Ramanisblog

Tag: middle age

  • You Are Happiest When You Are 23, 69

    Happiness is qualitative, not quantitative.

    Happy.
    Happy Child.

    It is subjective,

    It varies from time to time in an individual.

    There  is a difference between happiness and contentment.

    Contentment is when you have had and you do not need anything, especially something you were after and you feel full as after a Full Meal.Happiness is when you get some thing you earn for and is more closely associated with your efforts and has a value judgement as well.

    In contentment there is simply a feeling of fullness.

    While happy people need not be contented, contended ones are Happy.

    Happiness, because of its nature is difficult to assess even subjectively as it keeps on shifting,

    However  as happiness  has a Contentment content, the measure of Happiness may indicate your state.

    A Study has now revealed that one is at the peak of Happiness when in 23 or 69.

    One is being young, full of aspirations, unsullied by the realities of Life, with pep and vigor where everything seems possible.

    At 69, one knows his limit and the Realities of Life and has learnt to be happy by being contents primarily.

     

    The Report of the study.

    Care Free Child.
    happy smiling child arms raised with joy and happiness

    I am intrigued as to why Yahoo News has classified this as “Odd News‘

    ”

    The results of the study are being published this week by theCenter for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.

    “One theory is that the U-shape is driven by unmet aspirations which are painfully felt in midlife but beneficially abandoned later in life,” Princeton researcher Hannes Schwandt, who led the London School of Economics study, told the Daily Mail.

    Other recent studies have attempted to track happiness to economic security. For example, a 2010 Princeton study found that personal wealth does affect one’s respective happiness but only up to about $75,000. Beyond that, other studies have found that personal relationships and physical health are more intricately tied to happiness.

    Another article published today looks at the “10 Habits of Happiness,” which include gratitude lists, getting enough sleep and spending time outdoors.

    For the study, Schwandt and his team compared happiness levels for 23,161 Germans between the ages of 17 and 85.

    Schwandt said individuals enter a lowered state of happiness at around age 55, when they begin to negatively analyze the various unrealized accomplishments in their lives. However, at around age 60, the happiness level begins a steady uptick as those same people move beyond their past regrets and enter a level of acceptance.

    “People in their fifties could learn from the elderly, who generally feel less regret,” he said. “They should try not to be frustrated by their unmet expectations because they are probably not feeling much worse than their peers.”

    However, the study found that happiness again begins to decline as individuals move into their 70s…”

     

    ”

    If you’re middle-aged and miserable, don’t despair: Give it a decade or two and you’ll be feeling like a carefree young person again.

    Researchers have revealed that life satisfaction peaks at 23 and 69. People in their early twenties overestimate their future life satisfaction by an average of around 10 per cent, before the disappointments of life kick in.

    They face decades of declining expectation before hitting their lowest point in their mid-fifties, when regrets over unrealised dreams are at their greatest.

    Satisfaction levels finally start to rise again after 55 and peak once more at 69, according to a study by the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.

    Those aged 68 underestimate their future happiness by 4.5 per cent, meaning they no longer face disappointment, the researchers found.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2372288/I-CAN-satisfaction-Were-happiest-aged-23-69–mid-50s-worst-time-regrets.html

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/-happiness-peaks-at-ages-23-and-69–200954218.html

  • Men,No Friendship with out Sex,Middle Aged Women Interest ?

    Relationship.
    Oops: A new study shows that sexual attraction does usually interfere in platonic relationships despite what some may think

    The survey, I am not sure, how scientific it is.

    The size of the sample and cultural back ground seems inadequate for any real conclusions.

    The answers need not be correct.

    If women go out with men without being unaware of the men’s interest in them for more than sex, you can not expect them to be aware of the feelings for men to enable them to answer the questions!

    However some interesting points:

    1.The age old wisdom that there is no such thing as  ‘  friend ship with out sex between men and women’ is true.

    2. Middle aged Men’s interest in women who are younger  remain the same if they are Single than the younger men.

    3.Interestingly Women’s interest in Men remain the same at all ages!

    Specific questions on a married men’s/women’s interest in the opposite sex might have elicited interesting information.

    Sex is the basic instinct.

    You can not help it.

    It is as good as bas as Hunger.

    Your study does not change it or your awareness of it.

    Sex is neither a sin nor is it sacred,

    So long as it does not affect you emotionally,socially( which is very rare), i

    Story:

    Researchers have found that men’s friendships with the opposite sex are driven by  sexual attraction, regardless of whether they are single.

    Women, however, are more likely to consider their friendships with men as platonic – and only hoped for more if their own relationship was in trouble.

    The scientists’ findings mirror the plot of 1989 film When Harry Met Sally, in which Harry, played by Billy Crystal, tells Meg Ryan’s Sally: ‘Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.’

    The researchers said the study had ‘potential negative consequences’ for people in long-term relationships.

    They said the impact of work, hobbies and university has seen friendships between men and women reach unprecedented levels.

    But our mating instincts, which have evolved over hundreds  of thousands of years, may get in the way.

    n a survey, 88 pairs of young male and female friends were asked to rate their attraction to each other in a confidential questionnaire.

    Men – whether attached or single – were more likely to be attracted to their female friends and want to go on a date with them than the other way around.

    They also assumed their female friends were more romantically interested in them than they actually were – and women tended to be unaware of this

    Single and attached women showed the same level of  attraction to their male friend. But attached women tended only to want something  to come of that attraction if their relationship was in trouble.

    Women were also less attracted to attached men.

    A second questionnaire for 140 middle-aged people, who were almost all married, found levels  of attraction between male  and female friends fairly equal. Middle-aged men’s attraction to their female friends was much lower than that of the younger men, except among those who were single.

