Grumpiness and old age; does it have to be?

Not if you don't want it to!  Getting grumpier as you get older can be an easy habit to fall into, but not one that helps you much.  With some self-awareness and a bit of effort, life can be more enjoyable for yourself and those around you.  This article has some good reminders and tips on how to do that:

If you want to be a more pleasant person as you get older, say goodbye to these 10 behaviors

     

The Disasterous Concequences of Legal Marijuana in Oregon

‘Talk About Clusterf---’: Why Legal Weed Didn’t Kill Oregon’s Black Market
Legalization was supposed to take care of the black market. It hasn’t worked out that way.

[...] Over the last two years, there’s been such an influx of outlaw farmers that southern Oregon now rivals California’s notorious Emerald Triangle as a national center of illegal weed cultivation. Even though marijuana cultivation has been legal in Oregon since 2014, Jackson County Sheriff Nate Sickler says there could be up to 1,000 illegal operations in a region of more than 4,000 square miles. The Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, which oversees the state’s $1.2 billion legal cannabis industry, estimates the number of illicit operations is double that.

Local law enforcement officials believe that people from every U.S. state and as many as 20 countries have purchased property in Jackson or Josephine counties. Cartels roll in and offer long-time residents as much as a million dollars in cash for their property, and hoop houses follow soon after the sale is complete. Residents have become accustomed to hearing Bulgarian, Chinese, Russian and even Hebrew spoken at the grocery store.[...]

      Read the whole thing for... many stories of lawlessness. Photos of massive amounts of trash and destruction. It's the lawlessness that is the most disturbing, as law enforcent seems unable to deal with it.

There is also the untold story, of mental health problems. Marijuana triggers Schizophrenia in some people with a family history of it. At the very least, there should be warnings about it on Marijuana products.

Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence

Oregon also has some of the most mis-guided mental health laws in the country, making it impossible to intervene to help people with illnesses like Schizophrenia. We had a tenant who was diagnosed with it after using legal purchased marijuana products. She lost her ability to work and pay rent, and became homeless. Even her family could not legally intervene. It was tragic, and it continues to happen to many unsuspecting people.

Legalization, and the way it was rolled out and implemented, has been disasterous. Drastic changes are needed, before things get even worse.

Have you experianced the "Helper High"?

Apparently, we are hard-wired to experience it:



How to Be Happy Every Day: It Will Change the World | Jacqueline Way | TEDxStanleyPark

The World Happiness Report states “Over 1 billion adults suffer from anxiety and depression.” How do we get to happy? Jacqueline Way, Founder of www.365give.ca shares a secret to happiness so simple a 3 – year old can do it. Jacqueline is a mother of three boys and social good activist dedicated to changing the world 1 give, 1 day at a time. You will learn through her powerful story how your body is hard-wired for giving. Researchers from all over the world have been studying the science and physiological of giving for decades. They’ve discovered giving makes you happy, makes you high, is our bodies natural “Fountain of Youth” and reduces stress. Her inspirational journey with her son and thousands of children will inspire you start a daily giving habit that will make you happy and change the world.

Jacqueline Way is the founder of www.356give.ca a charitable organization dedicated to educating, empowering, and inspiring children to change the world "one give, one day at a time." You can reach Jacqueline at jacquelineway365give@gmail.com [...]

Around Christmas time, there is an emphasis on giving. But what if giving were to become an ingrained habit, a habit you practice 365 days a year? And what if doing so benefited you, made you feel better, physically, mentally and emotionally? That is what is interesting about her Ted Talk. Giving doesn't have to always be a major sacrifice either. You can give in small ways, every day. And if it becomes a habit, you reap multiple benefits. A Win/Win for everyone.

   

Reading to change your life...

... for the better. From a Personal Development blog:

12 Good Reads that Will Change the Way You Think, Live and Love

[...] As readers, we not only learn more, but we are also more proficient at deciphering misinformation – our habit of reading gradually improves our judgment. And being able to correctly size up a situation is crucial for being effective at whatever we’re doing.

Speaking for myself, I know my reading habit has sharpened my edge. I’m always enamored when I’m working on a puzzling issue and some out-of-left-field piece of information comes to mind from something I’ve read that helps me put all the pieces together.

