Tag: Health

Holiday Relationships & Wellness

In a spider web, everything is connected. Everything you do is connected to others. No one can do everything alone. Celebrating holidays is best when celebrating in healthy ways with others!

Blackfoot scholar Dr. Leroy Little Bear looks at the big picture and captures everything: “Existence is a web of relationships. What you do to the land, to the animals, to the water, you do to yourself.”

Little Bear tells about dreaming that he was a bubble. His wife also was a bubble. He joined their bubbles. Half awake, he asked if his dream was real; the joined-bubble dream appeared a second time. When Little Bear shared his dream with his wife, she gave this interconnected interpretation: “I know what you are thinking…if we spread this among relatives, things will happen. Everybody is of one mind.”

As we roll through this holiday season, interconnected relationships are a key ingredient. In fact, relationships are key everywhere. According to Little Bear, the Western mind focuses on the social values of bigger and faster. To consider the social values in the Blackfoot mind, think about energy waves always in a state of flux. This is also scientific-minded territory. For an example of how this relational way of thinking might translate to the workforce, think team building, shared authority, and treating employees like a work family. As Little Bear suggests, this approach often results in team players producing better quality work.

Little Bear was instrumental in being part of creating Indigenous studies 50 years ago (in college at the University of Lethridge in Canada). Since many of us were not privy to Indigenous college courses, try on some Indigenous ways of relating:

  • Think holistically and relationally, rather than through the narrow lens of an individual paradigm;
  • Emphasize interconnectedness not just with your relatives and best friends, but also with land, spirit, and community for mental wellness and healing — understand life as energy, not just facts; 
  • Consider how language, story, dreams, and holiday rituals may shape pathways to healing.

Considering a lifetime of teaching, advocacy, and cultural stewardship, Little Bear challenges us to understand what thinking globally means as a rhythm of relational connections. He recalls his childhood when he heard both of his parents always singing! Yes, music is one of our best connectors. I go to many choral concerts and always feel a sense of renewal in the company of singers who harmonize with each other as if they are of one mind.   

What about the times when you are with relatives or friends and you do not sense any renewal of lifelong tuning in one-mind relating? There are good reasons, you say. Figure out where the disconnect story began. I have a “throw” pillow that says, “Home is where your story begins.” Start there.  

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

458. Do recall any dreams that hold special meaning for you?

459. How does telling your stories to a good listener bring lifelong tuning?  

Purpose Pearls

At age 80 Betty Kellenberger becomes the oldest woman to ever hike the entire 2000-mile Appalachian Trail. While Kellenberger grew up in Michigan, she always had a fascination with seeing the Georgia-to-Maine landscape along the Appalachian Trail. Her imaginings materialized when she retired and had a 6-month timeframe to devote to her dream.

Like fulfilling many dreams, the reality of inevitable along-the-way struggles is daunting. Kellenberger faced bruising, dehydration, falling, a concussion, Lyme disease, and hurricane damage to trails in the South. She had to change her route heading north. Then cold weather forced a pause until spring. She also experienced inner pauses, both on the trail and upon completion: “You hike alone, and so you have your thoughts…You have so many emotions because you’re excited about finishing,” she recalled. “I was really looking forward to saying, ‘I am done.’ But you also know you’re going to miss this big-time. You’re not going to have what you have out on that trail. That peace, the serenity.”

Kellenberger’s decades-long teaching career was teaching English and social studies to seventh graders, along with night classes for adults. Having achieved her Appalachian Trail dream, she ponders what comes next. This transition time is where life’s dreams require rewiring. There are many choices of how to spend one’s time in retirement and how to create a sense of purpose.

Some, like 100-year-old Jiro Ono, famed chef and restaurant owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo, are never-retire advocates. While Ono has passed the baton to his son as head chef, he maintains that the secret to longevity is to keep working! And yet, he must rewire to accommodate his Centenarian body’s needs as he realizes that his hands “…don’t work so well…I can no longer come to the restaurant every day…but even at 100, I try to work if possible. I believe the best medicine is to work.”

Ono’s health habits include no alcohol, regular walks, and to no one’s surprise, eating well. He continues serving and eating sushi as the first sushi chef to earn 3 Michelin stars. He is the oldest head chef of a three-star restaurant. What possibly could be his next purpose? Yes, he has one! Ono wants to outlive Japan’s oldest man who died at age 113.  

