Being “Actively Engaged and Independent” is important in Successful Ageing

Doing something you enjoy

Last month I spoke about successful ageing and what almost 2,000 older people from different regions of the world defined as successful ageing [1]. Of the six themes that were identified the most important was being “actively engaged and independent.” Makes sense really, once we become adults and set up our own home and create our own family, whatever that looks like, we really do want to be engaged and independent!

But what exactly does this look like. From thousands of submissions, we collated everything that we were given for defining successful ageing. “Actively engaged and independent” was described over 1,300 times by different people. We needed to separate these out into sub-themes to make it easier for everyone to understand what we were meaning, and we came up with 9 sub-themes:

• Enjoyment

• Capable and independent

• Hobbies

• Knowledgeable, mentally stimulate, and continue learning

• Approach to life

• Future planning

• Financial security

• Employment and/or retirement

• Volunteering

Playing an instrument

Enjoyment was described by hundreds of older people in many different scenarios, for example someone reported, “enjoyment of whatever ‘floats your boat’” (participant 843) or “having more time to do things that bring enjoyment including doing nothing” (participant 388). What a great example of successful ageing, doing what you want, when you want to, or in some cases, just simply doing nothing, you decide. Many of us are living fast paced lives and packing a lot into our days, this can make us feel stressed or anxious at times. Just setting some time aside to do nothing or something we really enjoy can boost our physical, mental and emotional energy. Think about what works for you and brings you great enjoyment, are you doing it regularly?

Capable and independent was raised by almost 300 people and included statements such as “continue to do all the things you are capable of and adjust if you’re not” (participant 1165) or “being independent and able to live in your own home” (1602); and “being able to get out of bed in the morning and being independent both physically and mentally” (1683). Having a home that you can call your own is such an important part of living independently. Many of the activities we do around the home we don’t even think about until they start to become more difficult. Showering, going to the toilet, dressing, cooking, cleaning, they’re all very easy to do while we are physically strong and well, but think about how hard these things are if say we hurt our back, they then become challenging at any age. This is similar for people who become frail, and their physical capacity is reduced. To avoid this and remain living independently it is so important to stay strong, have good balance and mobility. Being capable and independent is so important for successful ageing.

Cooking together

Having a hobby, or two or three, was also viewed as important for successful ageing. Participants spoke about starting new hobbies or continuing to do things they enjoy. Some of the hobbies described included making things and selling them (participant 827), riding, shooting, cooking (baking bread), gardening (growing bonsai), cross-country skiing, the list goes on. The respondents who were keeping active through their hobbies really felt it was an important aspect to successful ageing.

Being knowledgeable, staying mentally stimulated and continuing to learn was also viewed as important. Completing short courses, reading lots of books, keeping up with current affairs, challenging yourself to do something you thought you couldn’t do, it all adds up to feeling good, being active and independent. A number of participants described themselves as lifelong learners, they weren’t talking about University, they were talking about life and all of the different ways you can continue to learn and understand things, for some people their curiosity never dries up they just want to continue to learn and grow.

Approach to life was viewed in different ways. For some it was about the process of getting older, “I suppose for me it’s accepting that whether I like it or not I am now of a certain age but at the same time retaining, hopefully, a broad-minded attitude and approach to life” (participant 1019), for others it was how they actually approached things, “approach every challenge with grace” (participant 4122). For some it was about having a positive approach to life and that their friends and family really helped them to achieve this, despite some of the bumps in the road (participant 133), others described it as “I look forward to each and every day. I take responsibility for my own happiness and the attitude to which I approach my day” (participant 2898).

How do you approach life?

This ties in nicely with planning for the future, financial security and employment versus retirement, the next three sub-themes. Some talked about health being part of their future planning, while others were thinking more financially and how they would plan for their future to continue to have enough money to do what they want and need to do. Some people were tossing up employment versus retirement and thinking about financial security as part of their decision making. When finances were discussed, the term “financially secure” was commonly used. It’s a very tough question to answer because we simply don’t know how long we are going to live, or how long our money needs to last.

Finally, the last sub-theme was volunteering. Many of the respondents spoke about being active volunteers in their communities, which was great to hear because in some ways volunteering seems to be diminishing as we all have so many things going on in our lives. Interestingly though, when people spoke about volunteering, they didn’t say what they did, just that it was an important part of successful ageing from their perspective.

I thought I would finish up with a couple of full examples respondents provided for how they defined successful ageing.

“I am able to maintain my physical well-being. I have a loving partner and we enjoy a quality of life for which we are both grateful. I do volunteer work and keep up my friendships. I like my life” (Participant 3058)

“Acceptance of one’s physical abilities and enjoyment of social gatherings, reflections, delight in watching the next generation grow. Maintaining a slightly wicked sense of humour” (Participant 65)

“Successful ageing to me means, living my life to the fullest, keeping my independence, and staying strong. To be able to stay in my own home, manage my affairs without any assistance from family or organisations. To help me do this, I go to gym x3 per week. Continue to care for my own home and garden. Take my dog out for a walk every day. To be responsible for my own meal planning and preparing. Still caring for my own activities of daily living, like showering, and all I have mentioned above. Thank you.” (Participant 517)

• Successful ageing covers so many different parts of life, it is not one dimensional, just like every older person, they have so many things to give, life stories to share, wisdom to impart and sometimes out and out silliness and fun times to be part of (my favourite part)

• Staying actively engaged and independent is really important, are you happy with where you are at currently? If not, what can you do to change this?

• Think of three things that bring you great enjoyment, do you do these regularly? Perhaps write them down (if you journal write them in there) and see how you can incorporate them into your life, we do many things we have to, let’s do more things we enjoy and want to

• Do you have a hobby? Is there anything you’ve allllwwwaaaayyyss (see how I have accentuated that 😊) wanted to learn or do? Why not start making a plan today as to how you can work towards doing it. It’s never too late. When we set our mind to something and give ourselves the time and space to achieve it, we more often that not, can get there (and no being the number one athlete or superstar in the world is not a hobby…)

  
  

Live the good life!

Reference:

1. Burton, E., Teater, B., Chonody, J., Alford, S. 2024. What does it mean to successfully age? Multinational study of older adults’ perceptions. The Gerontologist; 64(10): gnae102. DOI: 10.1093/geront/gnae102