We can adapt to anything, it seems—you can get your dream job, marry a wonderful human, finally get 1 million dollars or Twitter followers—eventually we acclimate and find new things to complain about.

The everyday tasks—making my mom breakfast, preparing her daily medications, helping her get dressed—gave me purpose. Duty and love were intertwined.

what I really question is whether she would have been in such pain had she received the social support and validation that she needed.

Relief washed over their face. “Well, at least she is no longer suffering, and you’re free to live your own life,” they said.

was over a decade old and had since been replaced by a more comprehensive set of guidelines for health care emergencies.

We can gently protest when even beloved friends and family succumb to stereotypical thinking.

So this is no joke. Yet “there’s a lot of social acceptance of ageism,” Dr. Levy noted, pointing to television, social media and everyday interactions. Although studies have found that children as young as three or four already hold ageist ideas, now “we have research showing that we can overcome it.”

A program in which undergraduate psychology students corresponded with older adults by email, developing deepening relationships over six weeks. A gardening project that brought fourth-graders to a Tennessee senior center twice weekly for a month.A four-session program in an Australian high school, incorporating discussions, games and role-playing about aging and adult development.

ageism often takes: pervasive employment discrimination, biased health care, media caricatures or invisibility. When internalized by older adults themselves, ageist views can lead to poorer mental and physical health.

The baldest forms of ageism include addressing older people in “elderspeak”—high, loud tones and a simplified vocabulary—and tarring them with nouns like “coot” and “geezer” or adjectives like “decrepit.”

A recent A.A.R.P. study revealed that sixty-four per cent of Americans between forty-five and sixty had seen or experienced age discrimination at work

The median age at tech titans such as Facebook and Google is under thirty; the standard job requirements in the Valley—which discourage a “stale degree” and demand a “digital native” who’s a “culture fit”—sift for youth.

With the advent of the cloud and off-the-shelf A.P.I.s—the building blocks of sites and apps—all you really need to launch a startup is a bold idea

who nickname him Grandpa Buzz

In “The Young Philadelphians” (1959), for instance, Newman played Tony Lawrence, whose mother, over his cradle, gloats, “Someday, he’ll take the place in this city that belongs to him.”

They are a source of generational knowledge and wisdom, they contribute to the workforce in increasing numbers, they volunteer and they are key to the strength of our economies and our families

There are myriad examples of younger people supporting older adults during their isolation: dropping off groceries, looking after their garden and working to keep them socially connected.

This may lead people to believe that an older person’s life may be less valuable than that of someone younger

Older adults are ‘sitting ducks’, vulnerable and helpless against COVID-19. High mortality rates amongst older adults are considered an ‘inevitable’ and ‘normal’ outcome of this pandemic.Healthy younger adults may perceive themselves as invulnerable to COVID-19 and, as a result, may not realise the importance of following public health advice and policies on infection prevention. Videos of university-age students engaging in mass gatherings for Spring Break in Miami, FL [12] or St Patrick’s Day in Kingston, ON [13], despite calls from public health officials to engage in social distancing, highlight this misperception.

Ultimately, COVID-19 is not a disease of older adults, and it effects will be felt by everyone. We all must do our part to curtail its spread.

We were slow, and possibly even negligent in preparing a response to COVID-19 that could have reduced the number of victims in LTCs

This implies that the death of a young adult merits a life story, while the death of an older adult is too often merely a statistic

The media has a considerable role in the propagation of ageist stereotypes and negative attitudes towards older adults, particularly in times of crisis when age is not a relevant factor

Evaluating a Source

Research A research project presents a research question and answers that question through  sources. It is written from the perspective of someone who seeks answers.

Report A report relays the results of your research in an organized manner. A report is written from the perspective of someone who already knows the answers.

What makes work meaningful is not the kind of work it is, but the sense it gives you that you are earning your success and serving others.

But the research is clear that there is a huge genetic component in determining your “set point” for subjective well-being, the baseline you always seem to return to after events sway your mood.

If you feel happy, don’t shy away from it. Remind yourself that you have worked hard enough to achieve this and you truly deserve it.

voluntary expressions of joy – like a smile or a few kind words, influence the brain to respond and reflect positive emotions only.

They had to be detailed and more in-depth. Surprisingly, participants could finish writing lengthy gratitude notes in less than five minutes, and reported feelings of contentment after doing so.

All we need sometimes is a little push or a reminder of how powerful and vital gratitude exercises are

Also, at the neurochemical level, gratitude acts as a catalyst for neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine – the ones that manage our emotions, anxiety, and immediate stress responses.

gratitude forces us to focus on the positive sides of life.

By merely acknowledging and appreciating the little things in life, we can rewire the brain to deal with the present circumstances with more awareness and broader perception.

Hypothalamic regulation triggered by gratitude helps us get deeper and healthier sleep naturally everyday. A brain filled with gratitude and kindness is more likely to sleep better and wake up feeling refreshed and energetic every morning (Zahn et al., 2009).