Both Kellenberger and Ono are seasoned citizens who believe in living with purpose. Hopefully, purpose in one’s life starts at an early age, but an overarching purpose in one’s life can change. Life transitions often are a time of upheaval; they may signal either decline and/or renewal to dream big after a muddling-through stage. No matter what your current age or circumstances may be, start affirming purposes that have meaning for you. Please know that you can rewire at any age!

The following questions come from my book, Transforming Retirement: Rewire and Grow Your Legacy.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

442. What are you doing with your precious time today?

443. What kind of rewiring might you tinker with today?

“Fast” Talkers Live Longer

The Berlin Aging Study (BASE) is a multidisciplinary (sociology, psychology, psychiatry, and internal medicine) study of seasoned citizens (my name for older adults) between ages of 70-105. Initially, detailed information was gathered for 258 men and 258 women who lived in Berlin. The longitudinal research originated under the direction of the late German psychologist Paul B. Baltes and German sociologist Karl Ulrich Mayer. Along with his American psychologist wife, Margret Baltes, Paul Baltes viewed lifespan development in terms of “plasticity” in cognitive abilities, a context of adaptation, and multidisciplinary factors such as one’s biology, family, schooling, religious affiliation, and profession. The Baltes couple promoted successful aging through optimizing one’s cognitive functions and the ability to adapt to change, including loss. Research supported their belief that cognitive abilities can continue to develop in late adulthood with participation in stimulating activities. A current longitudinal study (BASE II) of 1600 seasoned citizens (ages 60-80) is underway at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany.

BASE research results are fascinating. General intelligence did not predict who might live longest. Instead, verbal fluency was key in long-living folks. The participants with low (versus high) verbal fluency had a median survival time that was 9 years shorter! Verbal fluency requires broad abilities, including fast information retrieval and a crystallized knowledge base. One only hopes that a fast-talking individual possesses a truthful knowledge base.

Here are a few pointers for increasing your verbal fluency. Heather Hurlock, Founder and Editor of Super Age (an online source of health and wellbeing), names the first three well-established ones.

  • Read out loud. This suggestion also is endorsed by a 30-minute-daily program, StrongerMemory, for those in mild cognitive decline. Do not wait for cognitive deficits to appear to make a reading-out-loud practice for yourself! You will build on articulation and rhythm skills when you read to yourself or others. Both skills link to verbal fluency.
  • Hand-write often. While cursive is being dropped from many elementary schools, I believe that is a mistake. There is evidence that suggests learning cursive handwriting is helpful in one’s overall learning and retention. Handwriting (but not typing) is related to letter processing which translates to successful reading in youngsters. Also, handwriting is part of the StrongerMemory workbook exercises. https://goodwinliving.org/strongermemory-the-fight-against-cognitive-decline/
  • Think (and take deep breaths) before you speak. Take mindful pauses to provide your brain with a chance to retrieve some linking thoughts. Not only will this increase your confidence level, but it may enlist a better (or more humorous) verbal outcome.
  • Give speeches or read a poem (as in open-mic venues). You have talents to share and your brain will reward you for using a variety of sensory inputs.
  • Talk regularly; ask people questions. You may surprise yourself with what you can learn about others in a few sentences.

Have fun talking!

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

413. When is the last time you wrote a letter by hand?

414. How might you practice your verbal fluency in a new way?        

Transition Pearls

Are you in transition? Every day is a mini-transition, but I’m asking about bigger changes, the kind rated on the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. The “top” 10 events on the stress scale are death of spouse, divorce, marital separation, jail term, death of close family member, personal injury/illness, marriage, fired at work, marital reconciliation, retirement…moving is #32.  

Transitions are everywhere. Consider your breath moving constantly, from inhale to exhale. As singer/songwriter George Strait, reminds, “…life’s not the breath you take, the breathing in and out / That gets you through the day ain’t what it’s all about / You might just miss the point if you don’t slow down the pace / Life’s not the breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away.”

I have experienced moments recently that take my breath away. The reaching out of many friends cools down my stress thermometer. I am moving cross-country for a fourth time. I finished college in the Midwest and moved to Boston for graduate school and career-building. The second move was a shorter hop to Philadelphia where my husband had a new job waiting. Parents by then, we each found employment that was mind-stretching. A third move back to the Midwest was both job-related for my beloved husband and closer to extended families. We found mind-bending jobs and grew a whole lot. Death-of-spouse solo, I plan a west coast move where I will be closer to where my children have settled. They need mountains and hiking; it feels healthy for me too.

