Vitauct and the acceptance of aging

The concept itself contains a kind of spell against old age: “vita” (from Latin) means life and “aucto” standing for “continuously increasing, multiplying”. This word describes the mechanisms resisting the processes of aging and targeting the preservation of vitality, but first and foremost, it deals with psychological health.

Biologically, vitauct manifests itself in the body’s ability to develop compensatory capacity in the body that helps maintain its functioning when cells are aging. Wear and tear of our organism does not occur evenly, with some organs giving up earlier and some other organs living their best till the very end. Vitauct enables us to not simply exist physically but also live life to its fullest.

As for the psychological vitauct manifestation, we typically face it after 75, when the period of elderly age ends and old age itself begins.

If you do not have serious illnesses (or you do and you follow all the doctor’s prescriptions), you lead a moderately active lifestyle, eat clean and avoid stress, then you have a very high chance of living to your very old years. Over the last 20 years alone, the number of centenarians, people who have crossed the 100-year mark, has quadrupled. On average, there are 69 people over the age of 100 for every million people in the world, and this number is likely to increase.

A new scientific study “How healthy will we be in 2040?” conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle has made a prediction: all countries are likely to experience at least a slight increase in lifespans. The population in developed countries expects to live 2-5 years more, while the developing countries are looking at the entire decade of longer life. And if now life expectancy makes up 65 years for men and 69 for women (these are the “average” global figures, life expectancy is higher for high-income countries), with each five-year period, the average life expectancy will only increase.

Our life expectancy grows mainly at the account of the prolonged old age. Despite the fact that with every year doctors and researchers are advancing in the treatment and prevention of age-related diseases, for many of us old age is primarily associated with the exhaustion of vital activity and inevitable dependence on others. Is there anything we can do about it?

According to the classification proposed by David Brawley, professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia, the life of a modern person is divided into five cycles: intrauterine period, childhood (from birth to 13 years old), adolescence (from 11 to 21 years old), adulthood (from 21 years old to 55 years old) and old age. Moreover, according to Brawley, old age begins at 65 years old (before that the researcher identifies the pre-retirement age) and is divided into three periods: retirement (from 65 years old), old age (from 70 years old) and finish, the age that includes illness and death.

When we hit 50-55, it is our social activity that goes in decline, change of social roles and adaptation to the changes. After this period another sort of issue arrives, and we need to learn to cope with them. These new issues are conditioned by the decreasing range of our physical capabilities, infirmities, diseases, often the necessity of special care by other people. Vitauct has a primary purpose of giving us the ability to accept these changes, adapt to them, by redirecting the intellect from the cognition of the world to the recognition and self-regulation of one’s own mental activity, one’s own inner world. In fact, vitauct helps us to make the biggest and most difficult journey — deep into ourselves, ourselves previously unknown.

Types of aging – can we choose?

Despite the fact that each and every one of us is a unique individual, there are common patterns we tend to follow in the same situations. According to researchers, our attitude to aging can also be divided into a few types: constructive, defensive, aggressive-active and passive types of aging.

Constructive aging

People belonging to the first type are characterized by a fairly effective (constructive) adaptation strategy of an elderly person to the period of old age. These people maintain the ability to find joy in life, they actively socialize and demonstrate a sense of humor. Deep inside, they have accepted their role of a senior, they soberly approach the fact that they have to quit their job and retire. The inevitability of death is also viewed as the given, without anxiety or fear.

At the same time, they continue to plan for the future, and these plans are aimed both at meeting their own needs and the needs of the loved ones. They find fulfilment in their hobbies for many years, they are interested in both social and political life, and most importantly, they retain the ability to rejoice in what awaits them in the future.

Defensive aging

While the attitude type described above can be viewed as perfect, the people who fall into the defensive type find it more difficult to adapt to the changing life conditions and circumstances.  Scientists believe these difficulties can be attributed to the fact that throughout their life these people have been striving for independence and self-reliance, the necessity to seek and accept help from others doesn’t come easy.

In fact, representatives of this type try to postpone the moment when they have to come to terms with aging. They avoid introspection and assessment of the situation and, as a result, they may find themselves completely helpless at the moment when they have to face reality.

