Aging is an unpredictable process

Ageing is an Unpredictable Process Ageing is an unpredictable process. Aging is defined as the accumulation of changes in an organism or object over time. Ageing in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Many people age gracefully and some not so pleasingly. There are many stages in life to adult hood. Eric Erickson believes we develop into adulthood in eight stages that begins at birth. Erickson studied development of adults in depth and found that our personality traits come in opposites (learningplaceonline. com). Erickson stages breaks life down into more manageable spans instead of just dealing with life and its ups and down in a single birth to death incident. Aging is a monster of time. As children and young adults we are eager to grow up, but we do not realize what all the aging process has to entail. As we age life becomes less and less enjoyable. We experience physical, mental, and emotional changes. Many of us find that life does not pan out as we’ve planned. The normal life isn’t so normal. The normal life as described by Bjorkland , the co-author of The Journey of Adult Hood. She entitles the section “ Variations in Successful Development. In this section she describes her own life and how she has not followed the typical adult development (359). Bjorkland, has experienced the typical life in reverse. To sum it up the author illustrates how life varies. The typical life is to usually be born; grow into childhood and adult hood, get married or gets a career, and age gracefully as life progresses. In Bjorkland’s case she married before she was 25 had 3 kids and didn’t get a Ph. D until she was about 50 (359). Aging can cause stress in a person’s life. If a person does not have resilience against aging then that person may live the long and successful life they have planned. Whatever the exact cause; or array of causes the fact remains that aging happens. Negative Effects of Aging Many people consider physical changes a negative effect of aging. As we progress in development we find that our appearance changes. For some people that are a hard adjustment because our appearance is our identity. Physical changes as we age include: changing of the skin, changes in hearing and vision. As we grow older the skin changes it develops wrinkles, it can become thinner. As we age our skin becomes less resistant to effects of the sun and which causes to have to use lotion with higher spf solutions. To help combat changing of the skin we have come up with plastic surgery, make up, medicines, and cream to reduce or delete wrinkling of the skin. Slight changes in vision and hearing usually are definitely a part of aging. As we age, our vision may slowly diminish. Glasses or surgery can often correct the cause of this. Hearing loss may develop gradually and often goes untreated. Especially in older adults and that is why it is important to have vision and hearing evaluated each year. As we age our medicine intake increases because we develop diseases and our body temp changes. Our minds may slowly diminish as well. The most important to know is that as we age our heart begins to slow down and less able to pump blood through the body like a younger heart. As a senior adult monitoring your heart’s circulation is very important. A negative effect of aging for men and women is decrease in sexuality. Having intimacy in life is important period. Sharing feelings and closeness with another person are very important to sustaining emotional and physical intimacy. Loss of interest in sex is usually due to emotional causes, drug use, or disease, and not necessarily to aging. The changes in sexual response lead to changes in frequency and pattern of performance for older adults. In contrast, some of the physical changes are caused not by the aging process but by disease, the environment, and lifestyle. I think is especially true for the African American race from a personal perspective. The is good news is you can keep those physical changes occurring from these factors ( changing skin, vision, hearing, and health) can be prevented or slowed down by taking action now. You can slow the negative effects of aging by exercising, Yoga, is an internationally practiced exercise that consist of exercises and meditative practices that are extracted from the larger yogic systems. It is known improve not only physical health but mental and emotional health as well. Plan Ahead for Old Age Let’s face there is not that express or illustrate what life is really life or about other than the senior adult population. As young adults we need to plan ahead for old age financially that is. The article, “ Aging Gracefully: Are We Up to the Challenge? ” by Sandra Timmermann, Ehd addresses this issue. In the article she begins by discussing a lecture she recently heard at a conference about the end of “ elder hood. ” (32). The lecturer talked about the aging process and how so many of us are denying it or fighting it (32). He discusses things we have come up with to combat aging like: plastic surgery, anti aging, and hair color to name a few. He also discussed how compared to other cultures we fight growing old and compared to other cultures they are moving gracefully into old age. He finds that a big problem is that we don’t know when we cross into elder hood (32). In the article “ Aging after Retirement: A Social Psychological Process the authors explore theoretical process of the process of aging of retired older adults going beyond activity and community. The authors interviewed fourteen older adults who live healthy lifestyles. The authors used open-ended, free-flowing, unstructured to allow unlimited answers. The respondent were asked how they stay active, to describe their typical day, and what organizations they belong to, or at which they volunteer. They were also asked to describe their retirement life occurrences. The interviewers found that a gradual accumulation of losses, including loss of personal health, led to a basic social process of Health Transitioning with two stages: Early wellness and Later Illness. All most all participants reported slowing down to some degree from the effects of aging and many had health complaints. On the subject of finance. Many we living in high quality and expensive retirement facilities. Even with stability they were still concerned about financing their retirement and fearful of depleting their resources. Positive Effects of Aging Once you reach a certain age, you start to notice the breaking down of the body. You notice you’re out of breath faster than usual. You may also notice you can’t eat the same food because it may now bother your stomach and may digest as well as it use to. There is good news is those physical changes occurring from these factors can be prevented or slowed down by taking action now. A positive of old age is that now you has wisdom. By this time you have experience life and the younger generation is basically repeating what you did when you were young. For example, you know when someone is lying, you can predict the weather, and you know how to tell a good or bad person in a crowd. As you can tell with aging, you’ve got that extra little insight that you just didn’t have when you were younger. Secondly, with positive aging you may have become a grandparent. That is something positive for a middle age to older adult to look forward to. Grandchildren can provide opportunity to be explorers, to be eager about life, and to be lively. Grandchildren represent and revive the child that is within each of us. A third aspect of aging is staying healthy with exercise. It could possibly be an antidote to aging. To stay healthy by exercising you can do things like walk around the park, do household chores, and walk the pet, swimming, brisk walking, jogging, and dancing classes All these things are physical activities that can lead to a increase in pulse and cause one to get out of breath sometimes. You can also try Yoga these exercises emphasize breathing and slow, low force motions. Yoga and the activities mentioned above could help you become healthy even if you have not-so-good joints. In conclusion, if one begin to make changes now to a healthier lifestyle. This lifestyle change can minimize the changes that occur with aging. Someone may ask “ What is aging and why does it occur? ” I’d answer, “ no one lives forever. ” The slow wear and tear of the body is natural, and inevitable. However, whatever the exact cause or array of causes, the fact remains that aging happens. It is true that this process leads to a less favorable form of aging; but, there are also positive effects of healthy living, which can minimize the negative effects of aging. It’s good to know that age can always be counter acted by change of lifestyle. References Bee, H. L. Bjorkland, B. R. (2008). The Journey of Adulthood. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Beitz, J. M. , Goldberg, E. (2006). Aging After Retirement: A Social Psychological Process: Activities, Adaptation, & Aging, 31 (1), 41-54. Timmermann, S. (2011). Aging Gracefully: Are We Up to the Challenge? Journal of Financial Service Professionals, 32-34. Craik, F. I. M., Luo, L. and Sakuta, Y. (2010) Effects of Aging and Divided Attention on Memory for Items and Their Contexts. Psychology and Aging, 25 (4), 968-979.