We cannot know in advance the outcome of our many transitions, but we can take notice when something “moves” us and takes our breath “away.” A cook for all seasons, Ina Garten, lived in Washington DC and was a regular hostess of dinner parties. She left her government job with the White House Office of Management and Budget decades ago to buy a cheese and gourmet shop, the Barefoot Contessa on the Hamptons. She cheerfully quipped, “You figure it out along the way!” Without knowing how her maiden entrepreneurial venture would turn out, she had a bird’s-eye view. She stepped into uncharted territory one breath at a time. On a small stage, isn’t this what we all do when we wake up each morning?

After two decades of operating her specialty shop, Garten sold her business and took a year to figure out her next stage. When she slowed down her pace, Garten next became a cookbook author in the very crowded field of cookbook authors. With cookbook success, she was offered her own TV cooking show on the Food Network, receiving inclusion in the inaugural 2021 Forbes “50 Over 50” list of leaders and entrepreneurs. Her 2024 memoir has a catchy second title, Be Ready When Luck Happens.

Garten inspires me to make big changes. Who inspires you?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

399. When is the last time that some action took your breath away?

400. What transition calls out to you?

Every Day is Earth Day

We celebrate our 55th anniversary of Earth Day with its theme, “Our Power, Our Planet.” The global focus for this year is energy – solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and ocean tidal-generated energy. Themes chosen each year gather collective plans for facing facts on ticking-clock climate awareness where it seems most needed. President of EarthDay Organization, Kathleen Rogers, delivers a summons: “The collective power of a billion voices is vast and one billion people speaking out on an issue is hard for governments, institutions, or industry to ignore.” Yes, but how many believe (or care) there is climate change?

Earth Day was initiated by Wisconsin U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson. His foresight of impending climate issues led Americans in 1970 to advocate for environmental reforms. Establishing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has roots in this movement. By 1990 Earth Day extended to 141 countries. In 2016 the Paris Agreement signed by 175 countries at the United Nations was a commitment to limit global temperature rise. The 192 countries currently observing Earth Day make it the largest global secular celebration.

Some celebrations are short-lived. On Earth Day, April 22, 2025, EPA reduction-in-force letters reached nearly 200 employees who were in limbo since their placement on “administrative leave” in February. They worked for the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, or translated, they worked on “protecting low-income and minorities most at-risk from air and water pollution.” One employee, Ellie Hagen, received her layoff notification at 5 PM. Her whole team (Environmental Justice Community Health) was deemed “wasteful.” Hagen’s non-partisan work was to reduce lead exposure in Ohio family homes. It seems ironic that these government edict letters were delivered on Earth Day.

In March there was a rollback of environmental regulations. EPA’s “reorganization”has a proposed 65% budget-cut figure. Meanwhile, China has the world’s largest investment, as well as production, of renewable energy relying mainly on hydroelectric energy. Costa Rica has produced 98% of their electricity from renewable sources for 10 years. Sweden’s powerhouse goal is to reach 100% renewable energy by 2040.

Our precious Earth has limits. According to the Chicago Botanic Garden, one-third of plant species in the U.S. are at risk of extinction. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization (the world’s largest conservation organization), calculates that between 10,000-100,000 species become extinct each year. It is so unclear what the actual number may be. What is clear is that the current rate of extinction is due to a single species causing it – people. According to WWF, humans use 25% more natural resources than are sustainable on Earth. https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/biodiversity/biodiversity/

Whatever the actual extinction numbers are, Earth and her citizens are suffering from a biodiversity crisis. Put Earth Day on your calendar every day.

It is bloom time for the short-lived forget-me-not. 

                                                                 Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

389. Is there some movement that you might join to caretake Earth for future generations?

390. What personally will you do today to return care for Mother Earth? 

Eustress/Distress: A Brain Teeter-totter

April is Stress Awareness Month (since 1992) with sponsorship by The Health Resource Network, founded by Mort Orman, M.D. https://healthresourcenetwork.org/ A non-profit in the UK, The Stress Management Society, joined sponsorship in 2023.

The theme for 2025 is #LeadWithLove. This is not some far-fetched notion but realize that “love” takes many brain moves. Love entails daily practice.  

