Exposure to any person’s thoughts, ideas, musings, research and observations can result in experiences of disinterest and irrelevance or of cognitive dissonance and personal growth; I hope you will encounter the latter two more frequently. Cognitive dissonance can occur when there is a sense of conflict in a personal belief or action. These uncomfortable or dissonant feelings encourage us to either positively or negatively change our attitudes, understandings and behaviors. If, for example, you have the belief that a totally sedentary lifestyle and eating anything and everything you enjoy will not be deleterious to your health because “people smoke, drink and eat what they want and live to be 90” is your main mantra, then witnessing a relative or friend who lived a similar lifestyle and died at age 50, may cause (after dealing with the personal loss) a state of internal tension. One of two things will happen: Either the person experiencing mental dissonance will be motivated to reduce his or her risk of becoming another statistic or he will bring harmony back into his life by thinking of all the other faults this person possessed that he does not. Either way, their goal, conscious or unconscious, is to be brought back into harmony by making the effort to change or devising an erroneous belief system in order to be in compliance with their original opinions. This concept can apply to all aspects of life, such as in religion, politics, child rearing, lifestyle behaviors, patriotism, business ethics, traditions, energy resources, laws (capital punishment, gun control, abortion), global affairs, poverty and other areas where we tend to hold on to our beliefs about such matters regardless of how much new (or old) information may prove otherwise.
Being that the over 60 year old population is a very heterogeneous and formidably unique group, it is important that conceptual and factual information provided be either integrative, helpful, applicable, inspiring or engaging. After spending 40 years of experience in both the alternative and traditional fields of health, as a Gerontologist I have come to rely on and respect both regarding prevention and management of health and quality of life issues. The driving force behind this LASINC blog is to spare you, the reader, from obtuse information that much of the media and research studies thrive on. I enjoy and spend about 3 or 4 hours per day sifting and evaluating all kinds of data that seem most pertinent to the over 60 crowd. If you have a subject matter that you’d like addressed, email and let us know. My hope is that this simple platform will provide valuable insight into our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual yearnings which encourage all of us to expect more from ourselves. The primary processes of acquiring and synthesizing new information can be experiential, incidental or deliberate, contextual or associative, yet very personal and unique for each individual. Regardless, the blogs intend to be fun, too, and encourage ponderings or motivate and provoke through discussion focused on maximizing our highest potential and abilities, which are as delightfully diverse as each one of you.
- Jane Alise