SUCCESSFUL AGEING CAN BE ACHIEVED

BY EVERYONE
 Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3

Role of Psychological factors in Successful Aging.......................................................................3

 Adjusting to the Changes......................................................................................................3

 Effective Perspectives of Living...........................................................................................3

 Religious Beliefs...................................................................................................................4

 Status.....................................................................................................................................4

 Social Support Group...........................................................................................................5

 Adapting with the Decreasing Abilities................................................................................5

Statistical Analysis & Results..........................................................................................................6

 Demographic characteristics and healthy aging...................................................................6

 Psychosocial factors influencing healthy aging....................................................................6

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8

Reference.........................................................................................................................................9

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INTRODUCTION
Improved mental, social and physical wellbeing are the main issues of healthy aging. It takes a
lifelong habit of maintaining the criteria of becoming a happy person. These habits enhance the
successful life transitions and have an increasingly positive influence on elderly health and well-
being of the person. In recent researches, scientists have found that successful aging is more of a
goal of old age for every conscious people in the universe (Aldwin, Park and Spiro, 2011).
Healthy aging can be achieved through a series of activities which are more pertinent to daily
living. In this essay, more focus will be given on the probable criteria of successful aging and
analysis of the findings from a sample group of people who expressed their opinions.

ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS IN SUCCESSFUL AGING

• Adjusting to the Changes

People from the very early era faces different changes in the society and their lives. It is very
important to adapt with these changes as Darwin said ‘This world is suitable for the fittest’. So,
as the surroundings are changing every day, the senior citizens must accept all the positive
changes that take place in the society. If he or she able to maintain the acceptance, then he or she
will feel less stress and successful aging will become more easier to live for him (Foster, 2013).

• Effective Perspectives of Living

The psychological effects from the society is very important for the well-being of the elderly. A
constant interaction among the different areas of activities can explain the causality. Different
relationships between functional skills, leisure, health, and quality of life plays an important role
in a person’s mental stability. If the elderly people involve in more community interactions with
others, more satisfaction will be gained achieving a better performance of daily activities. This
will lead to greater control of certain pathologies and improve physical limitations. This concept
of health, is a predictor of physical fitness, which increases life satisfaction, self-esteem,
functional skills, event participation and social interaction.

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 • Religious Beliefs

As religious activities connect improved physical and mental health together, people who find
calmness in religious activities can ensure these benefits. However, it cannot be assured that
participating contribute to health or physically healthier people are seemed to attach to religious
groups. Many such factors such as psychologic benefits, encouragement of healthful practices as
well as social support from the religious community can ensure a person’s serene mind (Leonard,
2012). These communities teach the behaviors that enhance health improvement, such as
avoidance of alcohol use.

 Membership in Different Organizations

Membership in organizations also supports people who need it to go ahead. Members in these
communities help the older people to cope with the changes in the society and help then to
accept it positively. This enhances the happiness in a particular person promoting his or her
health condition. Religious organization also can help in this matter. Different organizations help
to find the peaceful state of mind to increase the Dopamine level in the elderly people to increase
hope in them. It lessens the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer as well as other different
diseases that hampers their life style.

• Status

Every person has their own feeling of status in the society. With time if any change occurs to that
status, it seems to be difficult to accept thus creating stress in that person. Education affects life
traits, health and life satisfaction a person can desire to get. If a person is well educated, he or she
must know the level of expectation they should possess. So, they can determine the probable
status they can ensure by their education level. Higher education levels provide better job-related
opportunities, social status and greater financial stability to the individuals and thus they can
remain satisfied with them and age successfully (Physiopedia, 2020).

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  Maintain Relationships

An individual must maintain his social and family relationships to earn the stability in their lives.
Physical deterioration in elderly are more in men than women, because a woman devotes a
greater portion of their lives taking care of people around them and maintaining quality
relationships. These help her in the later life easing the life path for her. Friends and family are
great source of energy for every people (Aldwin, Park and Spiro, 2011). These relationships
provide hopes and increases greater life expectation and achievement in life. So, establishing
strong social networks increases the quality of life in a person.

