Learning to Live

Top Tips for Navigating Midlife

Dr. Debbie Grove — Wed, 04 May 2011 14:36:56 +0000

Midlife is a time of both looking back and wondering what the future holds. This busy time of life is loaded with many responsibilities and roles. Juggling work and family life can leave little time for taking care of one’s health and well-being. Stress can accumulate if left unattended. The sheer number of tasks connected to maintaining a household and balancing finances, keeping up with the demands of the workplace, and taking care of children and other family members is staggering. So how does one cope with it all? Even though this picture may appear unmanageable, there are active steps you can take to make midlife the best years of your life.

1. Take Time to Slow Down

Staying on automatic-pilot and trying to accomplish far more than you have time and energy for is sure to deplete your health, especially over time. In fact, our bodies need to reach a relaxed state, otherwise, being constantly in high gear can have detrimental effects on our health. For example, the ‘stress hormone,’ cortisol, can be over-produced when we remain in an elevated state of arousal (e.g., stressed, anxious, wound-up, and emotionally-charged). Being in overdrive also negatively effects our capacity to think clearly and problem-solve. Have you ever felt so stressed that it was difficult to make a decision? This is a signal that it is time to pause, breathe, relax, and wind down.

Integrating some down-time into each day gets us into the habit of slowing down. Learn what your signals are that it is time to take a break. Incorporating daily down-time boosts the immune system, helps maintain well-being, prolongs life, helps us make decisions, and improves quality of living. Slowing down can be a five-minute break or an hour to wind-down before you go to sleep. Even pausing to take a deep breath and rejuvenating with a short walk contributes to balancing physiological and emotional flow throughout the day. The more you incorporate slowing down rituals into your day, the easier winding down becomes. Remember to be patient with yourself as you learn to slow down.

2. Deal with Regrets and Embrace Life Lessons

Going through life wishing different decisions were made, certain opportunities were taken, or a different path was followed detracts putting energy and focus on living in-the-moment and on planning for the future. I do not think I have met one person who did not have at least one regret. After all, it is human to wonder about “what if….” However, living in the shadow of one’s life narrative is not that productive or healthy. On the positive side, if we choose, instead, to learn from our life history, this can be quite empowering. Learning from our experiences and life lessons can help us make better decisions. Life involves trial-and-error learning. We cannot possibly know for certain the exact outcome of every decision we make. As far as I know, we do not have a crystal ball. Let go of the idea that decisions were flaws or mistakes and replace that idea with the philosophy of learning from experience – life lessons.

There are many paths in life that no one prepares us for, and, we are certainly not born knowing it all. Who teaches us how to interact with others? We learn this over time through life experience and exposure to different situations. In other words, perceiving life as a journey that takes us in many directions can help relieve the burden of making perfect decisions. Recognize regrets, come to terms with them, and channel energy, thinking, and efforts toward the rest of your journey.

3. Prioritize What is Important to You

Acknowledging that it is not humanly possible to do it all or to have a to-do list as long as a football field is a healthy first step in determining what is important to you. This takes self-understanding and awareness of what has meaning and purpose. The beauty of midlife is the wealth of prior experiences that one has to learn from and to use to help them make priorities. Reflecting back on life, ask yourself, “What did I enjoy?” “What felt fulfilling?” “What would I like to do differently?” Midlife is a great time to make a commitment to living a life that is right for you and not a life lived to please others or to satisfy popular cultural values and lifestyles.

4. Build and Maintain Quality Relationships

We all need that one person with whom we can be ourselves, vent, celebrate, and grieve. Since life can be unpredictable despite how much we plan and stick to a routine, a curve ball can head our way. It tends to be, especially, in these times when we need support, love, care, and compassion. Some individuals have told me that it is difficult to meet new people during midlife. Losing track of old friends, moving frequently, having little leisure time, devoting long hours to one’s job, and spending time with family can leave little time for friends. However, it is an important investment for emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical well-being. When friendships are built on kindness, respect, and understanding, there tends to be mutual understanding that time is limited, but precious. It becomes, therefore, less about the amount of time spent with a friend, rather, the quality of the time is valued.

