Rejuvenaging: The Art and Science of Growing Older with Enthusiasm

By Dr. Ron Kaiser

The aging process has historically been thought of as a time of slowing down, declining, and "running out the clock."  By introducing the concept of REJUVENAGING, psychologist Ron Kaiser provides a blueprint for making the aging process an active and exciting one.  With seven keys and countless prac

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ronald S. Kaiser, Ph.D.
• Release date: Nov 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781947368989

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Kaiser_Rejuvenaging_FrontCover.jpg

Copyright © 2018 by Ronald S. Kaiser, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by The Mental Health Gym, Philadelphia, PA

Printed in the United States of America.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN: 978-1-947368-97-2

ISBN eBook: 978-1-947368-98-9

LCCN: 2018953911

Cover design by Zeljka Kojic.

Layout design by Wesley Strickland.

To Libby:

Even without the benefit of having this book as a guide, having you by my side for almost a half-century has made it impossible for me to age in any other way than with enthusiasm.

(Everybody else needs to read this book.)

Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.

—Mike Singletary

contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Disclaimer

Chapter 1

Invitation

Chapter 2

The Art and Science of Rejuvenaging

Chapter 3

Taking Ownership of Your Life: The Type P Personality

Chapter 4

Key #1: It All Starts with the Mindset

Chapter 5

Key #2: Rejuvenage Your Intellect

Chapter 6

Key #3: The Rejuvenager’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Chapter 7

Key #4: Owning Your Body

Chapter 8

Key #5: Being a Social Being

Chapter 9

Key #6: Doing Good Makes You Feel Good

Chapter 10

Key #7: Appreciate the Good That Permeates Your Life

Chapter 11

Using the Rejuvenaging Toolkit to Challenge Adversity and Decline

Chapter 12

A New Definition of Feeling My Age

Preface

When I first started working as a school counselor fifty-five years ago, I assumed that I would continue to do similar work for about forty years and then retire. I didn’t know what being an older adult would be like exactly, but I knew it would be a relaxed and passive time of life.

Over the years, as I transitioned from working in schools to working in community agencies to working within the health system, and I transitioned from a master’s level counselor to a Ph.D. psychologist, and I started referring to those with whom I work as patients rather than clients, I also underwent a transformation in my thinking about old age.

While I’ve always considered myself to be a really good psychotherapist, in the past couple of decades, I’ve become increasingly influenced by the relatively new field of positive psychology as well as the dynamic research dealing with neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to produce positive change and growth throughout the lifespan. Both of those influences share a common psychological core: the belief in our ability to effect positive change by the activities and values that we choose to pursue.

That new knowledge has produced profound results! While recognizing that some people are medically, psychologically, or situationally limited, we now know that most of us can choose how we are going to age.

This book presents a case for the following statements:

Activity is better than passivity.

Planning psychologically for our senior years is as important as planning financially for them.

Both active retirement and choosing to work past a normal retirement age are equally valid choices.

Most important of all, growing older is not a spectator sport; it requires active participation for maximum benefit.

Maintaining a healthy activity level is not a haphazard process. Based upon widespread research as well as more than a half-century of work in the field, I have developed an approach that I call Goal-Achieving Psychology (GAP), which bridges the gap between thinking and doing. This approach underlies most of the recommendations made throughout the book.

The book asks the reader to be active in selectively incorporating activities that enable personal success. It is designed to be read from start to finish, but it certainly doesn’t have to be. If you find an area that you want to work on right away, go for it. To maximize the potential for using the book as a guide to action, and to remove a possible impediment that may discourage some readers from doing so, I have briefly summarized bodies of research rather than dealing with them in great depth. My work is grounded in research, however, and I have included a helpful bibliography for the reader who is more research-oriented or who is particularly interested in pursuing a specific topic in depth. I also welcome your questions and comments about the research behind my approach at my website,

www.TheMentalHealthGym.com.

Acknowledgments

Although my parents are no longer alive, I want to acknowledge the part that they played in making this book come to fruition. I grew up in a household where my brother and I were encouraged to think positively about our goals and efforts at achieving them and to recognize the good in others. Those lessons played a major role in the development of my philosophy of life and my psychotherapeutic approach to helping others by respectfully encouraging them to focus on what can go right.

That early foundation for a sense of optimism has been reinforced regularly through interactions with my brother, Harold, and later my sister-in-law, Ruth. I then lucked out in marrying Libby, who not only brings sunshine into the lives of everyone she meets but has the uncanny ability to immediately point out the inconsistency whenever I allow negative thinking to temporarily define me. Negativity tends to be a rare event in a family like ours. We are blessed with sons like Brian and Jeff, a daughter-in-law like Krista, and grandchildren like Sofia and Matt.

