The poem “Maud Muller” by John Greenleaf Whittier aptly ends with the line, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’” What if you had gone for the risky investment that you later found out made someone else rich, or if you had had the guts to ask that certain someone to marry you? Certainly, we’ve all had instances in our lives where hindsight makes us regret not sticking our neck out a bit more.
But new research suggests that when we are older these kinds of ‘if only!’ thoughts about the choices we made may not be so good for our mental health. One of the most important determinants of our emotional well being in our golden years might be whether we learn to stop worrying about what might have been.
Perhaps it might be better for us to feel the pain of such missed opportunities when we are younger so that we learn from them and make better choices in the future. But when we are older, the future gets smaller, and so do the opportunities to correct previous missteps. So, as we age a more effective strategy is to let go of the things we’ll have little opportunity to fix. For those who haven’t adopted this adaptive strategy towards missed opportunities, learning to do so may help improve their emotional well-being. Brassen and her colleagues suggest that their findings could be applied to an age-appropriate cognitive-behavioral therapy regimen that would help the unsuccessfully aging disengage from regret inducing experiences. Indeed, with the number of depressed people over the age of 65 estimated to be at roughly 6 million in the United States alone, it is encouraging to consider how this research might be used to improve their lives.
- More Here
But new research suggests that when we are older these kinds of ‘if only!’ thoughts about the choices we made may not be so good for our mental health. One of the most important determinants of our emotional well being in our golden years might be whether we learn to stop worrying about what might have been.
Perhaps it might be better for us to feel the pain of such missed opportunities when we are younger so that we learn from them and make better choices in the future. But when we are older, the future gets smaller, and so do the opportunities to correct previous missteps. So, as we age a more effective strategy is to let go of the things we’ll have little opportunity to fix. For those who haven’t adopted this adaptive strategy towards missed opportunities, learning to do so may help improve their emotional well-being. Brassen and her colleagues suggest that their findings could be applied to an age-appropriate cognitive-behavioral therapy regimen that would help the unsuccessfully aging disengage from regret inducing experiences. Indeed, with the number of depressed people over the age of 65 estimated to be at roughly 6 million in the United States alone, it is encouraging to consider how this research might be used to improve their lives.
- More Here
No comments:
Post a Comment