How Kerry Burnight is teaching how to age happily
Kerry Burnight has seen both sides of the aging journey.
For 20 years, the gerontologist worked with people who were deeply lonely, neglected, or financially or physically harmed while running the United States’ first elder abuse center.
He witnessed those who were followed by stereotypes many people are holding about aging as negative and sad experience. But he knew that wasn’t the only way to grow old.
He knew people who succeeded against the odds later in life, including his radiant 96-year-old mother, Betty. And it wasn’t as if these people had escaped life unscathed or lived like monks.
For example, Betty had painful arthritis and faced bankruptcy when her husband died. She has never been particularly athletic and loves dessert and cocktails.
So what separated those who were successful from those who suffered later in life? Burnight calls it joyspan.
“Joyspan is not an absence of challenges, but requires excellent physical health,” he says. Rather, it involves making a daily choice to find the good in life and tend to four foundations:
- Grow: Keep expanding and exploring.
- To connect: Make time for new and existing relationships.
- Rapport: Adapt to changing and challenging situations.
- To give: Share yourself.
“When we deal with these things, we’ll see a difference,” says Burnight, author of the book. New York Times The best-selling book on the subject is Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in the Second Half of Life.
When people start to think that the best days of their lives are behind them and they have nothing to give, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They stop trying (adapting and growing) from trying something new; they stop making an effort to see (connect) their friends; and they assume that no one will want to learn from them or that they have nothing to offer (give).
“It also affects you physiologically because you’re not moving as much and you’re not using your brain. Everything goes in the same direction.”
Conversely, there are people who proactively reject the idea that aging is all about decline and accept that there are things that get better as we get older. They also find that they care less about what others think and are therefore willing to try new things.
“Then you reach out and connect with that person and that activates your brain and you have to make an effort to get ready and get out the door, so you move your body and that’s a cycle too, but it’s a constant cycle of growth.”
Despite the challenges she faces, Betty still finds joy, connection, and growth by picking roses from her garden, reading books, regularly playing cards with friends, caring for grandparents, and baking pies.
The thing about Joyspan is that there are no rules on how to do this, as long as four areas are addressed in a small way. And we don’t have to wait until later to get started.
Shake up your routine
Michelle Bridges, who is in her mid-50s, plans to spend the rest of her life trying something new. It replaces the gym floor with a dance floor.
Known for his intense and structured approach to training, Bridges admits it’s a shift, at least in terms of his public persona. The Biggest Loser.
“I don’t like to be tainted by the rhetoric of, ‘Oh, all he talks about is a tough, long education,'” he says. “I have always been an advocate for women who act no matter the intensity.”
But she’s changing her routine as she considers how she wants to feel for the next 30 years of her life.
A skiing accident that left him dependent on his 10-year-old son, Axel, caused him to consider the realities of aging.
Bridges also took inspiration from the ABC show Keep dancing Video following a group of people over the age of 65 learning to dance. After 12 weeks in the hands of choreographer Kelley Abbey, they were fitter, healthier, and better at cognitive tasks.
“I was transferred,” he says. “They managed to completely change the course of their lives.”
So Bridges called Abbey, who agreed to help create a dance component for the 12WBT “Future Ready” program. will start on monday.
It feels joyful
Dance helps keep our brains young because we get the double pleasure of synchronizing music and movement, as well as the double stimulation effect from physical activity and cognitive learning (as we take and remember steps, navigate space, and socialize).
A study published in the journal New England Journal of Medicinecompared the effects of different activities on people’s cognition in later life. They looked at everything from playing cards, playing music, solving puzzles, playing tennis, walking and dancing.
The most prominent hobby was dancing.
People who danced more than once a week had a 76 percent lower risk of dementia after twenty years than those who danced infrequently.
“It doesn’t connect to the brain in any other way,” Bridges says. “And it feels upbeat and fun and not like exercise.”
Bridges has been known to move on the dance floor at parties and weddings and in the living room with Axel.
“But to really move the needle [you have to] Learn some choreography.”
Showing that we continue to learn, grow and have fun as we get older is a message that Bridges suspects many people need to hear, including himself.
“The way we think plays a big role in the way we live,” he says.
For her, it’s also about challenging stereotypes about aging and showing the next generation that it doesn’t have to be negative or scary. He wants to show it to his son and says with a chuckle: “He’s not going away. He’s a force and don’t make fun of him.”
“Life in the 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond can look very, very different from the time of our grandparents. I find that very exciting.”
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Sarah Berry is a lifestyle and health writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect with: X or email.
