What motivates healthy aging?

Oseterics men and women are at the intersection of hope, wisdom, and maturity. On one end they have seen it all in terms of ambition, relationships, caregiving, and empty nest. On the other hand, they aspire for a more quality life blended into ease, comfort, purpose, and community. Even with time in their hand, healthy aging remains elusive. Is it a lack of desire, fear, or simply a social construct?

Future Time Perspective

Jochen Brandtstädter, an awarded German psychologist, noticed that most older adults find it difficult to be motivated by “instrumental goals”, which circle around achievement and power. For example - it is much easier to inspire a younger teenager with sexual imagery for attracting them to gym membership than a mature adult.

Older adults have different priorities. They do not see too much into the future and may regard their time as finite or limited. This phenomenon is commonly known as "Future Time Perspective". That results in attraction to goals that reward them emotionally and have a more immediate effect on their positive mood. Hence, exercises such as Yoga coupled with meditation have been more popular than hardcore gymming.

Limited future perspective also has a downside. Older adults may not always invest in such a lifestyle which may reward only in long term. Thus, many people would rather prefer an unhealthy meal combined with medicines than abstinence.

It is not easy to come out of this mindset. Self-regulation of the "limited future time" perspective is key to avoiding unhealthy habits that may reward only in short term. With increasing longevity, it is time to count more years to your life!

Good habits will increase your longevity and quality of life. It is important to keep reminding this to ourselves !

Social Connections

Oseterics men & women commonly have only a small social network. Older adults value close but emotionally strong social groups. Social contexts can be both detrimental and beneficial to emotional well-being and health.

On contrary, weak but diverse networks have also been proven to be critical to better physical health. Scientists attribute that weak but diverse networks may expose a person to different activities. leading to better physical and even cognitive health.

There is importance of both the closed and peripheral relationships. While being with loved ones , your mental health imprves while the peripheral relationships can expose you to more physical activities

Purpose and Retirement

Finding a purpose is critical to our everyday life. A lot of older adults struggle with a purpose, especially after retirement. Retirement can lead to disruption in daily physical engagement and can result in a much more sedentary lifestyle.

Dr. Loren Thomas is one of the key mentors and Yogi at Oseterics. He has covered volunteering as a medium to find purpose. A lifetime teacher before retirement, Dr.Loren indulged himself in many new activities such as taking a yoga teacher training and then going to multiple outbound volunteering camps

I have had great experiences and opportunities, I have met great people in a number of countries and in my own city - Dr. Loren

Practical Goal Setting and Risk of Disengagement

"Goal" is at the center of a lot of motivation that can drive healthy aging. The goal acts as a guide to our behavior. But goals tend to undergo age-related changes. With Oseterics men and women it is important to have goals that have more emotional value than just instrumental. Self- conditioning yourself to understand the long-term benefits helps a lot. For example, remember that regular exercise is less about outer looks but also enables you to live your life fully.

But, it is also critical to understand the limits of your aspirations. In our conversation with Simone Cole on Healthy aging, Simone emphasizes having small and practical goals to achieve a daily target. Having practical goals help you in adhering to them!

It is important to have achievable and manageable goals. It keeps one consistent and you may not give yourself an excuse that yesterday it was very intense so I should skip today - Simone Cole

Mid-lifers, you don't have to hunt for 'old men's or women's style' to jazz up your wardrobe! The way you dress reflects your lifestyle. For example, based on one's occupation, daily responsibilities, a certain dress code, and so on. So, it would be illogical to say, "Middle-aged people over 50 should dress like this" and "Middle-aged people under 50 should dress like that."

Personal style is something that can be perfected at any age. There is no such thing as a magic number or a milestone age that can be claimed as the turning point.

Mid-lifers, you don't have to hunt for 'old men's or women's style' to jazz up your wardrobe! The way you dress reflects your lifestyle. For example, based on one's occupation, daily responsibilities, a certain dress code, and so on. So, it would be illogical to say, "Middle-aged people over 50 should dress like this" and "Middle-aged people under 50 should dress like that."

Personal style is something that can be perfected at any age. There is no such thing as a magic number or a milestone age that can be claimed as the turning point.

Oseterics is on a mission to inspire you for active and graceful aging. A regular, practical, and tailored Yoga regimen is proven to help in both physical and mental health.

You can also access the App here: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1574133871

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Breaking Bad Habits

Habits are born out of repetitive action over an extended period of time. Bad habits that people can acquire are damaging and can be addictive in harmful ways. Sedentary lifestyles, alcohol, tobacco consumption, and sugary diets are some common harmful habits.

Science has shown that it is possible to revert them. Habit discontinuation refers to preventing the activation of habits by modification of cues or stimuli. A common solution is to change the context. For example, changing your timing of walking can also change your unhealthy snack consumption. A more common phenomenon is Habit Substitution. For example, instead of hunger pangs quenched by unhealthy snacks, you can try replacing them with seasonal fruits.

Habit association needs to be disrupted with attractive alternatives otherwise there is always a risk of going back to the old unhealthy routine.

But severe addiction has deep psychological roots. For example in cigarettes, the body gets used to nicotine, a substance that activates a reward system in the brain and completely eradicates the brain's own capability of secreting dopamine - a feel-good hormone. When a person is suddenly abstained from smoking a severe withdrawal syndrome can develop which is psychologically impairing.

Discrimination

Age discrimination continues to have a debilitating effect on older people's motivation to stay engaged with their lives and poses a major challenge to healthy aging. Age discrimination is one of the most common forms of discrimination and it is prevalent in many aspects such as labor force participation and even accessibility to scarce treatments.

The wide prevalence puts older adults at high risk of lowered self-esteem and lower motivation. This can easily derail any healthy aging effort. Many of the common stereotyping does not have a sound basis. For example - a common myth is an age vs productivity decline. In our article Mature Entrepreneurs, we see a substantial number of entrepreneurs in the age group of 50 and above. In fact, mature entrepreneurs are more diverse in terms of the industries they start while younger entrepreneurs generally get clustered around IT startups.

It is critical to be context-aware and call out any such discrimination. Rather than allowing external context to drive your psychological well-being, it is important to take control of your own healthy aging journey!

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