Dr. Orman’s mission is to promote knowledge about stress and life mastery skills to cope with inevitable challenges of life. Orman lists 30 key mastery skills. Consider how often you light-up your brain for bodymind health: Emotions mastery, Relationships mastery, Advanced stress mastery, Self-discipline, Happiness creation, Honesty, Humility, Telling the truth, Integrity, Personal responsibility, Critical thinking/reasoning, Wisdom, Values, Purpose, Commitment, Communications skills, Leadership skills, Self-love, Self-esteem, Compassion, Exercise enjoyment, Love of learning, Fearless public speaking, Healthy lifestyle, Money/finances, Success mindset, Understanding human beings, Helping others, Leaving a legacy, Personal power.

Orman uses the American Psychological Association’s definition of stress: “…a normal reaction to everyday pressures but [stress] can become unhealthy…stress involves changes affecting nearly every system of the body, influencing how people feel and behave.  By causing mind-body changes, stress…affects mental and physical health, reducing quality of life.”

Most people consider stress to lead to burnout or exhaustion, but that is an incomplete understanding of stress. Stress is more similar to a brain teeter-totter; it can move in one direction, then abruptly reverse course. Stress can motivate you; it is not always negative. From a book chapter I wrote, “Families in Stress” [In S. Wadhwa Editor, Stress in the Modern World: Understanding Science and Society], there is a range to stressors in your life:  

“Endocrinologist Hans Selye made the word stress a household staple, suggesting that life would be boring without stress. Many positive family situations entail stress. Selye labeled positive stress as eustress and negative stress as distress. He created the word stressor to describe the stimulus or event that precipitates a stress response. Examples of positive stressors in the family are a child’s piano recital or sporting event, and a parent’s new job. Family distress ranges from community natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, to inside-the-family reactions to death or illness of a loved one, to juggling a myriad of everyday decisions and deadlines. Parents need to learn how to detect smoke before their own reactions, and/or their child’s stress reactions, blaze out of control.”

Simply, we need more adults in the room, whether as models for youngsters, or as companions to other adults who have their own melt-down reactions. We all vacillate when the flames of stress reach us, but biological stress responses can save your life. Fight/fight/freeze stress reactions are biological survival mechanisms in the animal world as well as the human world.

Psychological survival is less clearcut. Many stressors relate to fear, both real and imagined future fears. “Name it to tame it,” advises psychiatrist Dan Siegel.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

387. What is a stressor for you?

388. Is your approach lead-with-love? If not, why not? 

Pearls of Brain Awareness

Brain scan data, Human Connectome Project: Credit Matthew F. Glasser, David C. Van Essen

Growing up in farmland with paternal grandparents who produced their own beef and pork, I was offered cow brains for dinner in butcher season. While my parents relished this delicacy, I recoiled and could not partake of this unique delicacy. I had no awareness about missing the nutritional benefits of beef brains (vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, K, phosphatidylserine, folate, niacin, magnesium, zinc, and choline, among others), but I still am not a proponent today. I am a proponent of taking care of one’s own 3-pound brain at mealtimes, sleep times, exercise times, and well, any time!

I like the global focus on Brain Awareness Week (the third week of every March), which serves as an annual launch for year-round brainy activities. This is the 30th annual Brain Awareness Week, the “brainchild” (I could not resist) of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and the European Dana Alliance for the Brain. The Dana Foundation is a nonprofit organization with the lofty goal of promoting brain science internationally to create better futures for everyone.

Dana foundation-sponsored programs such as one in Bamenda, Cameroon, and promoted by physician, Mundih Noelar Njohjam (founder of Cameroon Epilepsy Awareness and Aid Foundation), delivered brain science education to 5000 students. Njohjam provided her grant feedback: It was really interesting to watch [the students] as we explained the wonderful nature of the brain and how neurological diseases occur…especially epilepsy, because in our country epilepsy is often attributed to witchcraft. After listening to us talk, one student openly told us that before we came, he was one of those who usually stigmatized people with epilepsy,” she said. “So many confessed after the presentation that their mindset about epilepsy has really changed.” Truth matters.

