8 Effective Ways for Older Adults to Boost Their Mental Health and Increase Longevity

It’s natural for mental health to take a dip during old age. As a result, many would develop illnesses like Dementia and Alzheimer’s. However, this doesn’t have to be the story. You can change the narrative by keeping your brain health sharp even at old age.

Here are ways in which you can do it –

Physical Activity

Physical activities or exercise are not just good for the body. It has immense mental health implications as well. Exercise releases endorphins – ‘the happiness hormone’ which is an excellent mood booster and stress buster. Physical activity is excellent for fighting anxiety and depression; both of which are common during old age.

Ideally, you should aim for up to 60 minutes of exercise every day. If not possible, even half an hour would do. Try to incorporate a variety of movements such as resistance training, cardio, balance exercise, etc.

To make things more sociable, you should try to aim for group exercises. In the end, the nature of exercise doesn’t matter; as long as you get your body moving and do things safely.

Learn Something New

Learning a new skill or undertaking a new hobby/creative project can nourish your senses, mental well-being, and health. Learn a foreign language. That’s one example. When you listen to new sounds and words, it develops new connections in your brain.

Even if you can go for athletic or artistic pursuits, that would be great too. Try to go for things like tennis, painting, cooking, playing musical instruments by taking music lessons, etc. Any hobby that you had always wanted to undertake but kept delaying – now would be a good time to pursue it.

Healthy Diet

An active body relies profoundly on your lifestyle. That means you have to take care of what you eat and think. According to one of the research on Alzheimer’s – some lifestyle changes could do wonders to ward off memory loss better than medical treatments, etc.

To that end, you should aim to consume a healthy, balanced, and nutritious diet along with enjoyable physical activities such as walking and group exercises. This way, you can maximize your brain’s functions and enjoy whole mental health as well.

Socialize at Your Senior Center

Socializing with people of your age can have a tremendously profound effect on your mental health. Try to engage in stimulating, encouraging conversations with your peers. Partake in as many social activities and games as possible.

Seniors who remain socially active until later years of their life are less likely to feel anxious, lonely, and depressed. Therefore, they are less likely to experience mental health problems. Get into the habit of inviting your loved ones, friends, and family over to enjoy some time together.

Work out activities that you can conduct in your religious groups or community. Having an active social network and connections is one of the finest ways to remain spiritually and mentally high. It will also keep you busy and engaged so that anxiety and depression don’t seep into your life.

Busy the Brain

By keeping your brain busy, seniors can significantly reduce the possibility of dementia. Brain boosting activities can sharpen memory, improve cognition, reasoning and also speed up the way the brain processes information.

Try to take out at least 30 minutes for engaging in mentally stimulating activities such as putting together daily puzzles, learning to play an instrument, reading a book, working out a crossword puzzle, cooking a new recipe, organizing the closet, creating something arty, etc.

Make a Spiritual Connection

Often the need for having that spiritual connection comes naturally at old age. However, if you have still not considered this aspect of life, now is the best time to consider stocking up on spiritual journalism, videos, and practice. Try to engage in meditative practices.

Watch videos that talk about spirituality, enlightenment, and awakenings. Try to read up on books around positivity and ancient cultures on life and its meaning.

Get Adequate Sleep

Sleep and mental health are closely connected. When you get plenty of sleep, you tend to lead healthier, happier lives. You also tend to live longer and fall less sick.

Unfortunately, as you age – the possibilities of disturbed sleep, insomnia, and disturbances increase. It also increases the chances of chronic disease and depression.

You could try using essential oils or meditative therapies if you have trouble sleeping. There are plenty of ways in which you can ensure a good night’s sleep.

Consider Owning a Pet

If you want to know the true benefits of owning a pet – just try talking to someone who actually owns a pet. Be it a dog or a cat – the companionship and the kind of love that you will get from an animal is incomprehensible. It’s hard to describe in words.

The warmth that you will get will do wonders for your mental health. Pet owners tend to live happier lives. They are also healthier, mentally sharper, and have a will to live. That’s why they tend to live longer as well.

Go Back to School

Learn a new trade. Take on a new course. Keep your brain young by taking classes at a local community college. Many colleges offer certain courses for free or at a low cost. Taking on a literature course or styling a new language are some of the best ways to utilize the free time at old age. In the times of pandemic right now you could even opt for online classes.

