Scientific Study Confirms, Youth IS Wasted on the Young
If you are 50 or older, a new research study suggests that you are happier than you’ve ever been. Sure, you have a few wrinkles, some aches and pains, and you really want a nap every day, but in terms of psychological well-being, you’ve never felt better.
This was the conclusion of a study published online May 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and it’s good news for the 50+ gang. Conducted in 2008, the survey asked more than 340,000 people nationwide, ages 18–85 questions about age and sex, current events, finances, and health. It included six yes or no questions: Did you experience the following feelings during a large part of the day yesterday: enjoyment, happiness, stress, worry, anger, sadness.
The results surprised even the researchers:
• Anger and stress steeply decline from the early 20s.
• Worry is elevated through the 30s and 40s and then drops off sharply after 50.
• Sadness rises to a peak at 50, steadily declines to 73, then rises slightly again to 85.
• Enjoyment and happiness decrease until we hit 50, then increase steadily for the next 25 years, declining only slightly after 75.
But one question the survey couldn’t answer was, why at age 50 does something seem to start to change?
Four factors: the sex of the interviewee, whether the person had a partner, whether there were children at home, and employment status did not seem to matter.
Could there be some sort of biological happiness clock that starts ticking around age 50? Do we feel more secure and confident having accululated years of illuminating experience? Or, does it just take us 50 years to feel grateful for what we do have, and perhaps for what we don’t have? (There’s a twist on the old gratitude exercise: count your blessings by listing all the things you’re happy not to have.)
The findings raised questions that needed more study. For people under 50, who may be suffering from angst, ennui and unemployment, hang in there; your AARP membership application will land in your mailbox soon enough. For the over 50 club, consider yourself lucky. Go have a giggle fit, or something.
By the Light of the Silvery Moon
Calling all meditators with restless leg syndrome. Can’t sit still? Dread trying to meditate indoors and on your own? Can’t help howling on the full moon? Help is on the way. Beginning this month, Colchester Farm is hosting full moon walking meditations through their pesticide-free vegetable fields.
Walking meditations are easy, relaxing, meditative strolls. The evening begins with some basic instruction in meditation. For about fifteen minutes, walkers stroll silently through the fields. After arriving at the hay bales, participants pause to sit in silent meditation for another fifteen minutes. They then retrace their steps. When possible a musician accompanies the group. Each walk time has been selected to provide spectacular views of sunset and full moon rise (weather permitting.)
No meditation experience is required. For more information, contact Rob at retgen@eslc.org. Reminders will be sent out before each walk.
2010 Schedule: Colchester Farm Full Moon Walking Meditations
• May 27—7:30 p.m.
• June 26— 8:00 p.m.
• July 25—7:30 p.m.
• August 24—7:00 p.m.
• Sept. 23—6:00 p.m.
• October 22—5:30 p.m.
For Spring: Five Ways to Lighten Up
Winter was heavy. Gorgeous and special, yet momentous. We shoveled mounds of snow, wore piles of clothes and probably ate more food than we needed. Now it’s time to lighten up: physically, mentally and spiritually.
1. Lighten up your storage space. Spring cleaning is not moving a bunch of stuff you never use from a priority place to lesser priority place. Instead of hauling it into the garage, attic or self-storage unit, get rid of it. Sell it, donate it, or take it to the dump. Nature abhors a vacuum everywhere but in a house, so avoid the urge to buy more stuff. De-clutter and enjoy the open space.
2. Lighten up your walls. Clear the walls and paint a room a fresh color. Orange feels warm, vital and welcoming. Think mango or tangerine, especially for the kitchen. To make a south or west facing room feel cooler, paint it blue. Studies have shown blue puts people in a more adventurous and creative mood. So, if you need to brainstorm ideas for a new project, relax in your blue room. Green is a combination of two primary colors, yellow and blue. Green triggers feelings of hope, health and sharing.
3. Lighten up your heart. Many of us carry guilty feelings about something that we did, or failed to do, in the past. Headaches, stiff necks and back pain can be symptoms of unresolved guilt. But think about it. Given the circumstances and who we were at the time, didn’t we do the best we could? Transform thoughts of “I am bad” into “I am forgiven.” You’ll feel like you’ve shed ten pounds — and guess what, don’t be surprised if you do!
