What Does Positive Aging Mean to You?
We all are aware how often the word aging is attached to dismay or decline. For decades, we’ve been warned about wrinkles, memory slips, and dependence – as if aging is something to battle rather than embrace. I am in a course with younger women still using the anti-aging fight as their cause.
Let’s be clear, if we go into combat with aging, we lose. Aging is how life happens. So, let’s find a new way to look at it.
In many ways, aging can be deeply positive. It’s not about pretending we’re still 35, it’s about discovering new ways to feel vital, connected, and fulfilled at 60, 70, or 80 and beyond. I am curious what it means to you.
Welcome to the Positive Aging Movement
There’s an entire movement dedicated to rethinking what it means to grow older. The concept stems from the field of positive psychology, which gained traction in the 1990s. I was in my 50s and remember terms like well-being, using our strengths, flourishing, and the emphasis on inclusion of everyone. What do you recall?
This energy has more recently become a part of the conversation around aging – and it’s reshaping how we live our later life. Around 2010, the shift became more visible. Researchers, wellness experts, and even the World Health Organization began promoting living well throughout life. The focus on aging expanded from managing decline to actively creating well-being, purpose, and vitality.
An Explosion of Research
In the 21st century, major universities have developed entire centers devoted to the study of aging well. I follow Stanford’s Center on Longevity and their ‘new map of life,’ as well as Harvard’s 85-year-long happiness study. There are many more academic centers to explore.
This research is uncovering important truths about aging: that having a positive outlook on aging can literally help us live longer and healthier lives.
One book I often recommend is Breaking the Age Code by Becca Levy, which shows how our beliefs about aging affect our bodies and brains. Other favorites include Aging Sideways by Jeanette Leardi, and Outlive by Peter Attia, MD (if you can absorb 400 pages of the medical side of healthy aging). There’s no shortage of good reading – so be selective. Focus on what resonates with you. What have you been reading about this topic?
What Does Positive Aging Actually Look Like?
It’s easy to think that aging well just means eating well, exercising, and getting a good night’s sleep. These things certainly matter. But positive aging is also about what’s going on inside you and how your life feels to you.
Here are three pillars to consider:
Meaning and Purpose
You don’t need to start a nonprofit or climb mountains (unless you want to!). Your sense of purpose might come from caregiving, volunteering, creative work, mentoring, or deepening your spiritual life. For some, it may simply be finding joy in daily rituals. What matters is if you feel a sense of meaning in contrast with aimlessness.
Connection and Belonging
We need each other and to feel like we belong. Loneliness has been shown to be as detrimental to health as smoking. Loneliness is more likely as the years go by; we are the ones who must initiate and maintain our connections. Whether it’s a weekly coffee date, a book club, or texting with grand-kids – relationships matter. Who are your people, and how do you stay connected?
Mindset
Humor, optimism, gratitude, and a belief in your ability to grow are examples of having a positive mindset. These help us face inevitable change, navigate loss, and find enjoyment in most moments. More than that, they help us notice what is possible in life and continue to expand and flourish as the years pass.
Aging Is Real
Of course, the reality is that we change as the years go by. I’m 77 now, and I notice it. Hiking takes more effort. Getting off the floor is a little less graceful. But I also notice this: I’m still evolving. I’m still learning. I still have so much to give.
And here’s what keeps me going: I picture my future self as a vibrant 90-something – curious, active, engaged. That image guides the choices I make today. Even if I don’t make it to 90, I’ll have lived with intention and joy moving in that direction.
What’s the alternative? To shrink back, disconnect, or focus only on what’s fading? No, thank you. I want to do what I can with what I have – whatever that looks like.
What About You?
Every one of us is on our own journey with aging. What makes you feel fulfilled? Where do you feel stuck? Are there small shifts you could make – to bring more connection, energy, or joy into your life?
Maybe it’s reconnecting with a friend. Maybe it’s trying something new. Maybe it’s simply noticing what’s working and savoring it.
If you’ve never thought much about “positive aging” before, now’s a good time to start. Because aging isn’t something happening to us. It’s something we get to influence through our choices, our mindset, and our hearts. Reach out anytime: connect@ardithbowman.com.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What does positive aging mean to you? What books on positive aging have you read? Which of the pillars of positive aging do you still need to work on? I’d love to hear your story.