So with the importance of reading in mind, it’s time to read or re-read our 12 most popular posts (based on the number of reader views, social shares and comments) from this past year. If you give them a chance, each one of these quick reads has the power to change the way you think, live and love, so you can stay on track to living at your greatest potential… [...]

Some good topics covered here. The authors are Life Coaches. Excellent content, good food for thought. I will be referring to this list again and again.

     

The mental/emotional effects of isolation

An article by Felicity Aston, the first woman to ski cross-country across the Antarctic continent, completely alone. She talks about her experience of isolation, and how her experience might compare to what future astronauts might face:

How will space explorers cope with isolation?

[...] It was the alone-ness itself that was frightening and my subsequent 59-day ski across the continent was dominated by my battle to deal with the shock of it.

I imagine that the first humans to visit Mars might experience a similar state of shock at their disconnection from human society. It is intriguing to wonder whether there might be parallels between the psychology involved in exploring Mars and exploring Antarctica.

Could potential astronauts preparing for long space missions across the solar system learn anything useful from experiences like mine in Antarctica?

As I began my loneliest of expeditions I had the benefit of more than a decade of previous polar journeys to draw from. In addition I had carefully prepared for the psychological stress of isolation, consulting a specialist sport psychologist.

Yet, I was taken aback by the range of ways in which the alone-ness affected me. I became increasingly emotional. With no one to witness my behaviour, I allowed inner feelings to flow into outward expression without check. If I felt angry, I shouted. If I felt upset, I cried.

Self-discipline became much harder. Surrounded by others, taking risky short-cuts isn't a possibility, largely because of the embarrassment of being discovered. But alone, with no-one to observe your laziness, the voice of temptation was always present. I found that ignoring the voice of temptation was an extra drain on mental energy that simply hadn't existed on team expeditions.

My brain, starved of any input by the lack of colour, shape or form in my largely blizzard-obscured world began to fill in the gaps by creating hallucinations.

I was surprised to find that we can hallucinate not just with our visual sense but with all our senses. I hallucinated strange forms in the gloom of regular whiteouts that took the shape of floating hands and small bald men on dinosaurs, but I also hallucinated smells, tastes and sounds that all seemed very real.

As I skied, I began to direct my internal monologue at the sun (when it was visible through the bad weather) and was slightly perturbed when eventually the sun began to talk back to me in my mind. It took on a very distinct character and even though I knew on some level that it wasn't real, the sun played an important part in my coping strategies.

Routine became increasingly important to me in overcoming these damaging responses to alone-ness. When everything else in my landscape and daily experience was so surreal, routine became the rhythm that I clung to. I performed every task in exactly the same way, every time it had to be done. I repeated chores in the same order again and again until I reached the point that I barely had to think about them. Reducing the thought required seemed to simultaneously reduce the emotion.

This was despite the fact that I did have some connection to the outside world during my expedition. I carried a satellite phone which was capable of calling anyone in the world at any time from my tent -- and yet, largely, I decided not to.

I was scared of the emotional high that speaking to loved ones might bring, knowing that it would inevitably be followed by a crushing emotional low as I was forced to end the call. [...]

To read it is to almost be there in her shoes. Fascinating. See the links for pics and more.
     

The perennial philosophy in philosophy

Aldous Huxley wrote about The Perennial Philosophy that runs through all theologies. It's made me think recently, about the commonalities that run through many philosophies.

Recently, I've posted about Buddhism as a philosophy. More recently still, I've been reading about Epicureans and Stoics, and have been struck by the similarities they share with each other, and with Buddhist philosophy.

I'm not the only one who has noticed:

Buddhism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism

[...] Stoics aimed not at getting rid of emotions (despite the popular caricature of Stoics as Spock-like figures), but rather to channel them in a more productive direction. This was achieved through a combination of logic, concentration and reflection, and eventually evolved into various contemporary forms of cognitive behavioral therapy. (In this sense, both Buddhism — with its various meditative techniques — and Stoicism have entered the realm of modern practices, which can be pursued essentially independently of the philosophies that gave origin to them.) The ultimate goal of the Stoic was apatheia, or peace of mind, which I think is akin to both the Epicurean ideal of ataraxia and the Buddhist goal of nirvana (again, with due consideration given to the significant differences in the background conditions and specific articulation of the three philosophies). And of course Stoics too had a ready-made recipe for their philosophy, in the form of a short list of virtues to practice (nothing compared to the above mentioned panoply of Buddhist lists though!). These were: courage, justice, temperance and wisdom.