Consider some facts offered by the Global Council on Brain Health: https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/family-files/2025-02-24-celebrate-brain-awareness-week-all-year-long

  • Most of us are capable of learning at ANY age, especially getting involved with cognitively stimulating activities such as meeting new people, growing new hobbies or expanding knowledge.
  • Dementia is NOT normal aging. Typical age-related changes in the brain are different from those caused by disease.
  • Children are not the only ones who can master a foreign language – age does not prevent you from learning a new language.
  • Memory skills can improve with practice. The adage, “Use it or lose it,” is as important to memory skill training as it is to taking care of one’s physical health. 
  • Retaining details is just easier for some people than others, but this is true for all ages.
  • Strategies can ripen your memory. Chunk information into smaller bits for enhanced memorization. Use mnemonic devices. Practice retrieval (spacing out repetition works better than cramming). Make flash cards. Quiz yourself.
  • Neurons are created throughout your lifetime.

Being a life-long learner is invigorating! I am grateful for my many opportunities to keep my workhorse brain on the move.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

377. What new learning have you embraced recently?

378. How might you become a better caretaker of your brain? 

Ageism Discrimination

Ageism Awareness Day is on October 9th, but let’s make every day an ageism awareness day as the Baby-Boom generation mushrooms into seasoned citizen territory.

 The World Health Organization posts these alarming findings:  Ageism costs billions annually in the U.S. from age discrimination — the economic cost of age discrimination against older workers was estimated to cost $850 billion in lost GDP in 2018 (from factors such as the inability to find work and earn promotions).                                                                                                               1 in 2 people worldwide are ageist against older people.

It is also possible to be ageist against young people, as in saying, “She’s too green for the job,” likely a sexist attitude and ageist. These discriminatory attitudes often travel together, along with a particularly damaging attitude — racism. “Ageism intersects and exacerbates all the other ‘isms,’ including racism, sexism and ableism,” according to the Ageism Fact Sheet compiled by the American Society on Aging (https://asaging.org/sites/default/files/2024-08/Ageism%20Fact%20Sheet%20-%20Ageism%20Awareness%20Day_0.pdf ).

Here is how journalist Connie Chung, first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News, describes the career hoops she jumped through at age 23 in Connie: A Memoir: “…Since I stood only five feet, three and a half inches (don’t forget the half), I compensated by wearing stilettos. I wanted to be as close as I could be, eye to eye with the men. I did not want to look up at them. I wanted to be their equal. I tried to lower my voice to mimic theirs and copied their on-air cadence. I knew they could easily bully me, and I was powerless to fight them, so I joined them. I knew I could never be one of the boys, but surely, I could adopt pages from their playbook. It was easy to imagine myself as just another white guy. I became aggressive, tough, bawdy, and extremely competitive. Yes, I looked like a lotus blossom, but I talked like a sailor with a raw sense of humor.”

There is more ageism discrimination for older adults. 64% of older workers maintain that they face age discrimination; 41% report ageism experiences in their workplace. Often companies have expected ages for “retirement.” For some individuals, leaving a demanding career may be a welcome life development; for others, a mandatory age for retirement seems dismissive of one’s talents.  

• Age diversity is not foremost in planning a company’s workforce, although organizations might gain a competitive advantage from multigenerational employees. Acknowledging age equity increases worker feelings of belonging, along with enhancing productivity.                                                                                                                                                         

 • Healthcare is ageist: In ages 50+, 1 in 5 experiences discrimination in healthcare settings.

Now for the good news, if you are lucky enough to live into your 70’s and beyond: people who possess more positive self-perceptions of aging live 7.5 years longer than those with less positive perceptions, according to Yale University researcher Becca Levy.

Find resources to advocate against ageism (https://asaging.org/ageism-awareness).

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz 

331. How often do you catch yourself being ageist?

332. What might you say to another when you hear an ageist remark?                                       

Synergy for Mental Health

“Cognitive Synergy” by Bill Frymire, Olympic, WA

The word synergy comes from Attic Greek sunergos meaning “working together.”

May is America’s Mental Health Awareness Month. In the UK Mental Health Awareness Week is May 13-19 with this year’s theme of “Movement: Moving More for our Mental Health.” I like this emphasis on the whole body working together in movement.

I watch flowers in my spring garden moving together in a constant tableau. It was just yesterday that Virginia Bluebells were a flowing drift of dainty blue flower blooms swaying in the breeze. We also are equipped to bloom and thankfully, most of us have a longer bloom time than spring ephemerals. Today the bluebells are wilting; soon their greenery will disappear and go dormant after flowering and dispersing seeds. Moving into bloom where my bluebells reigned are False Solomon’s Seal perennials with their tiny white stars at the top of flagpole stems.

