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Ageism Discrimination

Ageism Awareness Day is on October 9^th, 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?

Dry January Pearls

The Finns and Brits are ahead of the U.S. in limiting alcohol. Taking a month of the year to abstain from alcohol goes back to 1942 in Finland, but in 2012 Great Britain named “Dry January” as a public health initiative from Alcohol Change UK, a charity. According to one survey from University of Sussex, 71% of those who took part in Dry January reported sleeping better; 67% stated they had more energy, 58% lost weight, and 54% noticed skin improvements. Women may benefit most as their bodies take longer to break down alcohol, so they suffer greater risks in health and safety issues.

In spite of Dry January sounding simple — no alcohol from January 1-31 – most courageous people making this New Year’s resolution do not stay dry. The first Friday in the month appeared as the first common weak-link day last year. However, for those who keep their resolution, there are big rewards: improvement in a diabetes risk of nearly 30% and in Britain 49% reported losing weight (6-15 pounds) without drinking for a month. Additional health benefits include reduced blood pressure, a change in a marker of liver inflammation, and perhaps the most important finding in one British survey was that nearly 3 in 4 sustained lower drinking levels of drinking after Dry January.

Some prefer “Damp January.” They might follow the 1-2-3 drinking rule: 1) No more than 1 standard drink per hour; 2) No more than 2 standard drinks per occasion; 3) NEVER exceed 3 standard drinks per occasion. A “standard” drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of rum or vodka. While drinkers may notice some irritability when they stop drinking on New Year’s Day and go “cold turkey,” the benefits outweigh any temporary side effects. Alcohol can decrease stress hormone levels leading to a calmer vibe, but when an individual stops their drinking episode, stress hormones return and even spike higher.

Cardiologist and neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta states, “There is no amount of alcohol that is good for your health.”

In the U.S. 15-19% of adults resolved to engage in Dry January in recent years with Gen Z participants expressing most enthusiasm. This is good news, as 60 million adults reported binge drinking during the past month of holiday time (5 or more drinks for men, 4 or more for females within about 2 hours.) Reportedly, 1 in 4 binge drinkers have this weekly habit.

You might consider the part(s) of your personality that either resolved to make it a Dry January or now plan for a Clean February. Name that part of your personality that makes an intention. Center into calmness with elongated breath cycles. Be kind to any part(s) breaking your intention. Ask questions. There always is a worth-listening-to story when we change our minds.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

259. When have you followed through successfully with an intention?

260. When you ditch an intention, what do you do next?

Pearls of Grace in the News

Why do we feed ourselves mostly on a diet of negative news? Studies suggest that the reason is physiological – the brain’s negativity bias is about survival. We simply pay more attention to negative information.

The odd phrase, “If it bleeds, it leads,” runs rampant in today’s news coverage. One study showed that on a “good news day” there was a 66% decrease in readership in an online Russian newspaper! However, news guru Arianna Huffington (founder of Huffington Post and CEO of Thrive Global), claims that readers want more positive news. She describes a journalist’s job as providing the “full picture” of what happens every day. She advocates for news that tells “…how people are…coming together, even in the midst of violence, poverty and loss…[and] all the other stories of innovation, creativity, ingenuity, compassion and grace.”

Perhaps others caught these pieces of positive news items from 2023, but I missed many of them and I watch a fair amount of TV news broadcasting.

Malaria vaccine – The World Health Organization approved a new vaccine for malaria; a pilot program shows that it reduces deaths among children by 13%. Every year nearly half a million children die from malaria.
Medical firsts – Bahrain, U.K. and the U.S. have all approved Casgevy, a therapy for the blood diseases sickle cell and beta thalassaemia. It is a gene-editing treatment which merited the Nobel Prize (2020). The first vaccine for RSV, a respiratory virus serious for children and elders, rolled out (I received this vaccine, thanks to researchers) and was instrumental in finding a new class of antibiotics.
LGBTQ+ rights – Same-sex couples in Taiwan can adopt children now. Same-sex marriage is newly instated or about to become legal in Nepal, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Poland. Japan’s Supreme Court addressed transgender rights; surgical sterilization is no longer a prerequisite to change one’s gender.
Criminal justice reform – The death penalty was abolished in Ghana (the 124^th country to take this action). While the U.S. still maintains the death penalty, it is used with less frequency and there is a trend toward decarceration with no corresponding rise in crime.
Some reduction of weapons of mass destruction – Peru, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and South Africa destroyed their final cluster munition stockpiles, the last countries of 112 that had agreed to do so in 2008. The U.S. is one of 191 countries committed to destroying chemical weapon stockpiles; a final rocket with sarin nerve agent was destroyed in Kentucky.
Global wealth equality is increasing and poverty is decreasing – Global median wealth increased by 3%; the Swiss bank UBS’s reporting predicts that global wealth will grow 38% in the next 5 years due to middle-income countries like India.
Climate advancements – Electric vehicles are more present. Deforestation in the Amazon is on a decline.

Like my bumper sticker says, “Grace happens.” Let’s inch closer and notice.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

253. How might you increase conversation about positive news?

254. What steps can you take to problem-solve negatives in your community?

Legacy of True Thanks

A legacy has 3 ingredients: learning the truth about the past, living in the present, and building for the future, although people frequently substitute learning truths for embellished myths and then live in that past delusion, not in present moments.

This week of Thanksgiving, I keep gathering a long list of things that I am truly thankful for in this moment of time. I am especially thankful for my family, including ancestors with their legacy of strong values. While none are famous in the popular sense of fame, they possessed hero and heroine status in their own everyday ways.

The Wampanoag people who established sophisticated communities for 13,000 years — prior to the 1620 English immigration to “Plymouth” in “Massachusetts” — were everyday heroes and heroines too. (The new settlers named “Plymouth” for the port of Plymouth in England where they had set sail; “Massachusetts” was the first of many U. S. states to be given a Native American name.)

Truthfully, it was due to the Wampanoag sharing of hunting and planting strategies that kept the Pilgrims from starvation. In October, 1621, 90 Wampanoag Native Americans and 52 Mayflower survivors gathered for a three-day feast. It was the Wampanoag’s daily legacy of giving thanks for nature’s bounty that predates the Pilgrim version of Thanksgiving.

The true Thanksgiving story contains tragedy for both the Pilgrims and Native Americans, but this is rarely the story told to school children. The reason for the Puritan passage was a desire for religious freedom, however an anticipated legacy of future freedom was short-lived for many. Out of 102 passengers (and 30-40 crew members) of the Mayflower’s December arrival, some died enroute and nearly half of the Pilgrims could not survive their first winter of religious freedom in America.

As told by Stephen C. O’Neill (The Life of Peregrine White), one young family’s plight seems poignant. William and Susanna White were Mayflower passengers with their 5-year-old son. Suzanna was pregnant and brought a wicker cradle onboard for baby Peregrine who was the first Pilgrim birth in the “new” land. Dad William died in February.

The Pilgrims docked at an abandoned village where corn had been planted. Thankful for perceived good fortune, they had no idea that their “discovered” land was abandoned by Native Americans due to a rampaging illness (believed to be leptospirosis spread by rat urine contaminating standing fresh water).

Later, yellow fever was lethal to many English settlers but was especially devastating to the Native Americans. One estimation is that 45,000 Wampanoag, or two-thirds of these heroic people, succumbed to this epidemic.

The legacy of our ancestor stories is a cornerstone in our personalities, yet no one wants to talk about legacies of ancestor illness. For those of us truly fortunate to survive the COVID pandemic, let’s give thanks for health, a wealth far greater than any other.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

239. What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving week?

240. How might you search for true stories of your ancestors?