4. Lighten up your mind. What belief do you have about yourself that you feel ready to release? Examples: I’m not good enough. I can’t win. Just when I’m starting to get ahead, something always happens to mess me up. I’m a slow learner. I make dumb decisions about money. Every belief we hold dear started out as an idea. But is it true? A belief can be for you or against you. A harmful belief feels bad, stuck and punitive. A positive belief feels encouraging, supportive and loving. Imagine putting your limiting belief into a rainbow striped balloon and then releasing it into the air. Watch it disappear. Say, tata, all gone!
5. Lighten up on family, friends and co-workers. Detach a bit from what others are doing, thinking, and saying. Trying to change another or force him or her to see a particular point of view is exhausting. We don’t have to be “right” all the time. Allowing someone else to be right (even when we know they’re “wrong”) is a gift of great generosity. It’s nice to know they don’t have to see it our way. Let them walk their own path. If they need our help, they’ll ask. The more we can accept people and situations as they are, the lighter, brighter and more energetic we are.
Riding a Gift Horse
The other day I received an anonymous gift in the mail, a beautiful hardcover book. It was a book I would buy for myself, so at first I wondered if I had actually ordered it and then forgotten all about it. (Okay, to be completely honest, I wondered if I had suddenly gone Sybil, and had an extra personality who went online ordering books for me while I showered or slept.)
All I had to go on was the return address. I emailed the bookseller asking for information about the order (just in case I had gone multiple-personality) but their replies were cryptic and frustrating (did you order something else, do you want to place an order?)
Then I decided that it was totally ungracious of me to try and identify the mysterious gifter. The only appropriate response was to say “thank you kind & thoughtful friend” to . . . the air.
That evening I sat down in my favorite reading chair and started the book. I had been struggling a bit with a certain subject (NOT multiple personalities) and what I was reading directly addressed my problem. It was uncanny. I read for an hour or so, and when I put the book down, I realized that I had undergone a shift in thinking and was ready to proceed full steam ahead. The book had given me a clarification that led to a clearing and finally to a feeling of relief.
And happiness.
And then I remembered many years ago when I had sent, anonymously, a money order to a proud friend who was going through a hard time financially. How happy I had felt! I was sure the person who sent me the book felt the same way, just so happy to know they had given me something that would improve my life.
This person didn’t want thanks, or a return gift, or even acknowledgement. This person just wanted to do something nice for me.
If you want to make someone happy, and in the process make yourself even happier, send an anonymous gift. Not to your best friend, or even a good friend, but to someone who might never suspect it came from you. And then don’t tell anyone about it. Make it your secret.
I’m going to continue this chain of happiness and send a gift today. And now I can’t stop smiling about it. My recipient is going to love it, and best of all, he or she (I do know which but my lips are zipped) will never know it came from me.
In Pursuit of Happiness: Meditation 101
At the top of my 2010 goals list this year I wrote, learn how to meditate. Never mind that the same goal topped my 2009 and 2008 lists, this year I really meant it. So when I heard that the Insight Meditation Community of Chestertown was offering a one-day meditation workshop on January 16th, I signed up immediately.
“Synchronicity,” I said! “Put your intention out there and the universe will respond in kind.” My friends stared at me slack-jawed. They equated meditating from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with water boarding, root canals and primal scream therapy.
But my plan was simple: if I could meditate for six hours straight, then sitting still for fifteen minutes every morning would be a piece of cake.
So last Saturday, bag lunch in hand and fifteen minutes early, I arrived at the Chester River Friends (Quakers) meeting house at 124 Philosopher’s Terrace. Most of the twenty participants were already there, padding around in stocking feet and chatting softly over steaming cups of coffee or tea. Call it good architecture, good feng shui, good vibes or all of the above, the space inside the airy, A-frame felt wonderful. In the main room, floor to ceiling windows provided plenty of natural light, as well as soothing views of pine trees and sky.
Maybe this won’t be so hard after all, I thought.
At 9:00 a.m. we arranged ourselves in a large square around the instructor, and the chatting ceased. From that moment on we would remain quiet. My first surprise of the day was the relief I felt at being freed from the demands of casual conversation. When we took breaks or did walking meditation, it was lovely to know that a simple smile was ample communication. (Surprise number two: we did not sit all day!)
