By Becca Levy
This book was fascinating. Becca Levy, a professor at Yale, is one of the leading experts on the psychology of successful aging. She demonstrates many health problems that are commonly thought to be entirely the fault of aging, such as memory loss, hearing decline, and cardiovascular issues, are heavily influenced by negative age beliefs that are so prominent in many countries. She argues that we must rethink aging.
An age belief is the way you think about aging and older people. Are you basically positive or negative about older people and aging? Extensive research by Levy, and many other studies around the world, demonstrate that having positive age beliefs can add an average of 7.5 years to your life.
One anecdote: The longest-living people in the world are Japanese. Not surprisingly, Japan prizes and esteems older people. Having positive age beliefs corresponds to greater health, happiness, longevity, and other good results.
It is widely assumed that memory declines with age. That is not necessarily true. Research shows that certain aspects of memory can actually improve with age. And many older people demonstrate incredible feats of memory, including the septuagenarian who memorized every line of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
She describes how ageism, prejudice or discrimination against older people, is not only common, but considered acceptable in the U.S. and many other countries. In contrast to other kinds of discrimination, such as race, gender, sexuality, it is normally considered completely acceptable to discriminate on the basis of age. She argues that we should be aware of ageism and negative age beliefs and counter them whenever possible.
For example, the phrase “senior moment” is inaccurate because everyone forgets things, not just older people. This is just one example of ageism. Another example would be to think that older people have more accidents than younger people. The evidence establishes that senior citizens have fewer accidents per capita than younger citizens.
One striking remark found in the book is this one: “Most people retire as soon as they get good at something.”
The mind-body connection is so strong that positive age beliefs can even overcome certain biological factors predisposing one to Alzheimer’s.
It is time to significantly re-think how we look at aging.