People wilt for a variety of reasons. It is not easy to be physically and mentally healthy every season. Children especially struggle with conditions that go unnamed for years, often not finding helpful ways to cope until adulthood.                                                             

American songwriter, mixed-media artist and writer Morgan Harper Nichols only received her diagnosis of autism, ADHD, and sensory processing disorder at age 31. She began creating art and poetry as responses to social media messages. Nichols bloomed with her art creating “room to breathe.” She moved her talent in the direction of sharing what she believes is helpful to others:

“Inhale, exhale. Never forget the green lights, stop signs and highways that brought you here. Every single step accounted for, even though you can’t see where the road leads, what matters is that you travel not in pursuit of knowing it all, but in pursuit of boundless peace” (How Far You Have Come).

Nichols initiated a project of sending personalized letters to strangers, making a lifetime goal to compose a million poems to strangers! She invites individuals to share their story with her on her website. She replies to them sending visual art with a letter of encouragement. There are no fees. She keeps names anonymous. Her daily practice of synergistic generosity is a powerful example of her blooming and dispersing seeds of hope. Nichols is completing her MFA (in Interdisciplinary Media Arts) as she works on an online conversational-focused game.

“Art is made in hindsight,” claims Virgil Abloh, fashion designer. Or as Nichols penned, “One day, you will look back and see that all along, you were blooming.”

To keep blooming go to https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health-awareness-month/toolkit and https://www.nami.org/get-involved/awareness-events/mental-health-awareness-month/ for activities in mental health synergy.

Synergy is “the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.” Springtime is an excellent time for all of us to move together in the growing of mental health for all.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

289. When is a time in your life when you were wilting?

290. What did you do to re-bloom?    

Creativity Enhances Aging

I co-presented a workshop on Creative Engagement at the American Society on Aging conference in San Francisco last week. Research shows that older adults who participate in creative actions have improved cognition and proprioception, enhanced meaning in their life, reduced loneliness, and recognition/engagement in a social life. Creativity makes brains bloom!  

There were notable speakers on diverse topics, but I will highlight presentations focusing on aging brains. Maureen Nash, MD, assesses and treats behavioral disturbance in older adults with mental illness or dementia in Portland, OR, where she is Medical Director at Providence Elderplace. In 2020 she was named Clinician of the Year by the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.

Nash’s key points are encouraging for those who fear that aging is a down-facing dog pose in life with no possible upward movement. Here are takeaway notes from an award-winning psychiatry specialist:

  • It is possible to develop new synapses in older adulthood. While older adults have reduced speed in learning new information, their “bigger networks” and life experiences can lead to an increased ability for problem-solving.
  • The best way to provide dementia care is to identify an individual’s unmet physical and psychological needs. Match interventions to the reasons behind their behaviors. It is possible to foster resilience in older adults with dementia.

Another session on the dementia journey focused on recovering resilience with music interventions (Vanderbilt University Music Research Institute). Music has roots in multiple branches in brains. One creative approach that includes individuals who are bed-ridden is to provide a small piano with wheels so that a pianist rolls into hospice settings, hospitals, memory centers, and rehabilitation spaces. It is important to get a playlist of familiar songs for each person. When some individuals no longer talk, they suddenly may sing along when a favorite song from their past returns them to an early memory.

Julene Johnson, PhD, at University of California, San Francisco, believes in “waking up” a person with dementia. A previous flute major, Johnson imagines a world where everyone has access to music, but especially those with dementia. Her colleague, social worker Dan Cohen, founder of the nonprofit organization Music & Memory, has a Netflix documentary that is inspiring. Check out Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory, to see a joy-filled intervention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9IHUPamCB4

As stated in the documentary, “Music can be a back door into the mind.” What might happen if we extended more research and focus with this gateway to the inner branching of brains in caring for older adults instead of spending millions of dollars on medical prescriptions that many physicians admit are not game changers?

Kim McCoy Wade, Senior Advisor for Aging, Disability and Alzheimer’s (Office of California Governor), recommends that everyone participate in positive aging: “Give people an action. What is your pro-aging action?”

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

277. What music would make your personal playlist?

278. If you have musical talent, where might you volunteer to make brains bloom?