Learn to Manage Stress Levels

Stress is not entirely bad for you. In fact, when you think that it’s bad for you, that’s when it’s truly bad. To counteract its negative implications, you should know how to manage things. Otherwise, it can take a toll on your nervous system and brain health. It can keep you constantly in that fight or flight mode.

Check out this post on how you can keep stress levels at bay.

Bottom Line

These are some tried and tested ways in which you can increase your life and also stay mentally active during old age.

Thanks to our guest writer: Curtis Dean, Sage Music

Investing and Community with Susan Akbapour and Faraj Aalaei

Last week, Katrina Logie interviewed two great minds, Susan and Faraj, at a Fireside Chat hosted for guests of the Sir Victor Hotel, powered by Harbour.Space University.

Susan Akbapour and Faraj Aalaei both moved to the US from Iran. Faraj came at 17 years old, Susan came a few years later after receiving her Bachelor’s in Bio. They met years later in the US, while Susan was a journalist at a magazine that interviewed Faraj about his work in Tech. From there, they fell in love, had a beautiful daughter together, worked hard at their careers and founded Candou, an early stage fund since 2016 to support tech startups.

Candou, in Farsi, means beehive, and like bees, teamwork is important to Susan and Faraj. The pair walk us through their experiences working together. They describe their investment work like being grandparents. They have had their time “changing diapers” as CEOs and founders of tech companies (Susan founded Mavatar and Faraj was CEO at Aquantia). As investors, they are able to do the fun things, like help others achieve their goals instead of being in the nitty gritty of starting their own businesses.

When asked how they function as a team, Susan joked that “she does all the work” and Faraj fervently agreed! In all seriousness, Susan explains that she focuses on the small details while Faraj comes up with the big ideas, they find ways to collaborate with their different skill sets. The pair acknowledge that they have different experiences and have different skills to bring to the table. They choose to invest in things they know they have experience with, like AI and blockchain, and companies that align with their own ideas, passions and mission statements.

Apart from their work together at Candou, inspiring young minds to pursue their businesses, Susan works with an organization called Mothers in Poverty and with How Women Lead and together, they started the Akbapour Aalaei Fellowship Fund to provide financial support to students at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

They describe to us the importance of being involved in your community. Even if you aren’t able to contribute financially, play any part that you can in your community. Susan tells us that “It doesn’t matter what you can do, just do it.” So what are you doing to help your community?

Find more stories from people like Susan and Faraj on Katrina Logie’s podcast, ‘See you tomorrow’, with Harbour.Space University or check out her website to stay up-to-date on upcoming events!

Ann Hiatt: Passionate, Mission Driven, Purposeful

Ann Hiatt: Passionate, Mission Driven Purposeful

Maximize every moment and create a life of achievement, adventure and authenticity.

This is how Ann Hiatt lives her life. Ann Hiatt is founder and CEO of her leadership strategist and consultant firm. Her previous experience includes 15 years as Executive Business Partner for Jeff Bezos, Founder and previous CEO of Amazon, and Executive Business Partner and Chief of Staff to Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.

She started with Amazon at age 22, right after graduating from University of Washington with a Bachelors in International Studies. At that time, Amazon was not yet the corporate powerhouse that we see it as today but it was growing, influenced by the bright minds that were the foundation of the company. Ann described loving being surrounded by these bright minds, something she still enjoys today. She felt inspired and amazed to know that she was, and still is, surrounded by some of the greatest minds in the world.

But, at the same time, she didn’t always feel like she had the authority and experience to be there. Instead of stewing in that feeling, she did something about it. She noticed that every morning, Jeff Bezos would walk into work with three different newspapers tucked under his arm, so as soon as he finished his reading, she would read them too. She gave herself assignments to do after her day’s work was done, teaching herself the topics she didn’t understand. She earned her place among these great minds and built up her confidence.

Two years ago, she went into business for herself as a private consultant. Ann Hiatt could easily be working for any corporation she wanted but she decided to pursue her own path. She realized that she wanted to inspire others to accomplish their goals, to lend support and be a voice for an underrepresented group of entrepreneurs, and to choose clients that try to have a positive impact on the world.

Outside of her consultancy, she is teaching a course called “The Secrets to Success in Silicon Valley” where she walks her students through her own successes and also brings in different guest speakers to advise them as well! Find more information about her course here!