Social psychologists believe it to be entwined with the perception of what we have done for others and what others have done for us

By consciously practicing gratitude everyday, we can help these neural pathways to strengthen themselves and ultimately create a permanent grateful and positive nature within ourselves.

mentioned in one of her publications that gratitude as a ‘natural antidepressant’. The effects of gratitude, when practiced daily can be almost the same as medications.

Grateful workers are more efficient, more productive and more responsible. Expressing gratitude in the workplace is a proactive action toward building interpersonal bonds and trigger feelings of closeness and bonding (Algoe, 2012)

Keeping a gratitude journal causes less stress, improves the quality of sleep, and builds emotional awareness

Holden, in his study, suggested that the roots of many psychopathological conditions like depression, anxiety, and stress are unhappiness.

“Enjoy the little things. For one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” – Robert Brault

The benefits of gratitude are endless, and in this article, let us try to explore what gratitude it, discuss its scientific base, and understand how we can use gratitude to be happier in life.

as a positive emotional response that we perceive on giving or receiving a benefit from someone

Gratitude, derived from the Latin word ‘gratia’, means gratefulness or thankfulness.

Gratitude is a powerful human emotion. By conveying and receiving simple ‘thank you’ messages, we can truly derive the pleasure that we seek everywhere else.

From the evidence of this study, it seems that feeling good is not enough. People need meaning to thrive.

Their bodies were not preparing them for the bacterial infections that we get when we are alone or in trouble, but for the viral infections we get when surrounded by a lot of other people.

Meaning was defined as an orientation to something bigger than the self.

"Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed or even selfish life, in which things go well, needs and desire are easily satisfied, and difficult or taxing entanglements are avoided," the authors of the study wrote.

found that happiness is associated with selfish “taking” behavior and that having a sense of meaning in life is associated with selfless “giving” behavior.

The more one forgets himself -- by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love -- the more human he is."

"If there is meaning in life at all," Frankl wrote, "then there must be meaning in suffering."

Meaning, on the other hand, is enduring. It connects the past to the present to the future.

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing," Frankl wrote in Man's Search for Meaning, "the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

I wish I had a camera! If in the course of your life you almost never find yourself wanting a camera, forget about it and move on, happily.

One secret of happiness? People.

Matching census data on earnings with data on self-reported happiness from a national survey, Luttmer found that, sure enough, your happiness can depend a great deal on your neighbors’ paychecks.

More money can also lead to more stress.

Yes, you get a thrill at first from shiny new cars and TV screens the size of Picasso’s Guernica. But you soon get used to them, a state of running in place that economists call the “hedonic treadmill” or “hedonic adaptation.”

You overestimate how much pleasure you’ll get from having more.

Before you can pursue happiness the right way, you need to recognize what you’ve been doing wrong.

Remember that a thesis statement does not summarize an issue but rather dissects it.

all support in an essay must work together to convey a central point

Explication tells the reader how the quote or paraphrase supports the thesis of your paper.

Create source bricks, which are essentially chunks of text you place before and after a quotation or a paraphrase. Here is how you do it:

When you quote, you use the exact wording from the source When you paraphrase, you put a passage or part of a text in your own words, being careful not to copy the sentence structure of the original source When you summarize, you give a very broad overview of a passage or a text--writing your summary in a 10th of the size of the original text

The content of each paragraph in the essay is shaped by purpose, audience, and tone. The four common academic purposes are to summarize, to analyze, to synthesize, and to evaluate. Identifying the audience's demographics, education, prior knowledge, and expectations will affect how and what you write. Devices such as sentence structure, word choice, punctuation, and formal or informal language communicate tone and create a relationship between the writer and his or her audience. Content may consist of examples, statistics, facts, anecdotes, testimonies, and observations. All content must be appropriate and interesting for the audience, purpose and tone.

to summarize to analyze to synthesize to evaluate

jot down ideas in a scratch outline and work from that. Writing your thoughts down may even help you grasp them for the first time.

Purpose: The reason the writer composes the essay. Audience: The individual or group whom the writer intends to address. Tone: The attitude the writer conveys about the essay's subject

More realistic and balanced thinking leads to positive action, which, in turn, tends to bolster confidence, enhance self-esteem and result in greater happiness.

Rather, you want your child to face the thought, thoroughly examine it and replace it with a more realistic and helpful perspective.

Here are four key styles of negative self-talk to listen for:

The power of thoughts to affect feelings and behavior is a foundational principle of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is the form of therapy that I practice.

That’s it. That’s the practice. It’s often been said that it’s very simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. The work is to just keep doing it. Results will accrue.

But meditation begins and ends in the body. It involves taking the time to pay attention to where we are and what’s going on, and that starts with being aware of our body.

When we think about meditating (with a capital M), we can get hung up on thinking about our thoughts: we’re going to do something about what’s happening in our heads. It’s as if these bodies we have are just inconvenient sacks for our brains to lug around.

When we’re mindful, we reduce stress, enhance performance, gain insight and aware ness through observing our own mind, and increase our attention to others’ well-being.

If you want to know what mindfulness is, it’s best to try it for a while.