Thriving After 50 – An Active Aging Campaign
The State of Hawaii’s active aging plan shows that by 2035 those 60 and over will increase by 310% and those 85 and over by 1,158%. Caroline Hayashi, Merle Okino O’Neill and Marsha Joyner share the Active Aging Campaign’s efforts to help our kupuna focus on their signature strengths while staying involved in meaningful activities/ interaction through employment, volunteerism and participatory democracy.
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What is The Waikiki Community Center’s Thriving After 50 Program?
Thriving speaks to using your signature strengths everyday to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.
Thriving is defined as to prosper, to be successful and fortunate, to grow vigorously and to flourish. Thriving is a word frequently used in the field of positive psychology and is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate the best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work and play.
Successful aging has been described as living life on your own terms, adding value to society, family or friends, maintaining cognitive function, maximizing mobility, retaining function, and reducing the impact of chronic disease/dysfunction.
So what kind of a life can you choose to have After Fifty?
Research shows engagement in life contributes to well-being. The State’s active aging plan shows that by 2035 those 60 and over will increase by 310% and those 85 and over by 1,158%.
The goal of active aging is…the prolongation of active life expectancy…”
The Waikiki Community Center’s Thriving After Fifty focuses on prevention and supporting the individuals 50 and beyond to focus on their signature strengths while staying involved in meaningful activities/ interaction through employment, volunteerism and participatory democracy.
The program goals are to:
1. Change the perception of aging to assets and opportunities vs. deficits and limitations.
2. Improving well-being of adults 50 or better.
3. Prolong the active life expectancy of adults 50 or better.
Employment:
There is proven connection between work and health/well-being. People who work tend to be healthier, happier, recover from illness quicker and have less chronic illness. Work for many people provides a routine that provides social interaction and financial gain and therefore more flexibility in creating options for recreation, meeting family needs.
Volunteerism:
Research demonstrates that volunteering leads to better health and older volunteers are more likely to receive physical and mental health benefit from their volunteer activities. The societal benefits are enormous to the recipients of the volunteerism.
Over the past two decades there is a growing body of research that indicates that volunteering provides individual health benefits in addition to social benefits. Research has established a strong relationship between volunteering and health; those who volunteer have lower mortality rates, greater functional ability, and lower rates of depression later in life that those who do not volunteer.
Volunteers who devote “considerable time,” (100 hours per year) are most likely to exhibit positive health outcomes.
Participatory Democracy
Getting involved in the democratic process is often equated to “getting your voice heard.” For those fifty and better, this is a time involvement with work tapers off, experience and know –how is at its peak and understanding of the long-term impacts of laws and policy become more evident. It time to support issues that are meaningful to you.
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The host for this episode was Jay Fidell.
The host for this episode was Jay Fidell.
The host for this episode was Jay Fidell.