I am sure one could continue with this conceptual cross-mapping for a while, and of course scholars within each of the three traditions would object to or modify my suggestions. What I am interested in here, however, is pursuing the further questions of what the common limitations of the philosophies of Buddhism, Epicureanism and Stoicism are, as well as what positive contributions they have made to humanity's thinking about (and dealing with!) the universe.

I am inclined to reject both Buddhism’s and Stoicism’s metaphysics, being significantly more happy with the Epicurean view of the world. I don’t think there is any reason to think that concepts like logos or karma have any philosophical substance, nor do they do any work in actually explaining why things are the way they are. The Epicurean embracing of a materialist metaphysics, instead, is in synch with the development of natural philosophy and eventually of modern science. [...]

Read the whole thing, for a thoughtful comparison of the three philosophies. And for the embedded links, and some interesting comments afterward.

While reading about the Stoics, I came across this informative timeline on the Stoics' wikipedia page:




Since I don't have a lot of leisure time to study philosophy, I decided to cut to the chase and read Marcus Aurelius, who seems to be the culmination of the stoic philosophers. I had read a little bit of his writing in the past, and was favorably impressed, so I've ordered a book of his meditations.

Even though Marcus was a Stoic, he had studied Epicurus. I wondered if one could mix Marcus Aurelius and Epicurianism as practical wisdom for a good life? It seems I am not the first one to ask that question:

Can one mix Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius to create a great recipe for a good life?

It is time to present two of my all-time favorites among humanistic thinkers of the past. Number one on my list is early Greek philosopher Epicurus. He did create a comprehensive and wholly rational recipe on how to attain a maximal state of peace of mind.
My second choice is the Roman emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius. He did teach how to use self-restraint for achieving tranquility of mind.

These two great men had much in common. Marcus Aurelius was well aware of the teachings of the much earlier Epicurus, even if he belonged to a competing school of philosophy. Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic and Stoicism did compete for followers with Epicureanism in the time of Marcus Aurelius.

Stoics did, in fact, at times pour scorn over Epicurus. However, the fact remains that their philosophy contains very many elements that were taken quite straight out of Epicureanism. Many ideas that were presented by Marcus Aurelius could have as well been uttered by Epicurus or his followers as well. [...]

Marcus Aurelius

I think we are blessed to have so many great minds from the past that we can still learn from. Wisdom we can build on.  I'm very much enjoying all this!


Also see:

"Never let the future disturb you" or Marcus Aurelius and Epicurus on foundations for a good life

   

Added benefit to being multi-lingual

Speaking two languages keeps brain's aging at bay

NEW YORK: If you speak more languages than one, it is good not only for your social image but also for the health of your brain, a research said.

Bilingualism has a positive effect on cognition later in life.

Individuals, who speak two or more languages, even those who acquired the second language in adulthood, may slow down cognitive decline from aging, the research found.

"Our study is the first to examine whether learning a second language impacts cognitive performance later in life while controlling for childhood intelligence," said lead author Thomas Bak from University of Edinburgh.

Bilingualism is thought to improve cognition and delay dementia in older adults. [...]

They wanted to eliminate the possibility that bilingual people had better cognition, that led them to be bilingual in the first place. Read the whole thing for the details of the study.

I love to study languages, I'm studying Spanish presently. Nice to know there can be long-term cognitive benefits too.
     

Walk more, think better?

It seems the answer is "yes":

Steve Jobs, Beethoven knew walking increases creativity; Stanford study says they were right

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Beethoven knew walking boosted their creativity. Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, held walking meetings. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg keeps meetings on foot. Beethoven created sonatas and symphonies while strolling the Vienna Woods.

A new study confirms that creative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter, according to a new study co-authored by Marily Oppezzo, a Stanford doctoral graduate in educational psychology, and Daniel Schwartz, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education.

The study found it didn't matter where you walk -- strolling indoors or outdoors similarly boosted creative inspiration. The act of walking itself, and not the environment, was the main factor. Across the board, creativity levels were consistently and significantly higher for those walking compared to those sitting.

"Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking. We finally may be taking a step, or two, toward discovering why," Oppezzo and Schwartz wrote in the study published this week in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.

