The “Wholesome Way To Start The Day” Instagram page is dedicated to wholesome memes to cheer you up. We also got in touch with Candace Shivers, Co-Founder and Principal of Loveofaging.com, a site dedicated to celebrating older folks and changing the narrative on aging. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments.
More info: Instagram | Loveofaging.com
Bored Panda got in touch with the lovely ladies behind Love of Aging, an organization dedicated to helping older folks live life to the fullest. Naturally, we wanted to know if there was any story behind its creation.
“Love of Aging was founded in 2020 by three friends — Candace Shivers (now 77), Liz Dietz (now 70), and Maureen Charles (now 64) – all experts on the difference that attitude makes one's experience of life. As we aged, we noticed that society wanted us to believe that life after 60 was on an inevitable downward slope, but that was not our experience. We found a lot to love about this stage of life, and we suspected that the key to our own experience was our attitude.”
“We found research on aging and attitude that supported our claim. So, we decided to create a platform where we could explore the intersection of attitude, science, and aging and bring others along. Our mission: To engage communities in creating a new narrative for aging.”
So we decided to ask them to share some common misconceptions about living at an advanced age. “We all have hidden biases. Mostly, we don’t realize we hold preconceptions about aging. Yet research shows that – although there are exceptions in countries like China and Japan – most of the world’s prevailing cultural age beliefs today are negative. We have been bombarded with these negative age beliefs since infancy and they result in implicit bias – that is, unconscious, unintended beliefs that shape our thinking and actions.”
“Common misconceptions: Myth #1: Most old people are weak, sedentary, doddering, disabled, and incapable. (Think Mr. Magoo!) Reality: Evidence shows that with the right contextual and social supports, older adults can remain healthy and maintain high levels of independence and functioning—even while experiencing some of the natural changes in vision, hearing, mobility, and muscle strength associated with aging.”
“Myth #2: Aging is a decline that ends in dependency. Reality: Experts (geriatricians, gerontologists, and social scientists) view aging as a continuous process of human development that brings new opportunities for growth, contribution, and self-expression across our lifespan. Aging is not synonymous with decline, disease, or disability.”
“Myth #3: Aging causes grievous memory impairment. Reality: Minor, short-term memory lapses are to be expected (at all ages) and are not an indication that our brains are in a general state of deterioration. In fact, other types of memory and brain function show no signs of deterioration and even improvement with age. Semantic memory – the recall of general knowledge – improves as we age. Procedural memory – our ability to recall and carry out a routine behavior, like driving a car or playing a musical instrument -- stays intact, neither improving nor declining. Neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to stay flexible and sprout new neural connections) continues to develop.”
