The mounting accumulation of stress in our lives and world begs the question: how much stress can we take? Many of us senior citizens walk around with a rather exaggerated accumulation of stress, which comes from all kinds of sources. Among these are family issues, health concerns, financial woes, medical needs and domestic concerns. The list is longer, but you get the idea. Adjusting to these circumstances requires emotional stamina, mental acuity, diplomatic skill, economic wisdom, and psychological sensitivities. Lacking these means the stress for seniors is greater and the need for counsel likely. Living with stress is like living with an illness. It needs to be treated.

There are a variety of stress inducers which can be managed. However, management suggests willingness and willingness requires action. Permitting invasions of stress from the same sources day after day is like repeating the

We are encouraged and delighted with those websites who have found us, found us worthy of their picking us up and sharing our site with others. You help us spread the word to seniors everywhere. Most of us who are in our senior years, wherever they start, search for encouragement, counsel, reinforcement, information and occasional humor. Whatever it is that is found on Senior Citizen Journal, we hope helps to make more seniors live a productive, educated and active life.

To those who help spread the word, thank you. Allow us to return the favor with your site and information. We are indebted to many who have helped to make Senior Citizen Journal a major source of information and a stop in their searches for seniors’ needs. The increasing traffic on this site is both gratifying and amazing! Thanks to you all!

I was intrigued to find how many of the exercises the Physical Therapist prescribed actually are duplicated as one goes about cleaning house. The therapist was demonstrating for me the kinds of things I needed to be doing to improve my gait, balance, and self confidence in movement. It was practical, not at all strenuous or intimidating, but matter of fact and need.

So I decided I should go about the movements of house cleaning in a deliberate attempt not only to do a good job, one my spouse would approve, but to accomplish my regimen of activity the therapist advised for each day. Of course, I won’t be cleaning so

SCJ has attempted to highlight a number of issues senior citizens are concerned about in the past few months that the general public believes, but that in reality are false. For example, some people believe Social Security is either broke or going broke; in reality, it has a trillion dollar trust fund and it’s health will continue for a minimum of 25 years; some project 37.

The problem with believing what is not true is that if we go to the polls with misconceptions, we will elect people who will not be and do what we expect.

The Campaign for America’s Future and Huffington Post published an article this past week

It has only been 50 years. Those few years we were together in college sped by so rapidly. Friendships were made, memories were shaped, experiences taught us much. When graduation came, now those 50 years ago, we went our separate ways. Some maintained contact, others have had little to no interaction in those intervening years. It will be much like registration day when we first arrived at the huge Union building, except that everyone will have changed, recognition may take some appraisal. Until we surreptitiously observe the name tag we may have no idea who it is we are encountering.

And, the next question is, will we have anything to say? What will it take to break the ice? What if the memory is so far away that recall will take some prompting? The good news is that most of us will be in the same

There is only one way to avoid and manage stress. Decide you are in charge. All of the external factors that are constantly available will repeat themselves over and over, until you decide you are in charge. The phone rings early in the morning. It is a call of distress. Our son is in the throes of conflict with his roommate. Issues involving emotions, money, and daily getting along are pressing down hard. He is the only one who can handle them. I can be an ear, sympathetic, reinforcing to his good judgment, but that is about all. As for money, providing rescue is not a good idea. It is his dilemma. He needs to take it on and slay the dragon.

Another family dynamic has emerged. It involves a 95 year old resisting the issue of evaluating his continuing to drive. He is, in many ways, still able to manage, but he is struck with dementia that is increasingly serious.

Occasionally SCJ Editors run across an article in mainstream media that we believe needs to be shared with our readers. The following article is one of those we believe needs to be read by every citizen in the United States. It was printed in the New York Times August 23 and written by David Brooks, one of the premier op ed columnists of all time.
A Case of Mental Courage
By DAVID BROOKS
In 1811, the popular novelist Fanny Burney learned she had breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy without anesthesia. She lay down on an old mattress, and a piece of thin linen was placed over her face, allowing her to make out the movements of the surgeons above her.

Projecting just how one or two will get by in the continuing downturn requires designing a disciplined course. Among the givens in most budgeting are these:

Groceries, (includes eating out)
Household expenses
Auto expenses and insurance for both
Health and Medical Insurance
Family related expenses and gifts
Property Tax
other taxes
Charitable contributions
Medical expense.

Deciding to identify and then to practice living by a set of standards is an undertaking which feeds one’s conscience, ethical commitment, and contributes for being an all around wholesome human being. Living for over 55 years or more should earn something in the way of coming to that time when self identity includes having rounded out oneself as a wholesome person, clear and clean thinker. Growing into the maturity of a person who has chosen to examine the qualities of adulthood that he/she wishes to be known by is no small task.

Respectability is defined more by who you are and how you behave than what neighborhood you live in. When meeting a person for the first time, do you examine what they have on first or how they come across in behavior, presence, and decorum? If it is the latter, then you are on the right track. Finding ways to be a person of integrity means that you have

How long you have been retired really makes no difference. The truth is that, in this stage of life we are met with a continuing evolution. Not unlike growing up, life past retirement continues to offer the necessity for adjustment. From childhood to adolescence, we were met with a continuing series of changes and unexpected adjustments. From adolescence to adulthood, it continued to do so. From early to middle, and so on. That is way our life’s clock works. And retiement is no different. It comes up with some dramatic adaptations. Not always prepared to deal with them, they show up nonetheless. It is, not unlike a winding clock, necessary to keep up with the winding and rewinding to keep it going.

Much of retirement, particularly in its earlier stages, is filled with opportunities. Those opportunites run the gamut from leisurely exercises and travel to new discoveries of what you can do and be. Energy is good, time is plentiful, hopefully resources are adequate. The journey called retirement invitingly beckons you.