I read today that older people are happier than younger people. This comes from the American Psychologoical Association of Toronto, Canada and a Pew Research Study.

I accept this idea completely. I have a teen. She is a beautiful girl with all sorts of possibilities ahead of her. You’d think she’d be happy, but everything – and I mean everything – is annoying. You know what annoys me?  Crowds. How do I deal with them? I avoid them. Problem solved.

Here are a few of the ways in which older people find greater happiness:

 

*They are better able to recognize what triggers stress and avoid it
*They don’t sweat the small stuff and have greater control over their emotions
*They nurture close relationships with family and friends
*They have a more “positive mindset” and prefer to look at things from a positive point of view – both present and past events
*The have more time for hobbies, friends, or religion because they are retired
*They pick and chose their battles, having learned long ago that to let the little stuff slide

An interesting point made in the article is that a younger person’s more high-strung nature may actually contribute to better success in the workplace.

“Sometimes, happiness is something that you might not be able to achieve in the same way when you’re young and you have these things to accomplish,” she said. “Your time will come.”

Image credit: SXC.HU

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Happiness Comes with Age

“Crafting and art has kept me sane,” she said, in spite of her left hand sometimes experiencing pain. 

I’d imagine her crafting also keeps her hands more agile, even though she does have some pain.  I know this was true of my grandmother.

Nanny’s hands were curled and crippled with arthritis in her later years.  However, she insisted on keeping them busy with snapping beans, shucking peas, mending clothes, stitching quilts, making doll clothes, and crocheting rag rugs.  I recall sitting beside her learning these tasks and recall her misshapen hands busy as she told me stories.

Image: sxc.hu

My daughter, who found quilting a stress reliever during her husband’s illness, experienced a serious illness herself last year.  As she recovered, but still was weak, she found inspiration through her quilt art and her quilting friends.

How have crafts inspired and aided you?

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Arts & Crafts Increase Agility

Image:sxc.hu

 In addition to giving you something to concentrate on when your thoughts could delve into darkness, crafts and related arts may bring you together with others in your field.  This helps you find new directions and boost your spirits. 

 I’ve found working with my hands a great diversion over the years.  The actual task of quilting, scrapbooking, crocheting and other crafts is relaxing.  Often you can take your work with you.

 My daughter began her serious venture into quiltmaking when her husband was seriously ill.  The small hand projects were easy to tote along to hospitals and waiting rooms.

 If you can begin to earn income through your crafts to help with the family budget during times of budget crunches, this also helps alleviate the stress of life.

How have arts and crafts helped you through tough times?

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Crafts Good for Mental Health

How many times do we hear about shootings and violent lifestyles that seem to go on until someone pays the ultimate price?  Well this doctor decided to change that. He started a program that connects people to support services that help change the way they live. Things like ” GED classes, conflict resolution, mentoring and parenting skills. A peer support group also meets at the hospital once a week.”

Dr. Cooper published a study a few years ago in the Journal of Trauma that shows the program works. It says that people in the program were not as likely to be involved in violent crimes going forward. Dr. Cooper said that surgery in repairing their injury is only the first step in their treatment. “The next step is to try to keep them from coming back.”

Image: sxc.hu.

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Saving Lives Mentally as Well as Physically

for my torso to shrink

or the shirt to lengthen 2 inches.

I’ve got this crazy entitlement issue with my shirts. I feel I should be allowed to move my arms without showing my stomach.

The one with the pink scarf too. My mother bought them for me and it feels ungrateful to admit they don’t fit. What’s the statute of limitations on this?

My torso not only has to shrink for the striped one to fit, but my boobs do too. I’m holding out because shrinking boobs is a possibility.

I invested an entire quarter, that’s 25 cents at a garage sale, in the brown shirt.

That’s worth losing a few inches of torso isn’t it? Have you ever seen a shirt that has the ability to grow?

This is when frugality becomes a mental health issue.

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Incredible Shrinking Torso

1. Lose weight. Yoga is exercise, pure and simple. You will be mystified by how much you sweat considering there is absolutely no jumping around. There is nothing aerobic about yoga. Yet, you will be dripping in sweat. You build muscle in yoga and muscle eats fat.

2. Mental Rest. Perhaps you can relate to me and my mental habits. If I allow it, my mind will run round and round things that should have happened or things that I don’t think should have happened. Sometimes I’ll rehearse things I should say or do in my relationships. I’ll resolved to do or say something different in the future and will rehearse it over and over in my head. Frankly, this is exhausting. But, pre-yoga I felt like I just couldn’t turn my brain off. I would lay awake for hours at night with this mental tally running around in my head. I could never get any real rest.

