Growing old is always frustrating for everyone. Such as children moving out of the house. Distancing from friends, parents passing away, and loss of other loved ones. Declining health and career-ending. These things happen to every individual. But these life events can cause an imbalance of mental health. With healthy ingredients, you can have active mental health. For a healthy and active mental health, you need to reinvent yourself as you approach the elderly age of 60, 70 and beyond. It means learning to adapt according to the changes. Enjoy finding new things that will make you stay active. Your community plays a major role in defining your mental health. With aging, you also face anxiety and fear that can act like a cancerous disease which leads to depression. What would happen if I lose my wife? How would I survive alone in this stage of my life? Yet, these fears can be root misconceptions about aging.
The truth is you are stronger and more flexible than you think you are. Following tips would help you maintain an active mental and physical health, no matter what your circumstances are. Passing the spare time is quite easy with the help of technology. The technology is the best friend now a days. Bring a video projector to your home and forget loneliness. Well it’s under our control how we choose to manage all using latest technology stuff.
1. Coping with changes
When you start to approach the later age of your life, you will face both periods of joy and stress. It is important to be flexible and finding healthy new ways of facing these challenges. This approach would help you cherish the joyful times and make you stronger for the stressful moments.
2. Grateful Things
The more you live, the more you lose. You lose loved ones and life becomes precious. Cherish the little things that life has to offer and stop taking things for granted. Appreciate and cherish good moments even more.
3. Express Every Thought
You may face hard times in your life, expressing emotions may seem inappropriate and weakening. But hiding those feelings can cause anxiety, insomnia, and depression. Express yourself in the best possible way, opening up to a close friend or writing in a diary.
4. Travel
Explore to the fullest of your abilities. Go to places that you always wished to visit. Take every weekend as an opportunity to embrace yourself to a new adventure. It can be as simple to travel as you just need to pick adult tricycle and go outside. Meet new people, try new cuisines, and explore new cultures.
5. Silver Linning
Learn from your mistakes. If a stressful situation is a result of a poor choice that you have made in the past. Look for the opportunity of learning from your mistakes and extracting a personal growth out of it. Do not stress over those situations, instead reflect them as an opportunity of making things right.
6. Meaning and Joy
An ingredient that is key to maintaining health is finding meaning to your life and continuing to enjoy every bit of it. Your age, your life will start to face gradual changes. You start to lose things that use to make you happy, you may face retirement from your passionate career, you loved ones, children may move away. Don’t let this stop you from moving forward and exploring new things. Elderly life can be as exciting as younger life. New endeavors are waiting for you to explore them only if you want to.
7. Neglected Hobby
A hobby that you use to be passionate about but fell off as life got serious. An indoor game, a sport or a foreign language you always wanted to learn. This is the best time to start pursuing those hobbies that you were unable to fulfill.
8. Accept Things You Cannot Change
There are things that life throws at you that you cannot control. Rather stressing over it, focus on getting over it by choosing to react to that problem in a positive way. Every individual has limitations, face them with dignity and add a healthy sense of humor over it.
9. Social Circle
One of the challenges you face growing old is keeping up with your social circle. No matter how extroverted you are, there is always something that causes the disconnection. Moving from places due to career choices, illness or retirement plans. Things can make you move away from your loved ones. The older you get, you tend to lose more people. Make a habit of spending time with the people you love, who are important to you. It is important for active mental health to have an active social circle. Celebrate special events with them. Cherish little moments of joy with the people who make you feel upbeat.
10. Stay Active
It is a myth that when you grow old your physical self will be miserable. Growing old do have a physical impact, but that should not stop you from feeling young and active. You may get ill and feel pain in your body. Not all are avoidable but that does not mean you need to feel discomfort. Physical challenges growing old can be overcome with mitigating with a daily workout routine. A proper diet plan and taking care of yourself in the right way.