Our instructor was Hugh Byrne, a practicing Buddhist and meditation teacher based in Washington DC. Ann Briggs was co-hosting the workshop. She teaches meditation with the Insight Meditation Community of Chestertown.
Hugh began with a short discourse on mindfulness, which he defines as “the practice of bringing a kind and non-judging awareness to our own experience, allowing us to access our inner wisdom and our connection with all of life.”
It’s all about being here now. Not back in the past, not off in the future. Here, in the present, where life is actually lived.
As if Hugh could read our minds (many of us were newcomers) he asked the pesky questions no one else dared: “Why is mindfulness such a big deal? What’s so bad about spending time with our memories or fantasizing about the future? Wouldn’t being here now all the time get really boring?”
According to Hugh, the problem with not being here now is that our lives are then run on habit energy. We end up doing, thinking, and acting the way we always have. Change is not possible in the past or future, only in the present. So, if we want to do something differently, make a better choice, for instance, we have to come into the present moment to do it.
When the habit energy is pulling us along, we are powerless. There’s an oft-told Zen story about a man and a horse. The horse is galloping by at top speed, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. A man on the roadside shouts, “Hey, where are you going?” and the rider replies, “I don’t know! Ask the horse!”
When you become mindful, you seize the reigns and ride the horse, instead of the other way around.
After Hugh had fortified us with a bit of theory, we did our first half hour “sit.” Oddly, thirty minutes felt like ten. And the meditation was refreshing! Could it be that that in such a supportive space, free from distractions it was easy to go deep and stay there?
For the rest of the day we alternated between sitting, walking and eating meditation, a.k.a., lunch. For those who didn’t want do walking meditation, Hugh was available for questions. Curious, I joined the small group.
The questions ranged from how to deal with an angry ex, to how to overcome laziness, to how to manage strong feelings about the earthquake’s effect in Haiti. Hugh’s answers were bright and surprising. I felt that I was in the presence of a person who was operating in a clearer and cleaner place than most of us.
In the last session, Ann Briggs led us on a lovely guided meditation. She described a blue sky and puffy white clouds, and our thoughts were the clouds—remaining unattached, we could watch them drift by. But soon my mind had turned the blue sky into a blue sea, and the puffy white cloud became an octopus. And the octopus was holding onto all sorts of things with its legs, people mostly. Like that annoying woman who will remain nameless. But the octopus couldn’t swim when it was holding the little woman in its tentacle. So it let her go. And then she disappeared into the sea and the octopus swam happily again, buoyant, like a beach ball undersea.
Just as I was beginning to wonder if this was no longer meditation, Hugh chimed the soft little bell and the day was over.
The next day, Sunday, I felt oddly extra happy and light. As I was writing my usually overwhelming to-do list for the week, I found that I felt relaxed about it, as if accomplishing all these things would be easy. The low level of anxiety that I normally feel was gone. Okay, by Thursday it was back, but those four days felt great. Now in my daily meditation (yes!) I check in with my octopus friend, or rather what she might have grabbed onto with her tentacles. Then we try to let it go, as swimming free feels so much better.
For information about The Insight Meditation Community of Chestertown, or to take a meditation class with Ann Briggs, see http://www.imc-chestertown.org
To learn about Hugh Byrne’s classes, retreats, workshops, and individual sessions, visit his website, http://hugh-byrne.com
Start the New Year Stress-Free
In the pursuit of happiness, stress is a colossal road block. It manifests in our bodies as aches and pains, heartburn, and insomnia. In our minds it shows up as irritability, accident-prone behavior, and compulsiveness (over-indulgence, disorganization, gambling, etc.) Stress is toxic, and until we release it, trapped it remains, poisoning us and turning into dis-ease.
So why not make 2010 our happiest year yet? All we have to do is take a few definitive steps to better manage how we react to stress. The first step is to commit to living a more relaxed, harmonious and cheerful life . To that end, I offer the following guidelines from our yogi friend in Centreville, Phyllis Johnston. Why not join me in practicing these healthy habits in 2010?
