By the time you’ve reached the twilight of your life, you still face a very unique, yet very real set of stresses. The stress that elderly people face is much different from that of any other age group, and as such, many people younger than them don’t know how to help, because they simply can’t relate as they’ve never experienced these things themselves.
Some people are kind of lost when they retire, because work has been their focal point for all their life, and gave them a certain kind of satisfaction. Once they retire, they kind of lose their purpose and do not know what to do all day long. This is such a kind of change that can cause you an existential stress, even though your responsibilities have diminished all of the sudden.
Others want to catch up on all of the things they had no time to do while they were working. So they pack their agenda with all kinds of activities and are eventually busier than somebody who is on his 9 to 5 job.
One of the most prevalent factors of stress at this age is simply death. Most people don’t live past their eighties, with exceptions, of course. Once you start approaching that age, you realize just how little time you have left.
There’s this constant pressure to make your life feel complete by the time you pass away, so there’s this major stress you have to face in trying to do all of these things you always wanted to do.
Of course, this isn’t always entirely feasible, because chances are, you wouldn’t be as mobile at this point. Once you really start to climb in age, your mobility just gets worse and worse, and in some cases, you might even be wheelchair bound.
Some elderly people remain mobile their entire lives, while others might end up stuck in a wheelchair or bedridden early on. Along with a variety of other health problems, physical health is something very worrying for people this age.
Another cause of stress for people sixty and over is that they often see their circle of family and friends shrinking each year from them passing away. Parents and older siblings may have passed away, or even their spouse.
This can cause an immense feeling of loneliness, with many of the people you once knew no longer being in your life. This also accompanies the first major factor, with people wondering whether or not they’ll be the next one in their circle to pass away.
With that in mind, one of the final causes of stress in older people is that they are often secluded and don’t see much attention. Without the mobility or energy to go out, with so many friends passing away, many older people don’t have a reason to do much – besides sit at home and watch TV or read.
Some are a bit more active, but regardless, it’s very difficult for them to do anything. Some have no form of transportation, even if they did feel like going somewhere. It’s not easy at all to recognize stress in older people, as they typically contain it very well.
They’re often overlooked when it comes to thinking about people who get stressed out, because they don’t necessarily do much. They’re likely retired, and spend most of their time at home watching television.
For many people, that sounds like a great time, but for them, it’s just the only thing they can do for entertainment, since it’s so hard for them to go out and about. One way you can tell that they’re a bit stressed is that they’ll start to eat a lot less.
By ceasing to take good care of themselves, they’ve essentially just given up. This can be dangerous, because if they’re not taken care of, they might end up having some serious health issues, since their bodies aren’t anymore in top physical condition.
Another big sign of stress in older people is that they just kind of stop caring. At some point, when most of the people you once knew were gone, and you will be soon, it’s difficult to find genuine joy in just about anything.
The few things you might have been able to enjoy are often too physically demanding, leaving you with so few options that you’re simply uninterested in anything else. There are some solutions that can make older people’s lives much better.
For example, it’s very important that they continue to be social, even if their old friends aren’t with them any longer. There’s no harm in being social with your kids or grandkids, and it gives you a much needed opportunity to get out of your shell once in awhile.
It’s not healthy to go from being social your whole life to suddenly being reclusive. You’re just not meant to endure that kind of change. It’s very, very important that you come to terms with the life you’ve lived by this point.
Living the later years of your life full of regret is not good, so just learn to be happy or accepting of the life you’ve had. There’s no sense in worrying about the past since you can’t change it, so you might as well do something more enjoyable than just worrying all day.
It can be good to reminisce about old times, but you shouldn’t spend an excessive amount of time on it. Looking back through an old photo album once in awhile with some family or friends and talking about the past can be a great way to fondly remember exactly what your life was like, but if you dwell on it or obsess over it, you’ll just start to become sad that you’re not there now.
It helps to just change things up a little here and there to break up the monotony. Get food from some place new, perhaps take a tour of a place you’ve never been to. Little things like this can make all the difference, because you’ll be able to essentially scratch something off of your bucket list, leaving you with one less thing to be able to regret.
Stress can be at your side through your entire life. As a toddler, you may have endured a volatile family situation, then gone through bullying in school. You followed that up with bad decisions in college, and financial and career stress as a young adult.
As you aged, you experienced relationship stress, health stress and the looming stress of getting older. Because it’s something that everyone deals with in one form or another, it’s important that you learn to recognize when you, yourself are stressed as well as your loved ones.
Knowing stress is getting out of control can alert you that it’s time to seek out a solution or remedy. Because everyone is different, the treatment that works for one person may not work for another.
You might need professional help, or be able to handle it on your own, naturally. You also may need to experiment with a variety of stress relief solutions and find one or a combination of things that work best to alleviate your concerns and help you enjoy life and remain calm on a consistent basis.
Do you need a guide to help you understand how to cope with Stress in an all inclusive approach? Learn how to combat stress, mentally, physically, emotionally and strategically in your life.
Martin Neumann was trained for Lifestyle Interventions in 1998 at Wildwood Lifestyle Center & Hospital. Since then he has lectured in different parts of the world about a healthy lifestyle and natural remedies. He is the founder of the Abundant Health website.
Thank you, Martin. Thanks for the read. I’ve thought about many of the things you wrote about. I have no problem as to what to do. My husband is younger that me and is very helpful around the house. He even cooks! Sometimes I feel that I have too much to do and too little time to do it. My major goal is reading my Bible through I made symbols for different subjects, such as angels, God’s character of love, God’s word, Family, Heaven, Sabbath, Salvation, and more. It is very helpful when looking for a specific topic to see the symbols which are easy to spot! My fellowship with God sustains me and makes the most difference in how I approach my day by day relationships and tasks. Thank you for sharing this wonderful writing. I would have checked the “Get the Guide,” but was not sure of the cost. God bless you in all your outreach!
Sally, nice to hear that you are physically and mentally active in your senior years. That helps a lot to prevent many of the things written in this article. The guide below the article you can download for free. Make good use of it. If needed we have available a training course after that.