Companionship for seniors is incredibly important, as important as it is for anyone at any stage of their lives. It promotes better mental health, better physical health, creates new routines, and really, just makes life better. Seniors facing isolation are at a higher risk of depression, which, as it sets in, can lead to more isolation and increase depression severity. The brain thrives on activity and stimulation, and withers without it. Reaching out and finding companionship makes you healthier, and that health helps you continue to reach out and find companions. It allows you to enjoy them. It allows you to continue to explore, to create, to find new paths where you had thought the highway overgrown with vines and jungle thickness. You hack through them, and find a new road.
There is never a time when isolation is “ok”, and never a time where you are too old to have fun with old friends or meet new ones. Every person is a mystery until you know them, just like every day is a fresh page until you live it. Fill that page with ideas and activities, and solve that mystery.
For more information please follow this link to the full article in Institute on Aging.
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