Throughout my professional career, I have been fortunate to have mentors and colleagues who made it fun to go to work in environments where my efforts were valued. For the past few decades, I have been associated with the multidisciplinary team at the Jefferson Headache Center at Thomas Jefferson University. It’s a special place where I have been able to develop my ideas and demonstrate how a positive goal-oriented approach to treatment can help patients to reduce the impact of chronic pain and improve the quality of their lives. As the years have gone by, I’ve appreciated the fact that my colleagues never told me that I’m too old to be doing what I’m doing. And I’m quite confident that if they felt that way, they would let me know.

I’ve been influenced by the work of many professionals in the fields of cognitive-behavioral therapy, positive psychology, neuroplasticity, wellness, and aging. Some of them know who they are because of personal connections, while others have influenced me from afar through their books, workshops, and conference presentations. They are too numerous to mention here, although several of my major influencers are cited in the book and/or bibliography.

I would like to acknowledge those who contributed directly to making this book a reality. Thanks to Rick Hanson, Barry Rovner, Dawn Buse, Joe Quinn, Angela Kurzyna, and Caryn Seebach for reading the manuscript and making helpful comments. I am also grateful for the skill and patience of my content editor, Michael Levin; copy editor, Megan Rowe; and Elaine Best and Wesley Strickland, who steered the production through the publication process.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of many of my peers whose lifestyles I’ve been able to observe as they age with me in a positive, healthy, active manner. On a daily basis, they prove the validity of the concept of Rejuvenaging.

Disclaimer

This book is designed to get the reader thinking about and implementing activities that can help most people age in a healthy, happy manner. It is an educational tool and not meant as a substitute for medical, psychological, or legal advice. Readers are encouraged to consult their family physicians and other professionals prior to implementing any major change in their activity levels.

Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and accurate as possible. However, there may be inadvertent typographical and content errors. Also, the topic is so broad that relevant content may have been omitted. The book should thus not be regarded as a comprehensive guide to managing the aging process. Furthermore, it is only current up to the printing date.

Case summaries occur throughout the book to illustrate various points. In every case, key facts have been changed to maintain anonymity, and some examples are actually composites of more than one person. All summaries are thus fictionalized to ensure confidentiality.

As the purpose of the book is to educate and entertain, the author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, directly or indirectly, by information contained in this book.

Chapter 1

Invitation

This is the book that I have resisted writing for many years.

Not that I haven’t been asked. Over the past decade or so, friends and colleagues have looked at my background as a psychologist and health professional, my active professional and personal lifestyle, and the fact that I have written books as well as professional articles, and they have said things along the lines of, You know, you ought to write a book about how to age actively.

I have always resisted, for various rational and irrational reasons. I never wanted to be seen as an old psychologist who specializes in working with old patients. In fact, my practice has never been primarily devoted to geriatric patients. But a funny thing happened last November. I turned eighty.

How cool is that? Eighty years old and still married to the love of my life, a proud father and grandfather, taking no medication aside from vitamins, exercising regularly, working full-time, and still finding the energy to write this book in my spare time. Maybe I do have something to say that can help others—something that hasn’t been said in quite the same way before.

Coming face-to-face with my eightieth birthday caused me to accept a fundamental truth about myself: my life doesn’t have to change or be defined by my age. I can continue to work with adults of all ages and contribute to their personal growth and development. At the same time, I should not be shying away from sharing my expertise and experience with my age peers. In fact, I would argue that by not specializing in geriatrics I bring a special dimension to advising those who are going through the aging process, just as it has helped me to lead my life in an active, productive, and especially happy manner.

I am a psychologist with an emphasis on health psychology, and my practice has always served a broad age range of patients. In my personal and professional life, I’ve not limited myself to associating only with my contemporaries. Working in a medical school setting brings me in contact with some of the brightest young people on the planet, and I am proud to say that I am regularly included in social and exercise activities with them. My history has enabled me to relate to young people as well as middle-aged and older patients. A wide age range of patients always permeated my practice when I was a young and later a middle-aged psychologist, and that continues today.

In addition, my efforts from a scientific standpoint in recent years have been directed at developing and formalizing my approach to psychotherapy, which I have named Goal-Achieving Psychotherapy. I have now expanded it to the more encompassing concept of Goal-Achieving Psychology. The initials spell GAP, and my ideas are designed to bridge the gap between thinking and doing—thus helping people to get unstuck and become happier and more productive. My writing of this book actually slows down my efforts at getting those ideas out into the world. I have, however, presented these concepts at conferences and in e-books. What Can Go Right? The Thinking Person’s Guide to Making Good Things Happen is an early attempt at clarifying my methods, and I am working on a more up-to-date summary, soon to be published and entitled, Goal-Achieving