See the original article for embedded links. I'm not surprised by the study. I've often found that going for a walk when I have to think over something, helps me to make better decisions and become clearer in my mind.

     

Train Your Brain, with Lasting Results

Brain training helped older adults stay sharp for years -study

CHICAGO, Jan 13 (Reuters) - A brief course of brain
exercises helped older adults hold on to improvements in
reasoning skills and processing speed for 10 years after the
course ended, according to results from the largest study ever
done on cognitive training.

Older adults who underwent a brief course of brain exercises
saw improvements in reasoning skills and processing speed that
could be detected as long as 10 years after the course ended,
according to results from the largest study ever on cognitive
training.

[...]

People in the study had an average age of 74 when they
started the training, which involved 10 to 12 sessions lasting
60 to 75 minutes each. After five years, researchers found,
those with the training performed better than their untrained
counterparts in all three measures.

Although gains in memory seen at the study's five-year mark
appeared to drop off over the next five years, gains in
reasoning ability and processing speed persisted 10 years after
the training.

"What we found was pretty astounding. Ten years after the
training, there was evidence the effects were durable for the
reasoning and the speed training," said George Rebok, an expert
on aging and a professor at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, who led the study.

Participants in all three training groups also reported that
they had an easier time with daily activities such as managing
their medications, cooking meals or handling their finances than
did participants who did not get the training. But standard
tests of these activities showed no differences between the
groups.

"The speed-of-processing results are very encouraging," said
study co-author Jonathan King, program director for cognitive
aging in the Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the
National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National
Institutes of Health, which helped fund the research.

King said the self-reported improvements in daily function
were interesting, but added, "We do not yet know whether they
would truly allow older people to live independently longer."

[...]

The training course was designed to bolster specific
cognitive abilities that begin to slip as people age. It does
not aim to prevent dementia caused by underlying disease such as Alzheimer's.

At the start of the study, all 2,832 participants were
cognitively normal. The study included four groups: three
training groups plus a control group of volunteers who came in
for regular testing to see how they were faring with age.

People were trained in small groups over a period of several
weeks and then were tested immediately after the training and
again one, two, three, five and 10 years later.

About 60 percent of the volunteers who underwent training
also got booster training sessions, which enhanced the initial benefits.

At the end of the trial, all groups showed declines compared
with their initial baseline tests in memory, reasoning and
processing speed, but those who got training in reasoning and
processing speed experienced less decline.

[...]

The programs, developed by the researchers, were focused
largely on teaching strategies to improve cognitive performance.
For example, the memory training taught people how to remember
word lists, sequences and main ideas, while the reasoning
training focused on things like recognizing number patterns.

In the processing speed training, people were asked to focus
on the main object in a computer screen while also trying to
quickly recognize and identify objects on the periphery of the
screen. Such training can help older drivers with things like
recognizing road signs while driving.

A version of the speed training program developed for this
trial is now commercially available through the brain fitness
company Posit Science, but the researchers are working on makingother types of training available as well.

Rebok's team just got a grant from the National Institute on
Aging to make a computerized version of the memory test, with
the hope that repeated training can improve the results.

The study was not designed to explain why cognitive training
can have such a lasting effect. Rebok said it may be that people
take the strategies they learn and practice them over time. As
they age, trained individuals can rely on these strategies to
compensate for their declines. [...]

I find it interesting that 10 to 12 hours of training could have such long lasting effects. They must have learned techniques that they incorporated into their daily lives, that made a difference in the long run. An education about how to use their brains, or more effectively use their thinking and reasoning faculties. Why not teach these things in schools to people who are young? Such habits might benefit them throughout their entire lives.

     

Genetics and Mental Illness: common roots?

Same Genetic Basis Is Found in 5 Types of Mental Illness

The psychiatric illnesses seem very different -- schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, major depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Yet they share several genetic glitches that can nudge the brain along a path to mental illness, researchers report. Which disease, if any, develops is thought to depend on other genetic or environmental factors.

Their study, published online Wednesday in the Lancet, was based on an examination of genetic data from more than 60,000 people world-wide. Its authors say it is the largest genetic study yet of psychiatric disorders. The findings strengthen an emerging view of mental illness that aims to make diagnoses based on the genetic aberrations underlying diseases instead of on the disease symptoms.