If you take a look at Ann Hiatt’s website, you will see that she has a bucket list. On this bucket list, she includes coming a best-selling author (check out her new book here!) and giving a TED Talk that becomes a Netflix Special. So we asked her,”what’s next?”. She said her next big thing on her bucket list is to take a vacation, which I’m sure we can all relate to!;) Looking forward to seeing the big steps Ann will take next!

To find more stories from people like Ann Hiatt, check out Katrina Logie’s podcast, ‘See you tomorrow’, with Harbour.Space University or check out her website to stay up-to-date on upcoming events!

6 Things You Need to Know About the Future of Travel!

Covid 19. Bet you’ve never heard of that one before!

Covid has changed everything, the way we work, the way we exercise, the way we shop and even the way we travel. Travel has been restricted for a while now, with travel decreasing from 4.5 billion people in 2019 to 1.8 billion people in 2020. Recently, things have started to open back up and tourism is on the rise again. However, the way travel has existed before is starting to change, from safety precautions, to new technologies to even the prospects of space travel!

How, you ask? Well, let’s take a look.

Vaccine Passports

Although not an entirely new concept, as countries like Uganda, Cameroon and many others require proof of yellow fever and other vaccines, it is becoming more and more common to require vaccination passports. Most countries are requiring people to be vaccinated and show proof of their vaccines with a CDC vaccination card before entering their borders. In response to this, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has initiated the IATA Travel Pass which informs travelers on which tests and vaccines they need to travel and can allow them to share their results with airlines to make travel easier. (This pass is still in the trial phase, so, for the time being, only participating airlines can validate the travel pass!).

Virtual Reality

Since the Covid lockdown began, we’ve all been restless to do something, to see something, to travel. Although travel is starting to open up now, there was a time in which none of us was able to leave are homes, and even now, for those at risk, it is still dangerous to leave. With VR, we are able to hike the Andes, see the Roman Baths, experience the Louvre and maybe even swim with the sharks, all from the comfort of our own homes! Virtual reality allows us these experiences without the risk of Covid exposure.

Internet of Things (IoT)

As big changes are being made in the technology of travel, the Internet of Things is changing the tech we use on a regular basis to make our travel experiences much easier. From apps to help plan trips to pass to sense and track suitcases, to tolls and ticketing, to even the IATA Travel Pass, everything is moving to be technologically based to make travel much simpler!

Commuting

Travel on a daily basis due to the pandemic as well. Since the lockdown, we all had to transition everything, from work to school, to an online platform. And at first, it was hard since we didn’t have much opportunity to leave our homes but it did have a pretty good impact on the environment. There were no more daily commutes for most people which not only lessens the Carbon footprint, it also gives you the extra hour and half you would spend crawling through traffic on your way to work. Even now that restrictions are opening up, people are choosing to continue to work from home and no longer commute.

Civilian Space Travel

On July 20th, 2021, Jeff Bezos boarded Blue Orgin’s New Sheperd rocket and took flight into space along with his brother, Mark, and the both the oldest and the youngest people to go to space. July 11th, Richard Branson fulfilled many people’s lifelong dreams and made a trip into space as well. Civilian space travel is becoming more and more realistic for the future. Axiom Space is hoping to create the first private space station where space tourists can reside for multiple days and many other space programs are following suit in allowing for space tourism. Maybe someday soon, we’ll all be eating continental breakfast up in space together!

Hyperloop Pods

What most people don’t know about Richard Branson’s trip to space was that it was a publicity stunt for the high-speed pods he is creating with his travel focused company, The Virgin Group. Each pod will be able to hold up to 28 people and will run at up to 621 mph! Branson is hoping to have these pods open for commercial travel by 2030. Other companies, such as Hardt Hyperloop, based in the Netherlands, are also working to create hyper-loops as well. As more and more research emerges on the topic of hyper-loops, hopefully travel will be able to be much more time efficient and sustainable in the future!

Four Takeaways from Impact Summit 2

Diversity and Sustainability in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

-Brundtland Report

Last Monday, June 28, 2021, Katrina Logie moderated a panel discussion on a very relevant topic for this generation, sustainability and diversity in terms of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

As a young university student studying diversity and growing up in an age with a huge emphasis on how to create a more sustainable world for future generations, here were my four biggest takeaways from this discourse, with minimal spoilers!;)

Diversify your leadership

Both Jenny Fielding, Managing Director of Techstars NYC, and Katrin Bacic, CSO of Wayra Germany, emphasized the importance of diversifying your leadership. Diversity in your leadership causes a trickle down effect: if those choosing who to invest in are diverse in gender, racial background and culture, they will have connections to diverse startups. Jenny mentions that although she has a vast range of connections among female entrepreneurs, her male counterparts did not. Lucy Cooper, European Innovation Lead at Accenture says “you cannot have change without representation”.

