July 6, 2006

Aging Connection

Creativity offers many benefits to seniors

By Vivian I. Silva, Gerontologist
Special to the Times

The 76-year-old widow sitting next to me on a recent airplane ride to Denver had just came from an elder hostel arts program. “I’ve taken up painting and I love it! Since my husband died, I’ve been traveling to various programs specifically to learn about using watercolor,” she said.

A friend went through a similar experience. A widow at 40, she hadn’t worked and didn’t know what to do with her life. With encouragement to renew her lifelong interest in art, she also took classes in painting and at 65 is now a respected painter and teacher.

Research investigating longevity indicates that old age can be an important time for creativity. Exploring the arts doesn’t necessarily mean the intent is to pursue a career, but living longer can provide us with more time to find meaning in our lives.

The author of “Transitions in a Woman’s Life” found three ways creativity developed for the women in her study:

- as a response to loss and loneliness

- creativity represented an important thread begun in childhood or adolescence that was nurtured consistently across a person’s life span

- an entirely new endeavor begun in later life

The Alzheimer’s Association provides creative opportunities for patients suffering memory loss. Paintings, poems,and journal writings can help express what the patient is going through in the transition.

Many instructors at senior centers and life-long learning programs offer their creative skills to their peer and many volunteer their time to help others explore creativity in the retirement years.

In a transition group, one of the participants shared that she always wanted to sing but remembers being told in school to just mouth the words. With a little encouragement, she joined the choir.

Often fear of failure or fear of just not being good enough keeps the creative juices from flowing. A question to ask oneself is “If not now, when?” Hidden talents may be waiting to be discovered.

According to Rollo May, “Creativity keeps us fresh; it keeps us alive, keeps us moving forward. You are never fully satisfied; you are always working and reworking your art, your book, your garden, whatever … I think the older we get, the fresher we ought to get. We face our fears. We tackle them head on. We have the courage to create.”

Creative endeavors offer myriad benefits. Some we get enjoyment out of and some provide help in our daily living. The following are well known examples of how creativity doesn’t necessarily decline with old age:

- Ben Franklin invented bifocals for himself at the age of 78.
- Frank Lloyd Wright completed New York’s Guggenheim Museum at age 89.
- Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of “Little House on the Prairie,” published her first book at 65.
- Grandma Moses took up painting as a hobby at 76.

Artist Beatrice Wood reflected on creativity in daily living:

“I think that one can be creative wherever one is. You don’t have to be an artist. The creative person is the person who is open to life and listening to life as it comes to him. You can be creative inside even as you’re washing dishes. To me creativity is more a state of the inner being rather than the outer. …But, you know, there have been people who have gone through the most terrible imprisonments, isolation, torture, and they’ve come out wonderful human beings in spite of being just shut up in a box. Something inside of them has kept them alive, and I would say that it was their inward creativity.”

An article in U.S. News & World Report magazine mentioned that new clinical research demonstrates the surprising benefits of creativity from pain relief to faster recoveries from illnesses. Using writing and visual arts registers decreasing physical symptoms due to illnesses.

Writing about trauma improves physical health as a stress release and a way to process the actual trauma. Patients measured lower levels of cortisol (a stress related hormone).

Whether to benefit one’s health, to help find new meaning in one’s life, or to pursue a childhood creative wish, age shouldn’t matter.

Vivian I. Silva, Gerontologist/ MSW is the director of Geriatric Advisory Program at Almaden Valley Counseling Service. The service educates and advises adult children and elders on aging issues and provides individual and family consultation. For more information call (408) 975-2988 or e-mail vivsilva@aol.com.