Meeting new people and creating new friendships takes creativity and sometimes means stepping outside one’s comfort zone, e.g., joining a club or group to meet others with a similar interest. Searching the Internet for in-person and on-line discussion groups, using social media, taking a course, and volunteering are just a few ideas for meeting new people during midlife.

5. Manage Stress Before It Piles Up

Letting stress pile up only wears you down. Have you ever had one of those days where it seemed as though you were faced with one challenge after another? Paying attention to signs that stress is wearing you down and becoming unmanageable is key to learning how to manage stress. Some of these signs or signals include changes in your health, difficulties sleeping, anxiety, depression, strain on relationships, and difficulty concentrating and problem-solving. Keep in mind that signs of stress are different for everyone. For example, some people avoid problems while others try to solve multiple issues all at once. Neither of these approaches are healthy over the long term. Putting things on the back burner or avoiding them fuels the piling up of stress and strain. This differs from taking time to sleep on an issue or reflecting on alternative solutions. In contrast, multi-tasking and taking on too many tasks can lead to burnout. Sometimes when we try to take on too many activities, we end up mastering few of them. It can feel like life is turning into a treadmill. After a while, life can begin to feel as though it lacks meaning and a sense of genuine purpose. Narrow down and prioritize to-do lists, life goals, and learn to say “no thanks.” These are healthy steps toward stress and well-being management.

6. Give Life’s Journey Direction and Meaning

Just imagine taking an uncharted trip – no map, no idea of your destination, and no compass. How do you think you might feel? What might you be thinking? On the one hand, at first, this could be experienced as an exhilarating adventure. On the other hand, it could feel quite unmanageable and empty. Meaningfulness and a sense of purpose are paramount in midlife. Having a passion(s) in life augments purpose and meaning. Getting up in the morning with a life direction and then taking steps toward your destination improves quality of life, happiness, and health. It will feel rewarding and rejuvenating to be living the life you purposefully chose. Life’s direction is facilitated by setting goals geared to various life domains: health, career, education, family, residence, volunteer activities, and interests. Goals help provide a focus, generate empowerment, and boost self-esteem.

Navigating life’s journey in healthy ways helps us enjoy moments, celebrate successes, and face challenges.

Your Personal Well-being Reservoir

Dr. Debbie Grove — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 01:55:16 +0000

Building Blocks for Navigating Midlife Depression Part II:

Evaluate Your Personal Well-being Reservoir

How do we build resilience for the inevitable ups and downs of midlife? This can be a highly active time of life – sometimes the most active as we strive for career and financial success, care for others, work long hours, and plan for retirement. We often hear about people being ‘sandwiched’ between the care of children, their parents, and other family members. An important question to ask is, “so what has to give, in order to keep going?”

Even though the concept of ‘self care’ is used a lot to characterize what we have to do to survive this time of life, further, more in-depth consideration is needed. How do we know what we need and why we need to do it? Since everyone is different in terms of their personal life histories, available supports and resources, openness to ask for help, current life stressors and demands, one way of managing self-care and well-being is not the answer for everyone.

In fact, each day of the week can bring different challenges and stressors. For many of us, the traditional Monday to Friday 9-5 work days are being replaced with longer work weeks, longer hours, and non-routine schedules. With multiple work schedules, time to dine together is replaced with faster options. Add to this equation, the demands of keeping up with technology, information, trends, and cultural shifts, it is no wonder that we often feel like we are on overdrive, ready to burst.

North American cultural values contribute as well. Our highly individualized societies and isolated neighbourhoods can foster a sense of disconnect, loneliness, and depression. The fast pace of life married with relational and environmental disconnections adds to the strain and stress of everyday existence.

If this sounds like your life at the moment, have hope; stop, pause, and reflect. It could mean, it is time for you to take an inventory of your life. Weigh the areas of life that are going well or relatively well, those that could use some work, and those that are non-existent (e.g., time for self-care and those activities you used to enjoy or dream about).

Taking time out of a hectic schedule to evaluate is an essential task in getting life on a new, healthier, and more manageable course.

