MatureAging Blog

There is no sugar coating it: existence is harsh.  Life, for most of us, is a battlefield that we never leave until removed in a body-bag. The United Kingdom recently created a minister of loneliness.  The job of this office is to develop strategies that will help alleviate the feeling of being cut off from society: the sense of being alone or disengaged.  Particularly the elderly suffer from this affliction of isolation.

We have reached the age when we can honestly claim that we have witnessed the cycle of life.  We have seen, if not experienced first-hand, many challenges.   As we get older, we may celebrate the increase in our families’ numbers but we also increasingly suffer the loss of family members and friends.  For reasons that those with degrees are still debating, death leaves a more lingering and disturbing emotion on our psyche than does birth.  Perhaps a human loss alerts us that inevitably our time will also be up.  We recognize, reluctantly, that there are no exceptions.  If we are born, we are destined to die.  We only hope that it is later than sooner.  In the meantime, we need to assimilate the deaths of those around us. 

We may have been taught to believe that the heart and brain are cradles for two different sources of human emotions: passions reside in the heart, and the brain comprises the analytical portion of our make-up and never the twain shall they meet. But that is not how scientists today view these two structures. They consider these two organs as interdependent, or to use the language of those wearing lab coats, bidirectional: what is good for one is good for the other, and the reverse. In other words, our mood disorders take a toll on our cardiovascular health and our heart ailments can lead to depression and anxiety, among the illnesses we associate with the mind.

We tend to disregard the obvious: taking an active part in our health care means working in partnership with those we entrust with our health.