General
The 50 Best Life Story Questions
Personal historian and award-winning documentarian Dan Curtis has a very interesting blog. Based on his many years of work recording life stories, he assembled a list of 50 questions to inspire people to start talking about their lives and to share their stories. The top 10 questions are:
- If you could do one thing over in your life, what would it be?
- What makes you happy?
- Looking back on your life, what do you regret?
- What do you believe to be true?
- What is the secret to a happy life?
- What do you believe happens to us after we die?
- Who’s had the greatest influence on your life and why?
- What are the qualities that you admire in your friends?
- What is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do?
- How would you describe yourself?
To read the rest of Dan’s list click here.
How Music Improves the Memory of Dementia Patients
A new, beautiful film called “Alive Inside” has premiered in New York City this month. The film features the story of a 92 year old gentleman with dementia named Henry Dryer who basically was almost noncommunicative until music came back into his life. He had loved music when he was young and now that he listens to music regularly, he sings songs, carries on brief conversations, can recall some memories and even dance. He has “come alive”.
The film tracks the lives of seven patients with dementia, including Henry, who have benefitted through the work of a nonprofit called Music & Memory which donates iPods and personalized music to people with dementia. “Music imprints itself on the brain deeper than any other human experience. Music evokes emotion, and emotion can bring with it memory… it brings back the feeling of life when nothing else can,” says renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks who appears in the film.
To read more, click here
The Dakini Speaks
THE DAKINI SPEAKS
by Jennifer Welwood
My friends, let’s grow up.
Let’s stop pretending we don’t know the deal here.
Or if we truly haven’t noticed, let’s wake up and notice.
Look: everything that can be lost, will be lost.
It’s simple–how could we have missed it for so long?
Let’s grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings,
But please, let’s not be so shocked by them.
Let’s not act so betrayed,
As though life had broken her secret promise to us.
Impermanence is life’s only promise to us,
And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.
To a child she seems cruel, but she is only wild,
And her compassion is exquisitely precise:
Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,
She strips away the unreal to show us the real.
This is the true ride — let’s give ourselves to it!
Let’s stop making deals for a safe passage:
There isn’t one anyway, and the cost is too high.
We are not children any more.
The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost.
Let’s dance the wild dance of no hope!
It’s Vital to Recognize Depression in Aging Adults
This is a very good, short article on why it is so important to recognize the signs and symptoms of depression in older people. They may not recognize that they themselves are depressed so it is imperative for caregivers and loved ones to be on the lookout. Undiagnosed depression can lead to isolation and even suicidality. Most cases of depression can be cured. This article is written by an older gentleman who has over 30 years experience working in retirement community and health facility administration. He includes reminders and tips for fighting depression in this article. Recognize Depression in Older People – You May Save A Life
Drug Dependence Rising Among Baby Boomers
A new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration:
“Illicit drug use generally declines as individuals move through young adulthood into middle adulthood and maturity, but research has shown that the baby-boom generation (persons born between 1946 and 1964) has relatively higher drug use rates than previous generations. It has been predicted that, as the baby boom generation ages, past year marijuana use will almost triple between 1999/2001 and 2020 among persons aged 50 or older. Nonmedical use
of prescription-type drugs has been identified as a concern for this population.”
To read the complete report: Illicit Drug Use Among Older Adults
Laid Off Older Workers Face Biases in Job Search
Many of us know that this is true. However, this article gives some advice for how to present ourselves authentically and proudly to highlight the benefits of hiring someone with experience and wisdom who is current on what is happening in the workplace now as well. From MSNBC: Overcoming Age-related Biases in Your Job Search.
What Do We Call Ourselves as a Group as We Get Older?
What do we call ourselves as a group as we get older? Seniors? Elders? Crones? Older adults? Geezers? Will baby boomers always just be called baby boomers? What else can we call ourselves when referring to our demographic cohort? Here’s a good article on this called Elderly No More from the New Old Age Blog which is such a wonderful blog on aging.
Studies show oxytocin boost for people using social media
Here’s an interesting article from Fast Company about the boost in oxytocin found in people trusting and enjoying social media interchanges. Interesting! No wonder it can be so much fun and so addictive too.
“While there was overwhelming evidence that oxytocin played an important role in economic [online] transactions, I theorized it would also affect a person engaging on Facebook and Twitter. What is social networking but a social transaction? So Zak took my blood, I got on Twitter for 10 minutes, then he took it again, then compared to the two samples. In those intervening 10 minutes my levels of oxytocin had risen 13.2%–as much as a groom at a wedding. (My wife: “That’s pathetic.”)
Subsequently Zak traveled to Korea and redid my tweeting experiment, this time with three journalists using Facebook. The result: They all demonstrated increased levels of oxytocin. In fact, the oxytocin levels of one of the journalists, who was writing to his girlfriend, shot up nearly 150%. In other words, the brain’s release of oxytocin may correspond with the depth of connection between two people online.”
Check it the complete article. Fast Company Article
“The Ladder Leaning Against the Wrong Wall”
If a person has had the sense of the Call — the feeling that there’s an adventure for him — and if he doesn’t follow that, but remains in the society because it’s safe and secure, then life dries up. And then he comes to that condition in late middle age: he’s gotten to the top of the ladder, and found that it’s against the wrong wall. If you have the guts to follow the risk, however, life opens, opens, opens up all along the line.
– Joseph Campbell
Common Themes & Issues in Geriatric Psychotherapy
Some psychotherapists think that doing therapy with older adults is the same as it is with any individual. In some respects, yes, our human dilemmas are similar throughout our life span. However, there are also very different developmental tasks in different phases of our lives. Erikson called these developmental stages and wrote about the task of finding integrity and wholeness in our older years vs. despair. Cumulative losses as we age are part of the landscape. Being trained and experienced in recognizing many of the mental health landmarks in the terrain of aging, a competent and compassionate gero-psychotherapist helps clients reframe their suffering into rich opportunities for growth and transformation. Common Themes & Issues in Geriatric Psychotherapy