In my interviews with midlife women and men, they discussed many aspects of their lives that both boosted and depleted their well-being. When life became too depleted, depression was difficult, sometimes impossible to manage. However, with sufficient boosting elements, not only did depression become easier to manage, but, importantly, quality of life improved too.

Check out the tool below to help you assess what is depleting your well-being and resilience for managing daily living and ideas that might help you boost how you navigate your way back to wellness:

Creating a well-being checklist for yourself can help identify those areas of life that are impacting your health, happiness, quality of life, and well-being. Some key areas to think about include relationships, dealing with past issues, available supports and resources, and level of self-awareness. Being self-aware is key. This includes awareness about your strengths and resourcefulness, how you handle stress, your problem-solving style, and how you learn and navigate change. For example, some people are reflective in their approach to problem-solving while others are more action-oriented. Combining these can often be a helpful way to first think about the problem at hand, then to consider potential solutions and alternatives, supports/resources that are available, and those that need to be acquired.

During midlife, it is not unusual to have regrets about the past such as decisions that did not go as hoped, missed opportunities, relational breaks, adversity during childhood and adolescence, and traumatic experiences. These can play a significant role in midlife well-being in the absence of supportive approaches to moving forward. Therapy, groups, and other self-help resources can help the process. Looking ahead toward goals, dreams, aspirations, and the meaning and purpose you connect with your interests and preferred lifestyle can help boost your reservoir toward wellness.

Building Blocks for Navigating Midlife Depression Series

Dr. Debbie Grove — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:26:48 +0000

For the past five-plus years, I have been researching midlife depression and the efficacy of therapy in helping people self-manage depression. In my interviews with midlife women and men, some key findings came to light. This year, I will be posting a series of blogs about midlife depression and renewed treatment approaches. This series is also a precursor to a therapist workbook. The first in my Building Blocks for Navigating Midlife Depression © series, I focus on factors contributing to midlife depression. My series may bust a few myths and stereotypes about midlife and depression during this popularized life stage!

Part 1: Navigation Requires Tracing Our Steps: Depression Not Out of the Blue

In my exploration of midlife depression with individuals who had completed therapy for the primary issue of depression, we discovered that depression did not arise out of the blue; but, rather, was a culmination of multiple interacting experiences that took place in various environments – in their schools, neighbourhoods, and homes growing up, and in their workplaces and family lives as adults. In most cases, the onset of depression began during adolescence, accompanied by experiences such as alcoholism in the parental home, bullying at school, abuse, discrimination, lack of supports for learning disabilities, among other earlier life experiences that shaped depression’s course. Individuals described adolescence as a silent time in their lives filled with shame and stigma attached to depression and help-seeking. While many thought about suicide, no suicide attempts were made. At the same time, however, other self-harming behaviours took place as well as venturing into drug and alcohol use.

As time passed, depression did not magically disappear. In the absence of help, the effects of earlier life lingered, impacting relationships, ability to cope with stress, performance at work, setting and reaching life-career goals, living life with meaning and purpose, self-care and health, and decision-making/problem-solving. Combine these effects with the stressors inherent in midlife (e.g., caring for children and parents, job stress, health issues, finances, and household responsibilities), and it is easy to see how one can become emotionally and physically overloaded. I conceptualized this as one’s Personal Well-being Reservoir © being depleted (I will be writing more about this concept in future blogs).

Therefore, midlife was less about a ‘crisis’ and related more so to the interacting effects of past and current stressors. Life in the present became more difficult to manage because of factors such as poor problem-solving, low self-esteem and confidence, lack of supportive relationships, hesitancy to ask for help, regrets about past decisions and experiences, and interrupted aspirations. For example, an earlier life goal of completing university interrupted by lack of focus, use of alcohol, and stress overload was viewed as yet another experience contributing to lifetime depression. The threshold for stress management, in essence, was compromised by lifetime exposure to adversity and stress in the absence of sufficient buffers, supports, resources, and positive life experiences. This required the creation and practice of personalized strategies for daily well-being.

Stayed tuned for future posts!