3. Mental Focus. Even if I’m not focusing on past or future fictions in my brain, I’m usually trying hard to remember appointments and check things off my responsibility list. If you’re a woman, especially a mom, you know that I have a lot on my mind every second of the day. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. But, it’s hard to focus on what I am actually doing and stay in the moment with the responsibility circus performing tricks in my head all day long. I’ll be working with my daughter on her numbers and be thinking about balancing the household budget. Thisnasty mental habit is not allowing me to enjoy working with my daughter and it’s not getting the budget done any faster. Yoga has really taught me how to tame the circus freaks running around and helped me learn to focus on my present experience.

4. Positive Attitude. One of the things I try to do during my hour-and-a-half yoga classes is speak kindly to myself. You’re supposed to think of nothing. But, I have yet to master this skill. So, instead I have a rule that I am only allowing empowering things about myself to go on in my head during yoga. No self-flagellation or doubt or loathing allowed. Pure forgiveness of me, pure acceptance of me. Pure compliments to my body. It’s really quite nice and this practice has helped improve my self image and self esteem tremendously. I also do a lot of praying and forgiving of others during this quiet time.

5. Insomnia. Do to the fact that my mind is at a gallop most of the time it is difficult for me to turn it off. Especially if I am mad about something or ticked off at someone. So I used to lay awake for hours until I took sleeping pills. Or I would wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. Which made me frustrated and irritable the next day. Since starting yoga I go to sleep easily and sleep all the way through the night. In turn, I feel better in the mornings and throughout the day.

6. Challenging. I used to want to avoid challenging myself physically. Frankly, I have never, ever exercised in my life. I was simply too lazy and wanted to relax. With yoga classes though I can see improvement and it makes me feel accomplished and empowered about my physical body. Moves that I could barely do for a second – like plank, basically a push-up – left me pathetically exhausted. But, I feel so proud of myself now that I can hang out in plank for a few minutes and can see the improvement I’ve made in my core strength.

7. Strength. Can I just say I have a 25 pound baby? It takes a lot of physical labor to haul that kid around 24 hours a day. Yoga has built my muscles more than I thought possible. My whole body – muscles I never would have worked on in a weight room – is stronger. Turns out I really love being strong. I love feeling capable. I love being able to see definition in my arms and calves. I feel sexier when I look at my muscles than I thought I would.

8. Flexibility and Limberness. I’m only in my 30s and already I’m noticing that I have aches and pains that weren’t there when I was younger. Like my akelis heals are tight and hurt a little unless Istretch them out in the mornings. Downward Facing Dog has really helped this problem. 

9. Back health. For many years I have had chronic back pain. MDs just wanted to prescribe medication that makes me drowsy and loopy all the time. Finally, I found a chiropractor and started spending some money on ergonomic work chairs and mattresses and that helped a lot. Still, I would have a bit of pain and be afraid to do anything to hurt my back. Since yoga I can not tell you how nice it is to have ZERO back pain. Really, I don’t ever think about my back anymore. Because it is strong and I have great support in my core to hold my back up properly.

10. Rest. When I grew up Sunday was the Day of Rest. Rather than take a nap on Sunday afternoons I take an extremely challenging yoga class. No kidding, it is more restful than sleep. It is so peaceful and calm with the lights low and slow flowing movements that I feel like rested jello when I am finished.

Yoga is the single kindest thing I do for myself. I encourage you to try it, you deserve to be kind to yourself.

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10 reasons to try Yoga

Here are some of the physical symptoms and signs that you need to recognize and get control of:

• sleep disturbances
• back, shoulder or neck pain
• tension or migraine headaches
• upset or acid stomach, cramps, heartburn, gas, irritable bowel syndrome
• constipation, diarrhea
• weight gain or loss, eating disorders
• hair loss
• muscle tension
• fatigue
• high blood pressure
• irregular heartbeat, palpitations
• asthma or shortness of breath
• chest pain
• sweaty palms or hands
• cold hands or feet
• skin problems (hives, eczema, psoriasis, tics, itching)
• periodontal disease, jaw pain
• reproductive problems
• immune system suppression: more colds, flu, infections
• growth inhibition

Growth Inhibition — yikes!

So How do you relieve stress? Yoga? Meditation? A day at the beach?

Try simplifying your work life. You don’t have to answer every e-mail or every question thrown at you. Make sure their are significant blocks of time in your day or week that are just for you.

I can tell you that a daily walk with my dog does a gal wonders.

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Stress Check List.