In a recent interview with The Village Chicago, I mentioned that our Sounds Good Choir concerts put a public face on what it looks like to be an older adult, and that that face contradicts some of our cultural stereotypes on aging. When people see us performing challenging music that we’ve worked hard to master, when they see our energy and joy, my hope is that it bashes through the negative attitudes and images of aging that depict us “old folks.”

How others see us, as lively and productive versus crabby and crotchety, is actually less interesting to me than the question of how we see ourselves—and how our own attitudes about aging affect our mental and physical health.

A study published in a 2021 Harvard Health publication looked at more than 13,000 adults over age 50 and found that people who had the highest satisfaction with aging had a 43 percent lower risk of dying from any cause over the four-year period studied, compared with those who were the least satisfied. The research also found that people who had more positive beliefs about their aging process had lower risk for many health conditions, including diabetes, stroke, cancer, heart disease, lung disease, arthritic, and chronic pain. In addition, people in this group had better cognitive functioning, had less trouble sleeping, were more likely to engage in physical activity, were less lonely and depressed, more optimistic, and had a greater sense of purpose.

If your response to reading this is thinking, “I want to join that club of positive attitudes,” there is a body of research and a great deal written about how to do it.

My field of psychology, with its interest in all aspects of human behavior, has looked at the question of how people make changes. And although descriptions of the models that have been developed (with titles like “Transtheoretical Model”) are not on my list of recreational reading, they have had valuable applications beyond psychology, such as in the fields of business and education.

And these models offer suggestions to us when we endeavor to make changes in our everyday lives. Articles such as “The Power of Small Wins” and “Your Brain on Progress” suggest steps involved in successful behavior change, such as setting reasonable-sized, measurable goals, documenting your progress, and celebrating your progress with others.

This is more easily applied to changing behaviors such as adding ten minutes of exercise each day, as Jonathan and I did when our physician recommended that we begin doing High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT. For the past nine months, we’ve exercised together each day before dinner, using a video workout (and I’m remembering the advice of our doctor: “Look for a video with a person your age doing HIIT, don’t pick a video with some buff 25-year-old!”).  I knew my lazy self well enough to know that a workout longer than 10 minutes would have significantly less chance of continuing, so we found Lauren’s Senior Shape Workouts (okay, she’s pretty young and buff, but it’s geared toward those of us of “Sounds Good Choir age”).

We’ve averaged about five and a half days per week of workouts, and we reward ourselves with a high five and then dinner (and a little side dish of satisfied self-righteousness).

I think one of the secrets to our success is using what we know about incremental change: namely, that if we want to make changes that will last (and become good habits), we need to set goals that are small enough that we actually achieve them on a regular basis and feel the success of that—and then add to them slowly, so that the goal never feels too daunting to achieve and we don’t get discouraged.

Applying this approach to a wish to change our negative attitudes about aging, we need to look a little further and incorporate some of the strategies from the field of cognitive-behavior psychology for changing one’s thought process.

Here are some ways to shift your thinking:

1. Notice where your beliefs about aging come from. It’s necessary to become more aware of your beliefs in order to change them. Think about, for example, what you learned or saw in your family of origin, think about the messages your social groups communicate about older adults, or what you say to yourself when you’re feeling more creaky than usual. Make a plan to spend one week writing down the portrayals of older adults that you see, hear, and think about. Pay attention to the media, and the conversations you are part of, whether internal or external, and ask yourself if they’re positive or negative. Write them down—keep a journal—if that’s helpful.

 

It can make a difference!

Dr. Becca Levy’s 2014 study (more about her in a minute) of 100 adults with an average age of 81 who were exposed to positive images of aging, showed improved attitudes about aging as well as improved physical function.

 

2. Find role models. Notice who you’re hanging around with and make sure that some of them are good examples of aging well. See if you can surround yourself with people who are doing things that you find impressive, whether it’s helping others, learning new things, or being committed to physical activity.

 

3. And last, but certainly not least, learn about and focus on the documented positives of aging (think about it, you—hopefully—never again have to go driving with a teenager who’s practicing for their driver’s license!). Research has shown that emotional well-being generally increases with age, and certain aspects of cognition, such as conflict resolution, often improve in later life.  We are the best examples of that wonderful phrase that I hear more and more often: lived experience.

If you want to learn more about this topic, I recommend the book “Breaking the Age Code” by Dr. Becca Levy.  She’s been an expert in the field of aging and ageism for over 30 years and her book is being called a landmark publication.

I’m not a country music fan, but my concluding message is summarized in this 1974 “hit” by Freddy Weller, “You’re Not Getting Older, You’re Getting Better.”

Happy Listening!