Tags Positivity
All this “positive aging” talk wears me out. If we embrace the rhetoric, we’re supposed to think about everything we do as we age – how to eat, how to exercise, how to believe, how to stay positive, how to overcome negativity, how to stay connected, how to …
When young, I lived without analyzing every move. I made mistakes, I succeeded, I laughed, I cried, I lived. So, let’s just live as we age and stop micromanaging our every thought and move.
Absolutely! The whole point is to be who we are, and do what we can with what we have at the moment.
I think we dwell too much today on ageing. As recently as my mother’s generation, one did everything needed by family and friends and spent no time at all analyzing self satisfaction – life gave that to you. I see the ads for creams to reduce crepey skin, shampoo for fuller hair, meds and shots to reduce weight ,and think this has become a full time occupation. Just keep busy with basic responsibilities, volunteer as much as possible and let ageing happen (as it does in spite of our wasting life trying to correct it).
Exactly! Thank you so much. Life is to be lived, not corrected. Don’t you agree?
Thank you for this enlightening and inspiring information about aging.i find your comment” Aging isn’t something happening to us, It’s how we influence are future through choices, mindset snd heartfelt feelings to also be applicable to Healing which I’ve written about in a soon to be published memoir about a 14 year old mother who surpasses her dream of becoming a nurse entitled Between Wounded and Well:Lessons in Healing, memoir of a nurse practitioner.
Dr.Debra Palmer
What a cheerful and positive article. I know a number of people who retired a number of years ago and just seemed to give up on life because they were no longer in paid employment. They’re in their mid 70s now and it’s as if they’re just waiting to shuffle off.
I recently read a feature on the BBC website about a lady in Cornwall, England who is an artist and sells her work. She took a 2 year fine art course at a college when she retired at age 60 and has a studio in her garden shed. She said her routine is reading to and replying to emails, then handling her social media in the early mornings, then she paints for the rest of the day.
But that’s not the end of it – she’s 107 years old. When questioned on her age she replied “I think I just forgot to die”.
If that’s not a fabulous attitude to life I don’t know what is!
May I borrow this story! YES……she has decided to live life, so life keeps on going. I can tell you too have a positive mindset about aging; welcome to our tribe! You are so right that many people use “retirement” as the reason to disengage, rather than take the opportunity to reinvent themselves to live what could be the best phase of their life! Thanks so much for reading, Ardith
thank you for including this – ‘i think i just forgot to die’ – priceless!!
My mother lived to be 100 and since I seem to “take after her” physiologically in many respects I’ve always just figured I’d live to be at least 100 as well. The women in my family have never made a big deal about their age. We never pretended to stay 39 forever. I’m 81 now and take a line dance class once a week and occasionally sign up for a Jive ballroom dance class. I enjoy my hobbies of floral arranging and decorating by changing the decor out in my one-bedroom apartment for the seasons. Much of my decor is in rental storage and that requires my driving to my storage units and hefting and shifting stacked storage containers around three or four times a year. My one bow to age is storing my decor in smaller containers! I have treated for glaucoma for more than 40 years, but still just wear reading glasses to read two or three novels a week. I have had mild scoliosis most of my life and now have spinal stenosis, but regular visits to the chiropractor seem to keep me going. I love to cook and occasionally do so for other residents in the building who are ill or recovering from surgery. What’s not to love about life?
You are a perfect example of a woman focusing on how to keep going, even with some of the issues the years bring to us, Teddee! Can you imagine how depressing it would feel to have a “whoa is me” sense of the next 20 years…..rather than the ‘how to rock on’ mindset you have?! I’m right behind you at 77 ;-)
Ardith
interesting …. by ‘decor’, do you mean holiday decor?? i’m not fancy, so to homes that have interior decorating take that kind of upkeep also?? i’m basic, so i’m a little lost at the idea of even having a storage – let alone shifting all those boxes!! — i love hearing what works for other people that i don’t normally encounter. thanks!
Yes Beth, I was wondering the same thing. If they are in storage why do you need to move them around, and why would you pay for storage and not use them , interesting indeed