Older Americans Month is a great opportunity to celebrate and honor our seniors. The month-long celebration this May also provides an occasion to highlight the need for mid-life and older family members to make thoughtful choices than can help them remain healthy, productive, and financially secure in their later lives.
One advantage to getting older is that you’re likely to be able to handle everyday stress better. Older adults appear to do, on the average, a much better job of dealing with the daily stressors in life, says Dr. David M. Almeida of Penn State University. “This may be due to a lifetime of having stressors and developing good strategies to deal with them. We also have some evidence that shows older adults are more in tune with their emotions than younger adults.”
Younger adults are less effective in regulating their emotions. They often let their emotions take over in stressful situations. They have more heated discussions and arguments, they engage in more physical displays of anger. If an older adult experiences a stressor and sees it has some emotional input, she is more likely to take steps to remedy the stressor.
Almeida is studying the health effects of everyday stressors of life such as arguing with your children, having a sick spouse or dealing with a deadline at work, in contrast to major life events such as divorce and job loss. These daily stressors have health implications and it’s possible these stressors might interfere with the adult doing healthy things such as eating properly and exercising. Everyone who eats when under stress knows this to be true.
Researchers have found that younger persons have more stressors and are more likely to report physical and emotional reactions to them. Younger persons have more interpersonal tensions than older persons. In mid-life people have more overloads and too little time.
Older individuals, those age 60 and older, were more likely to have stressors that occur to other people in their lives, such as having a child with a problem or a spouse who is sick. The difficulties of the older person’s network of friends or close relatives affect their stress level. Older people spend more time sharing information on the health of friends and family and discussing health conditions, medications, etc.
Most of us are aware that stress affects our health, but we may still be blinded when our own lives and health are involved. Typically as we age, we become more aware of how stress impacts our health and we become better at not getting caught up in the drama of the event. Many older adults make an effort to stay away from stressful situations. For those older adults who have no choice, they often find ways to cope with the stressor such as developing a network of people to provide help.
Additional information is available from Andrea Bressler at awb1@psu.edu; or http://clearfield.extension.psu.edu; and your local office of Penn State Cooperative Extension. In Clearfield, the office is located in the Multi-Service Center, or by calling 765-7878. In Brookville, the office is located at 180 Main Street, or by calling 849-7361. And in Ridgway, the office is located in the Courthouse, or by calling 776-5331. Penn State is committed to affirmative action, equal opportunity, and the diversity of its workforce.
Andrea Bressler, Penn State Cooperative Extension