    For women, levels of attraction had stayed the same.

    Participants of both questionnaires said they gained benefits from friendship with the opposite sex including getting good advice and boosting their confidence, according to the study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

    Those who did harbour a secret crush were five times more likely to see it as a potential problem than a benefit. But more men than women saw it as a perk.

    The authors of the study, from the University of Wisconsin, said films and television programmes had helped instill the idea that normal friends can easily become ‘friends with benefits’ – friends who have sex with each other.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2178297/What-Harry-told-Sally-right-Why-man-just-friends-woman–attraction-gets-way.html#ixzz21h5Krg38

  • How to Train the Aging Brain

    Some other ways to train the Brain;
    Connect ideas to pictures.
    While reading find the abstract and relate to the article/story you are reading.
    Try to contradict what what you are reading.
    For memorizing, combine the words in the sentences in various order .E.g. I came home early. memorize thus. I came;came home,home early,early I.I came ….This is one of the disciplines by which the Vedas , the early Hooks of Hindus, have been memorized and transmitted for over 5000 years with out written form.You can go to any part of India, you will the text recited with no variation in text and and tone/tune.
    Story:
    I LOVE reading history, and the shelves in my living room are lined with fat, fact-filled books. There’s “The Hemingses of Monticello,” about the family of Thomas Jefferson’s slave mistress; there’s “House of Cards,” about the fall of Bear Stearns; there’s “Titan,” about John D. Rockefeller Sr.

    The problem is, as much as I’ve enjoyed these books, I don’t really remember reading any of them. Certainly I know the main points. But didn’t I, after underlining all those interesting parts, retain anything else? It’s maddening and, sorry to say, not all that unusual for a brain at middle age: I don’t just forget whole books, but movies I just saw, breakfasts I just ate, and the names, oh, the names are awful. Who are you?

    Brains in middle age, which, with increased life spans, now stretches from the 40s to late 60s, also get more easily distracted. Start boiling water for pasta, go answer the doorbell and — whoosh — all thoughts of boiling water disappear. Indeed, aging brains, even in the middle years, fall into what’s called the default mode, during which the mind wanders off and begin daydreaming.

    Given all this, the question arises, can an old brain learn, and then remember what it learns? Put another way, is this a brain that should be in school?

    As it happens, yes. While it’s tempting to focus on the flaws in older brains, that inducement overlooks how capable they’ve become. Over the past several years, scientists have looked deeper into how brains age and confirmed that they continue to develop through and beyond middle age.

    Many longheld views, including the one that 40 percent of brain cells are lost, have been overturned. What is stuffed into your head may not have vanished but has simply been squirreled away in the folds of your neurons.

    One explanation for how this occurs comes from Deborah M. Burke, a professor of psychology at Pomona College in California. Dr. Burke has done research on “tots,” those tip-of-the-tongue times when you know something but can’t quite call it to mind. Dr. Burke’s research shows that such incidents increase in part because neural connections, which receive, process and transmit information, can weaken with disuse or age.

    But she also finds that if you are primed with sounds that are close to those you’re trying to remember — say someone talks about cherry pits as you try to recall Brad Pitt’s name — suddenly the lost name will pop into mind. The similarity in sounds can jump-start a limp brain connection. (It also sometimes works to silently run through the alphabet until landing on the first letter of the wayward word.)

    This association often happens automatically, and goes unnoticed. Not long ago I started reading “The Prize,” a history of the oil business. When I got to the part about Rockefeller’s early days as an oil refinery owner, I realized, hey, I already know this from having read “Titan.” The material was still in my head; it just needed a little prodding to emerge.

    Recently, researchers have found even more positive news. The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.

    The trick is finding ways to keep brain connections in good condition and to grow more of them.

    “The brain is plastic and continues to change, not in getting bigger but allowing for greater complexity and deeper understanding,” says Kathleen Taylor, a professor at St. Mary’s College of California, who has studied ways to teach adults effectively. “As adults we may not always learn quite as fast, but we are set up for this next developmental step.”

    Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.

    Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.

    “There’s a place for information,” Dr. Taylor says. “We need to know stuff. But we need to move beyond that and challenge our perception of the world. If you always hang around with those you agree with and read things that agree with what you already know, you’re not going to wrestle with your established brain connections.”

    Such stretching is exactly what scientists say best keeps a brain in tune: get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain. Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.

    “As adults we have these well-trodden paths in our synapses,” Dr. Taylor says. “We have to crack the cognitive egg and scramble it up. And if you learn something this way, when you think of it again you’ll have an overlay of complexity you didn’t have before — and help your brain keep developing as well.”

    Jack Mezirow, a professor emeritus at Columbia Teachers College, has proposed that adults learn best if presented with what he calls a “disorienting dilemma,” or something that “helps you critically reflect on the assumptions you’ve acquired.”

    Dr. Mezirow developed this concept 30 years ago after he studied women who had gone back to school. The women took this bold step only after having many conversations that helped them “challenge their own ingrained perceptions of that time when women could not do what men could do.”

    Such new discovery, Dr. Mezirow says, is the “essential thing in adult learning.”

    “As adults we have all those brain pathways built up, and we need to look at our insights critically,” he says. “This is the best way for adults to learn. And if we do it, we can remain sharp.”

    And so I wonder, was my cognitive egg scrambled by reading that book on Thomas Jefferson? Did I, by exploring the flaws in a man I admire, create a suitably disorienting dilemma? Have I, as a result, shaken up and fed a brain cell or two?

    And perhaps it doesn’t matter that I can’t, at times, recall the given name of the slave with whom Jefferson had all those children. After all, I can Google a simple name.

    Sally.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03adult-t.html?em