Editor’s note: Longtime Arizona Daily Star columnist Marilyn Heins has released her latest book, “A Traveler’s Guide to Geriatrica: A Journey Into the Changing Land of Aging.”
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Heins is taking to Zoom for virtual book events and is sharing excerpts of her work with the Star. This is the final installment.
A Zoom event, on March 31 at 2 p.m., will be sponsored by the local bookstore, Mostly Books.
Registration is available at geriatricabook.com.
You can find the book on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Walmart and Mostly Books.
“A Traveler’s Guide to Geriatrica” by Marilyn Heins is available for purchase at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and local bookstores.
What can we do to keep our spirits up as we age? Because longevity means losses, it is likely we will all have bad, sad days.
We can count and know our days are numbered. They are when we are young, too, but youth comes with built-in optimism that often dwindles as we age.
These bad, sad days may not be clinical depression, but they sure can feel like it.
Here is a list of what I do to recover from such a day:
1. My mother had a friend who would say, “Why speak of it?” when bad, sad thoughts arose.
2. Why even think of it? Shake off these thoughts that creep up unawares. Pretend you are a dog shaking off water from its back.
3. Telling your thoughts to shut up is a difficult task. But doing something active like taking a walk or going to the gym can help.
4. To “treat” a bad day I have a routine I do. I make myself go through the motions of my day, get out of the house, do some exercise, call somebody. And if I get through the day, I give myself a little victory present like a piece of chocolate and pat myself on the head — I can’t reach my back any more.
5. If it’s a bad day for a reason like the anniversary of a loved one’s death or birthday, wallow in your grief. Cry, look at pictures, remember the person. But just for one day. Remember the five-second rule? Make wallowing a one-day rule.
I am still alive thanks to scientific Western medicine. But Eastern medicine has some useful methods that can prevent and help with sad, bad days as well as chronic pain. Yoga, meditation, tai chi, acupuncture, mindfulness, massage can work wonders. Don’t use in place of going to a doctor, consider it supplemental. East and West working together.
There are some self-help strategies I use. Seeing and keeping in touch with younger friends helps me. During lunch with one of my dear friends young enough to be my daughter, she used the phrase “textured friendships” to describe interactions with people of all ages. Nice description! I reach out to my younger friends and find them exhilarating. No, I cannot keep up with them but hearing about their work, projects, travels is like a tonic. Another way to lift my spirits is taking courses at the university. They are virtual now but soon the weather and pandemic will make a walk on the mall possible. Seeing younger people and exercising my brain makes me feel (almost) young again.
The Harvard School of Public Health published the results of a study that showed optimists live longer. An optimist believes good things will happen while pessimists always see the future as bleak. We always figured people came that way, either optimistic or pessimistic. But maybe we can find ways to modulate these traits.
Some years ago, my daughter gave me a sweet little dish only big enough to hold a ring or two. Painted in bright colors, it reads, “I think I will just be happy today.” Why not?
And maybe, just maybe, if we decided to be happy every day, our bad, sad, pessimistic days would diminish.