• Social Support Group

Social support groups are founded to help each other when it is needed. It solves problem from a
particular person’s life and showing him a path to achieve more successes in his life which will
give a person meaning of living his life. This assistance enables an elderly person to remain
socially active. So, it is a necessity that elderly people should get involved and receive help from
the other experienced people.

• Adapting with the Decreasing Abilities

A person faces several changes in his older life which contains different decreased abilities that
hinder to operate properly in his daily life. Different processes have been found to be positively
associated with indicators of successful aging, such as well-being, life satisfaction, and quality of
life (Lee and Buxton, 2019). Low-resource individuals can maximize their well-being by
accepting the negativities in life and overpower them. It is seen that some lucky people face
minimal physical decline whereas the most people tries heart and soul to adapt with physical loss
in order to maintain their mental well-being.

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STATISTICAL ANALYSIS & RESULTS

• Demographic characteristics and healthy aging

The differences in the healthy aging by demographic characteristics have been tested by t-test
and ANOVA. As a result, there was no significant difference between sex difference [t = 
−0.54, p = 0.659]. From the survey, healthy aging scores in the group of 60–69 years-old seemed
to be higher than the group of people of >70 years-old; whereas the scores in the group of 50–59
years-old was the lowest [F = 3.09, p = .021]. Here, people from the group of 70 years-old or
older differed from the rest two groups according to the results of the post hoc test.

People with higher educational backgrounds were found to have a higher degree of healthy aging
[F = 6.91, p < .001). People with religious activity had a higher degree of healthy aging than
those without religious activities [t = 4.71, p < .001].

No difference was found between married and non-married participants [t = 1.44, p = .159].

Those people who has their own home showed a higher degree of healthy aging than those who
rented their residence [t = 4.31, p = .001].

People with a hobby seemed to possess a higher score of healthy aging than those who did not
have any [t = 9.31, p < .001].

People with higher income levels had more successful healthy aging [F = 2.65, p < .001].
Although people who were involved in economic activities showed more score [mean = 3.42 ± 
0.51].

Finally, treatment with medications had no significant influence on the degree of healthy aging
[t = −1.21, p = .311].

• Psychosocial factors influencing healthy aging

Regression analysis was used to examine the psychosocial factors of which influenced the
factors of healthy aging. From the data, it is seen that healthy aging was significantly influenced
by depression, participation in leisure activities, perceived health status, ego integrity, self-

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achievement and self-esteem. The explanation from the final model found to be relatively high
[R2 = 0.535] and the final regression model was calculated as [F = 90.9, p < .001].

In addition, a variable with a higher tolerance limit is better as it is not explained by other
variables which are statically valuable if the variance inflation factor is less than 3. Here all the
variance inflation factor was taken less than 3 to calculate it precisely.

Variables B β t p Toleranc VIF Adj. R 2 & F

e
A constant 1.649 5.891 .001 Adj. R2 = 0.535 F = 
90.9 (p < .000)
Depression −0.31 −0.32 −6.62 .001 0.379 2.585
3 1 2
Participation 0.216 0.281 7.601 .001 0.694 1.353
of leisure
activities
Perceived 0.153 0.148 4.495 .001 0.788 1.310
health status
Ego-integrity 0.239 0.125 3.831 .001 0.853 1.179
Self- 0.124 0.131 3.241 .001 0.738 1.354
achievement
Self-esteem 0.112 0.109 2.502 .001 0.475 2.137

Table 1:Psychosocial factors influencing healthy aging, Source: Author

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CONCLUSION
Although it is not clear whether the impact of social constraints is as impactful as personal
dispositions. Besides, these studies are not effective on everyone as all people are unique in their
nature. Because of diverse impacts of life changing issues, older people seem to show higher
interindividual unpredictability. Everybody may have the chance to age successfully if people
manage to involve in something on their own initiative. It is a necessity that a person should
know thyself considering which tasks or goals can satisfy his psychological needs. This
satisfaction will make the persons life less stressful. It is seen that after a person retires, he feels
depressed and alone for missing the feeling of competition. So, they ought to look forward
seeking tasks or goals that satisfies their psychological need for competence.

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