Phyllis’s Five Easy Ways to Manage Stress
Let’s face it; stress is a part of life. But how you manage stress is what’s most important. Negative effects can be lessened or eliminated with these five healthy habits.
- Breathe. Yes, that’s right just breathe. We often hold our breath or breathe shallowly producing a stress response we don’t need (no tiger chasing you here). The yoga technique for breathing aids in the relaxation response. Sitting or lying down, place your hands lightly on your abdomen below your navel. Then breathe in and out slowly through your nose. Keep your focus on your hands and how they move as your breathe. On the inhale draw each breath deep into your abdomen. As you exhale, draw the abdomen in and expel as much air as you can. Continue for 3-5 minutes. Feel the sense of relaxation after this breathing. Practice this breathing while waiting at a red light.
- Exercise. I know you are short of time, but include some exercise into your day. If you start with a reasonable goal, such as five or ten minutes a day, you can be successful. Pick something you enjoy: yoga, walking, swimming, dancing, running, team sports, etc. Schedule exercise each day. Over time you will want to increase the amount of time you spend on your exercise because of how good it makes you feel.
- Sleep. I know you’re busy, but sleep actually gives you more time with less stress. It will take you less time to accomplish more things, you’ll feel better, and you’ll make fewer mistakes.
- Believe. Have faith in something greater than yourself. Tap into your spirituality. Know that you are blessed each day regardless of what is happening at this minute. Take a few minutes everyday to sit quietly and listen. You can take a five-minute break at work and just sit quietly. No one will notice and you will feel much better.
- Finally, surround yourself with positive people and thoughts. When you catch yourself having a negative thought, especially about yourself, immediately stop the thought and turn it into something positive. The more you tune into your thoughts, the more powerful this practice becomes. Many times we are negatively influencing our lives by our thoughts or the company we keep.
Phyllis Johnston, M. Ed., E-RYT is the owner of Every Body Yoga and Wellness in Centreville, MD.
Many thanks to Phyllis for sharing her stress relief plan.
Happy stress-free New Year, everyone!
In Pursuit of Happiness: Changing Focus
In the last Happiness column, I challenged you, good readers, to pick one new habit to adopt before the end of the year that would significantly improve your lives. Here is a sampling of what some of you said.
I want to deal with my anger.
I need to stop eating junk food.
I am the world’s greatest procrastinator—help!
I wish I could stop judging others so harshly.
This year I really mean it; I’m going to lose weight.
Thanks for the many excellent responses. Now, having identified the problem, we might reason that the next logical step would be to attack our individual issue head-on. Who among us hasn’t tried this enthusiastic approach? I call it the “beating it to death with a shoe technique,” and though the effort can feel satisfying, it is exactly the wrong thing to do.
“Here, anger, I can’t believe you’re back you lousy thing! You make me so mad. Take that, bam, bam, bam!”
“There, Miss four-hours-procrastinating-on-the-internet, now you’ll never get that paper finished in time. Well, you might as well see what else is for sale on eBay. Bam, bam, bam!”
Yet it’s completely natural that we should try to overpower our bad habits with sheer force. But by focusing on a bad habit, by giving it lots of attention, by shoveling more coal into the furnace, all we’re doing is strengthening the bully beast. The best way to eradicate a bad habit is to switch from a problem focus to solution focus.
Bad habits don’t die from too much attention; they die from neglect. Current research in neuroscience reveals that habits get physically programmed into the brain. Habitual actions create actual ruts, or grooves, in the hippocampus. (When you say you’re in a rut, you literally are.) And like a path through the woods, the more you use it the deeper it gets.
The first step is to stop trodding down that familiar path. How do we do that? By creating a parallel pathway that can bypass those old roads. So, instead of focusing on breaking the existing habit, we focus on installing the good habit that is going to make our life a whole lot easier. When we create a habit, we are building a new road.
Here’s how it works. If our problem is anger, then the solution is not to focus on what we don’t want (anger) but to focus on what we do want, which is peace and calm. We can’t stop anger from arising, but we can learn effective ways to deal with it when it does. So the new habit might be: cultivating calm.
If our problem is procrastination, then the solution is to get things done in a timely manner. Through awareness we can learn to recognize the tell-tale signs of avoidance and stop them before they wreck our good intentions. The new habit might be: learning how to enjoy productivity.
