Why woment dont have old age blues?

The fact is that the art of growing older is one honed mostly by women.

But the real issue is why and how have they managed to navigate these treacherous waters with such success?

One of the major reasons women age more successfully than men is their creation and cultivation of a network of friends and acquaintances. Women at all stages of life just have a larger web of relationships that they call on more regularly than men do. They are simply better at patching together a social network that helps them through the process of growing older.

Also as they grow older, women are more apt than men to plug into activities — social, religious, community and family — that keep them busier and for the most part happier late into their lives. This emerges from the fact that women generally have a network of friends and family that they have nourished throughout their lives.

The transition from professional work to retirement and then in retirement to old age too does not catch them with as much surprise because for them the change is not that drastic in their daily lives as it is for men. With some exceptions, they are not so deeply involved in their work lives that it takes over their total lives even if they are professional women.

Even when a spouse or loved one dies or is incapacitated, women are able to cope with these tragedies much more successfully than men. In the US almost half of women over age 65 are widows and will be widows for an average of 14 years. Since women outlive men by nearly six years, there are 4-5 times more widows than widowers but they tend to live longer after the death of a spouse. According to gerontologists, widowers struggle more than widows to live without a spouse. Growing up during an era when men relied on their wives to be housekeeper, caretaker, and their main source of emotional support, an expanding generation of elderly widowers find they've lost both their best friend and their social planner, leaving them isolated. ''For women, it's a seamless thing. For men, it can be a big change. The ability to connect with others is almost intuitive for women, but not for men. Men are more likely to turn inward and to founder. The caretaker, caregiver, nurturer role is one we expect of women until the day they die. The expectation for women of all ages is that they are expected to meet the needs of those around them. And they do this almost instinctively a lot of the time without even noticing that they are doing it.

Aging, in part, is about declining powers and men seem to take it harder -- and more personally -- than women. It is true that aging is often a painful process in which one needs to come to terms with increasingly diminished capacities. The people who do the best with aging aren't thinking that much about getting older. They're not really focusing on what's not working anymore. Aging changes everyone and to age gracefully, one needs to anticipate the changes that are inevitable. Part of the challenge of aging gracefully is that you have to continue to find things that are important to you which can include travel, spiritual pursuits, hobbies, new social groups, lifelong learning, or recapturing time with family if one lacked the chance during the career years.

In my experience, however, how one ages depends on a couple of factors, none of which is gender specific. First and foremost is: Have you kept yourself fresh? Have you kept exposing yourself to new challenges and new discoveries? If you haven't, your brain will slowly congeal, and you'll become a parody of your younger self. Second is: Have you kept alive a healthy network of friends? Men and women who have invested in personal friendships throughout their lives will not find themselves wanting for friends when they are old. Conversely, men and women who have let family life impose a hermetically sealed barrier between them and anyone outside their family life will find themselves suddenly lonely and friendless, which will increase their sense of fear and grumpiness. Thirdly, are you able to cede centrality to the younger generation; are you able to give up whatever power you held uniquely over others. Men and women who have invested in being the most powerful person in their world will have a very difficult time adjusting to the young turks who take over from them. Men and women who have invested in their attractiveness as the main center of their being will quickly find themselves at odds with the younger generation, who possess a level of attractiveness they can no longer match.

One other thing: much of what we attribute to aging has nothing to do with getting old, and everything to do with having nothing to do.

It almost seems that what a man needs to do to get over the old age blues is to become more like a woman!