A Psychiatrist Discusses How to Tap Into Wisdom and Grow With Age

Marc Agronin, a geriatric psychiatrist, calls the point when an older friend or family member retires, is diagnosed with a serious illness, or loses a spouse an "age point" that disrupts an older person's life and challenges their ability to cope while also offering potential for new growth, reports Kaiser Health News . "As we get older and experience a great variety of things, including adversity and loss, we continue to develop and mature in terms of how we view the world," Agronin says. "We tend to be better able to weigh competing points of view and find ways to understand and accept them. We also tend to be less emotionally reactive as the connections between the brain's fear center, our amygdala, and our frontal lobe become richer and more developed. We're better able to reflect upon our experiences." Agronin says a lot of theories about aging often overlook people in poor health, such as those with dementia and other illnesses or disabilities. "Expectations have to be adjusted, obviously, when dementia or serious illness enters the picture," he notes. "We have to adapt and rethink what our purpose is — what can make life meaningful." With less physical resilience accompanying aging, Agronin says "psychologically it's just the opposite. Because we've dealt with more adversity, we've learned coping mechanisms and survival skills. If we apply that psychological resilience to physical insult, we can do better."