First, we set the goal, then we create a strategy, and then we set actions. It’s really that easy.
It takes about six weeks to install a new habit, so be patient with the process. Because our habits are so deeply entrenched we shouldn’t expect too much right away. Just to be aware of the habit is enough at first. To make progress setting a new habit, say, eating an apple instead of a candy bar, we have to be not only systematic, but sincere, too. The half-hearted approach simply won’t work.
Finally, we have to keep faithful to the new habit. We are creating a new neural pathway in our brain, and we cannot stop working on it even for one day. A Hindu proverb says: “miss one morning, you need seven to make it up.”
You can do it! Just stay focused on your new, good habit. If you slip up (and you will), don’t be disheartened; just begin again and again. That’s how you made the bad habit—by repeating a thought or behavior over and over—and that’s how you’ll make the new habit, too. Keep track of your progress on a calendar or in a journal. Report your results to a friend or accountability partner. Most important, plan how you will celebrate your success.
Let me hear from you.
In Pursuit of Happiness
If happiness is the holy grail that all human action is directed toward, then why do so many of us, even here in Chestertown, feel we are missing something? Are we doing something wrong? Do we even know what we want? And if we do know what we want, are we happy when we get it? Drawing from spirituality, positive psychology and the latest findings in neuroscience, In Pursuit of Happiness is a discussion about how to up our personal happiness ante. We encourage you to participate in the discussion by sending us your suggestions, feedback and stories.
I once shared an office with a woman named Sally who seemed happy all the time. We worked in advertising, where the deadlines were insane. At the eleventh hour, when the rest of us were sweating, swearing, and slamming things, Sally was calmly doing whatever had to be done, and with good cheer to boot.
It was beyond annoying.
One night around nine p.m., after the usual four hours of overtime, I found myself standing at the mirror in the ladies room, next to Sally. I looked like a wrung-out rag doll; Sally, with her stylish haircut and mauve lip liner, was primping for a late supper uptown with her husband.
I was just tired and frustrated enough to come right out with it.
“Look, are you really as happy as you seem?”
She finished rolling a tube of Lancome across her lips. “Oh! Absolutely!”
No doubt my expression was blank, but inside I was fighting the urge to drop to my knees and beg for her secret: How do you do it day after day? Where do you get your energy? Don’t you ever get depressed? And most important, who does your hair?
She must have sensed my desire for additional detail.
“I am very happy, but the thing about being happy—it takes a lot of hard work.” She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes.
I was twenty-six and had no idea what she was talking about.
Sally pointed to my engagement ring.
“Same goes for marriage. You’ll see. A happy marriage doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of work.”
I watched her run the comb through her hair. Twisting the ring on my left ring finger, I thought, if love is hard work then it’s not really love. Real love is effortless.
Sally and I eventually went our separate ways, but I never forgot that encounter in the ladies room, or the lesson she had attempted to impart, that happiness isn’t an accident.
Twelve years later, I was thirty-eight and newly widowed. During my husband’s two year battle with cancer, I had seen more suffering that I could have ever imagined—his own as well as the many other patients I came to know.
I saw that even in the direst circumstances people could still feel happy, when it would have been so much easier to feel lousy.
Since then happiness has become my favorite subject. I have seen that it is not a random thing that happens to certain lucky people; rather it is an act of personal responsibility. We can’t control what happens in life, or what thoughts come bubbling up, but we can try to control our reactions. That means how we choose to think about what happens, i.e., how we assign meaning to the events of our lives. This is hard work, but the payoff is oh so worth it.
The basic idea is that the road to happiness starts by taking 100% responsibility for yourself. You and only you decide whether you will be happy or not. All it takes is an open mind and a willingness to try new ways of being. Believe me, if I can do it, anybody can!
Are you game?
Great!
Then in the next column we’ll look at habits; good ones and bad ones, and what a huge role they play in quality of day-to-day living. We’ll explore why it’s better to create a new good habit than to try and break an existing bad habit. Finally, I’ll challenge you to pick one new habit to adopt before the end of 2009 that would significantly improve your life. Are you ready?
Start thinking!
Kelly Castro is the Spy’s own certified life coach.