Two of the aberrations discovered in the new study were in genes used in a major signaling system in the brain, giving clues to processes that might go awry and suggestions of how to treat the diseases.

“What we identified here is probably just the tip of an iceberg,” said Dr. Jordan Smoller, lead author of the paper and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. “As these studies grow we expect to find additional genes that might overlap.”

The new study does not mean that the genetics of psychiatric disorders are simple. Researchers say there seem to be hundreds of genes involved and the gene variations discovered in the new study only confer a small risk of psychiatric disease. [...]

     

How about "Mental Illness Control"?

A Proper Response to the Connecticut Murders

[...] But no one can discount one over-riding issue that links every like event involving these types of mass murders, mental health. The Aurora, WV Tech and the Newton slayings all involve a significantly mentally ill individual.

We, as a nation, decided three or four decades ago, that we didn’t have the will or resources to create safe, reliable and appropriate facilities for those who suffer with mental illness. One reason we started to lose our appetite to deal with the mentally ill appropriately was the ever expanding definition that was being associated with the diagnoses. Eventually, every drunk and drug user was labeled mentally ill, and resources allocated to the mentally ill were quickly filled and demand for more and more and more resources taxed the mental health support system.

A history of tragic abuse in mental health facilities also came to light as mental institutions became the playground for every kook doctor who espoused a cure for mental health. With little or no oversight mental health institutions became a real life horror stories. One has to look no further than the lobotomy of Rose Marie Kennedy to demonstrate these abuses.

Thus, by the time the 1980′s rolled around mental health institutions were burdened with more demands for an every expanding diagnose and marked by the mark of abuse. Lost respect led to lost funding which eventually led to the closing of many public mental health institutions.

And, now, mental health, marred by expanded definitions, history of abuse and quackery, lost funding and lost public support, ranks low in the priorities of the American public.

We should realize that there are individuals, through no fault of their own, who suffer from mental illness, which needs to be recognized and dealt with. Additionally, families of these individuals need support, both in resource and emotional support. In return for this support the mental health community needs to stop the ever expanding definition of mental illness and separate those who choose to abuse drugs and alcohol from those who suffer from a non self-inflicted malady. [...]

Our country has had a long history of gun ownership, without these mass slayings. So what has changed? We used to lock up people who had serious mental problems. And now we don't.

*

     

Middle Age Musings and A Tender Heart

Martin Amis Contemplates Evil

[...] “Your youth evaporates in your early 40s when you look in the mirror. And then it becomes a full-time job pretending you’re not going to die, and then you accept that you’ll die. Then in your 50s everything is very thin. And then suddenly you’ve got this huge new territory inside you, which is the past, which wasn’t there before. A new source of strength. Then that may not be so gratifying to you as the 60s begin [Amis is 62], but then I find that in your 60s, everything begins to look sort of slightly magical again. And it’s imbued with a kind of leave-taking resonance, that it’s not going to be around very long, this world, so it begins to look poignant and fascinating.” [...]

"Midlife Is A Crossroads, Not A Crisis"

[...] At midlife, we find ourselves experiencing a discrepancy between who we thought we were and who we actually are now.

To make matters worse, while the person we thought we were seems to be dissolving, the person we hoped we weren't begins to show up more and more.

This clash of images can leave us feeling sad, depressed, angry and very alone. We might feel a sense of profound loss that we cannot really explain to ourselves.

Midlife transformative forces can push us deeply into our fear. Then we see its real nature. Behind our fear is a sadness that is an expression of a tender heart. This tender heart is an important source of compassion and concern for others as well as of awe and wonder about the mystery of life.

When we connect with our tender heart, we no longer have to be embarrassed about who we are.

There is an art and science to making a midlife transformation. First we need to recognize that the turmoil we feel represents life working on us rather than evidence that we are sick or other than we should be.

At midlife our soul makes a grab for the steering wheel, it wants to drive. Ego's dress rehearsal is over.

Death is no longer hidden on the horizon. We need to face the task writing a script for the second half of our lives, so we can live with conviction and real intent.

As we give up our concepts of who we are and what we "should" be, we can then become sensitive to a kind of internal guidance.

Our psyche, at first, frightens us by shaking up our world entirely. It then stimulates us by pointing to some of life's most interesting possibilities. Our task is listening and attending to what our soul is telling us.