Aggressive-active aging

The people who belong to this group have the proclivity to shift the responsibility for their failures, mistakes and hardships to the outer circumstances and other people. As a result, they perceive aging and the inconveniences associated with it as an unfair misfortune. In terms of the aging process, they, first of all, see the inevitable exhaustion of physical and mental capabilities, and they try to protect themselves with the help of any sort of activity, physical or mental. Moreover, because of the refusal to realize and accept the real state of affairs, they often bite more than they can chew. As a consequence, their health shatters, which is perceived especially acutely and negatively because they are forced to return to the cruel truth: old age is close.

Passive aging

People belonging to this type are similar in their attitude to aging to the previous group. Yet, there is a significant difference: the vector of their aggression is directed primarily at themselves. As a rule, passive aging is most often observed in people who at a young age tended to avoid responsibility and, thus, they view retirement as a blessing since it makes it possible to free themselves from efforts and responsibility. They are looking for opportunities to take a subordinate position, are pessimistic and tend to exaggerate their flaws. Exactly people of this type most often end up being depressed in retirement. Even more so, many of these people perceive life as a burden while death seems to be a timely liberation.

How to age well?

Here is where the things go tricking – mainly because there is not and can not be a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone.  Most likely, we will live to the age where our physical and mental capabilities will start depleting and withering, and we won’t be able to continue living in the pace we are used to. Nevertheless, as you can see even from the classification of the aging types above, those people who find the courage to admit the ongoing changes, accepting their inevitability and seeking the opportunities in the changed circumstances, feel best. It can be assumed that courage is perhaps the main secret to happy aging.

However, there are still some scientifically proven recommendations for those who want to maximize the period of physical and mental activity and postpone the onset of the “age of dependence”, when they will have to depend to some extent on others.

Be organised

The more order and balance your life has, the longer it will last, and the healthier and more active you will stay. The talented authors of the large scale «Longevity Project» study, carried out in the US over 80 years have produced curious results. Specialists who have analyzed the findings are sure that organized people, accustomed to calculating all risks in advance, end up with more cautious behavior, and as a result, they are less likely to take risks and go to doctors earlier.

Go shopping

No, seriously, the survey “Daily shopping trips associated with increased survival for the elderly”, done by the specialist in Taiwan, have looked into the lives of 2 000 people aged over 65. The findings were unexpected. Men who shop daily are 28% less likely to die prematurely than those who shop less frequently. For women, shopping every day also significantly reduces the risk of early death by 23%. The study experts believe it is all about social contact, memory training (to keep the shopping list), and physical activity, which is not so small while shopping!

Eat turmeric more often

Turmeric has long been referred to as an effective tool for mental health stimulation. The study conducted in Singapore, “Curry Consumption and Cognitive Function in the Elderly“, where about 1000 participants aged between 60 and 93 were surveyed, has shown curious findings: those who consumed meals containing turmeric at least twice a year, scored more points on cognitive tests. This is most likely due to the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and cholesterol-lowering properties of curcumin contained in turmeric.

Join the choir

The American study “Singing in a choir could be ‘the new exercise“, that surveyed almost 7000 пelderly people has proved that singing in a choir is extremely healthy! Participants who got together regularly for choir rehearsals proved to be in better health, took less medication, and even fell less often. Doctors attribute this effect to the fact that singing helps develop the lungs, stimulates blood circulation, and most importantly, improves emotional state and mood, helps in socialization, thereby protecting against loneliness, the main enemy of the elderly.

Register with social nets

Social media surfing can be dangerous for young people, but the older we get, the more beneficial it becomes for us. Another study in which volunteers aged 55-76 took part, “Web surfing can keep dementia at bay”, has proved: the elderly people actively browsing and scrolling and clicking have a better developed and more agile part of the brain that is responsible for the cognitive capacity!

The inevitable aging

Despite the optimistic researches and advanced medicine demonstrating the high capacity for decelerating the aging process in cells or even one day stopping it, we will hardly live to see those new, revolutionary times. But no matter how old you are today, it’s time to start preparing for the future: physical and mental activity, healthy habits, and most importantly, the ability to accept yourself at any age, separating your personality from your body and appearance, and even mental ailments — this is a real art aging. Or maybe, who knows, the art of eternal life.