t get sick from it, or if you do, it’s a much weaker attack than the first time.”
Immune memory is not particularly good early in life.
‘It gets better and better in childhood, adolescence and middle age, and it starts working very well in your late 60s, early 70s,’ says Professor John Upham.
As a result, older people are less likely to get colds or flu – unless they have other underlying illnesses. Especially compared to young children, for whom most pathogens are new and are sick all the time.
The immune system ‘starts to weaken partially around the age of 70.’
Another added benefit is the reduced severity of allergies.
“People over the age of 60 or 70 have relatively fewer allergies than children or adults,” says Upham.
“This may be due to the fact that your immune system is not reacting as strongly,” he says.
‘Having a strong or weak immune system can be beneficial or bad depending on the situation: if it’s not overactive it can be a problem when you get an infection, but it’s actually a positive thing in terms of allergies. ‘
Happiness
Happiness is a difficult process to quantify, but science has been trying to explain it since at least the 90s.
And although there are many factors that affect our ability to enjoy life, socioeconomic status, health, etc., researchers found that regardless of these factors or demographics, there is one pattern: happiness is shaped like the English letter U. It happens.
That is, people are relatively happy when young, this feeling declines with age (a common example is the famous midlife crisis), and then increases again by age 70.
Economists Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in the UK and David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College in the US first tested the U hypothesis using data from five hundred thousand people in the US and Western Europe and found that happiness and satisfaction decline in middle age. Observed.
Later surveys in 72 developed and developing countries confirmed the same trend, in addition to data collected in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.
Why do we regain the ability to enjoy life as we age?
Many theories explain that older people are happier or have more positive thoughts than younger generations.
Dana Rosenfeld is a social gerontologist at the University of Westminster in the UK. She explains in an article in The Conversation that, in principle, ‘young people face more stressful events (such as falling wages or unemployment) than older people.’
Also, with age ‘we tend to focus on memories and positive information and we get better at controlling our emotions.’
Laura Carlston, a professor of psychology at Stanford University in the US, relates it to the ‘unique ability of humans to recognize their own mortality and make better use of their time’.
Carlston says that as older people learn that they are close to death, they learn to live better in the present. They focus on what’s important today, like how they’re feeling, and pay less attention to long-term goals.
Sexual satisfaction
Contrary to many people’s expectations, various studies show that sexual satisfaction is much higher in older people.
For example, a study of sexual activity and satisfaction among older American women found that half of 80-year-old women had an orgasm most or always during intercourse.
Why can sex become a more pleasurable experience with age?
US-based psychologist Catalina Lawson tells the BBC: ‘As we get older, we develop emotional maturity and we get to know what we want and that’s where our sexuality comes from. The experience improves and we actually start to focus on the things that make us happy.’
Self-esteem, self-awareness, and feeling satisfied with your body can also contribute to a more pleasurable sexual experience.
Natalie Wilton is a therapist and social worker with extensive experience researching sex in older people. ‘This includes the simple fact that in old age we generally have more free time and less distractions in our daily lives, which makes time for sex,’ she says. ‘
‘If you think about the typical middle-aged adult who works, has children and cares for other people, it all adds up to a very busy life.’
However, it is also not something that magically changes by entering old age.
“Sex at any age is related to your sex-related behavior, so if your sex life wasn’t good before you hit your 50s, 60s or 70s, it’s not going to suddenly get better,” she says. .’
And what about the physical barriers that come up in this regard? Although it is true that aging can bring with it problems such as chronic diseases, complications with mobility or vaginal atrophy in women after menopause or difficulty in achieving erection in men.
Wilton and Lawson agree that ‘these are difficulties that can be overcome’.
“The most important thing is to have an open conversation with your partner and with your doctor about whether any medication you’re taking could be having an adverse effect on your sex life.”
Lawson says there are a number of proven strategies (from using lubricants to using sex toys) that can help increase libido and libido.
It’s also important to ‘set aside assumptions about what sex should be’ and remember that ‘sexual satisfaction has nothing to do with how often or how you have sex. are.’
‘It has to do with how connected you are to your body and how close you are to your partner.’
So if you have started getting gray hair and you have forgotten the birthday dates of your relatives and friends, don’t despair and embrace this new phase.
There are still many skills to be honed and many experiences that await you.