Diversifying leadership will create a more diverse network, thus increasing innovation. Katrin explains to us that although her investors are 95% male, they set specific intentions of having 1/3 of the startups they invest in founded by females. They are intentionally diversifying their network to ensure that all communities are involved.

Emphasize mentorship

As mentioned before, it is important to diversify your leadership, which will in turn diversify the startups that are being invested in. However, not all companies have taken the initiative to do so, thus it can be quite intimidating to come into a white cisgender male dominated culture as a woman, person of color, and/or nonbinary entrepreneur. This is where the importance of mentorship comes into play. Micro-aggressions can play at you hard, breaking you down to the point of giving up, but mentorship can help to prevent the burnout. Andy Davis, through 10×10, a UK-based group of Black founders and VCs, helps to offer support to Black founders. He mentions the importance of being a supportive and encouraging voice, that something as simple as being there can help prevent this burnout. Communities within communities are immensely important!

Sustainability and innovation are not mutually exclusive

Katrin, with an extensive background in corporate business, explains that the collaboration between startups and corporations can increase innovation. Startups have new, innovative ideas that can inspire corporations to veer outside their traditional structure, allowing for more sustainable ideas to emerge. Lucy Cooper walks us through the many sustainability projects that she is partnered with that help to increase innovation in her company. Increasing diversity and making sustainability a priority allows entrepreneurs to open their minds to more ideas and concepts.

As Adeo Ressi, CEO of the Founder Institute, tells us “if you are not working towards making the planet a better place, you are working to make it a worse place”.

To learn more about this panel discussion and the hear from the brilliant panelists themselves, click here.

Top Trends in Education

Top Trends in Education Today

Antonia Bassett, 06/28

We are all different. We all learn differently.

For years now, the traditional classroom setting has not allowed for all learning styles, whether from a lack of resources or just a lack of acknowledgement that student have different learning abilities. This “one-size fits all” type of education has a negative impact on those students who learn better outside the barriers of the traditional classroom. Instead of just the “old school” way of doing things (pun intended), we are seeing different learning models emerge to help students of all different abilities.

New trends in teaching styles are emerging in order to create a more holistic and inclusive learning environment that aligns education with the real world. Here is what you need to know!

Gamification

Gamification is the concept of converting educational content into interactive games for students. These games can exist as in person style games, like board games, or through computer games. This allows students who require a more hands-on style of learning to engage in a more fun and exciting way.

Augmented Reality

With big increases in technology usage in education, we are also seeing the usage of augmented reality teaching styles emerge. These virtual realities allow students to fully experience the concepts they are learning, accounting for students of all learning styles, kinetic learner, audio learners and visual learners. This new trend can give students the opportunity to apply concepts to real world situations.

Micro-learning

Micro-learning breaks subjects down into “bite-sized” pieces, where each unit has one specific learning objective, containing just enough information for the learner to achieve the objective. Micro-learning accounts for the attention spans of all students and has been proven to be the most successful for students with ADHD.

Social-Emotional Learning

As schools are trying a more holistic approach, social-emotional learning is becoming even more important. There is an emphasis on teaching students not solely reading, writing and arithmetic but how to manage stress, self-control and interpersonal skills to create well-rounded students that are prepared to conquer the outside world.

Embrace-Place Learning

Similar to project-based learning, embrace-placed learning allows students to complete community-based projects. Students have the opportunity to work in the community around them which not only helps them to become well-rounded individuals but again, allows them to apply their learning to real world content, right outside their own doors.

While there is still much work to be done in the education field, an emphasis on holistic Learning, inclusion and real world learning is important. Bit by bot, education is progressing, leaning further away from the concept of a traditional classroom to a more modern, technologically advanced classroom, as we can see from these new trends.

If interested in learning more about educational trends and the future of education, this week, Katrina Logie, met with 5 individuals who all play a part in educating the greater Barcelona area. From parents to educators to those working within the education sector, we will be delving deep into the future of education: how technology is changing, how new learning methodologies are emerging and how educators need to adapt their approach.

Danone: We want to start a dialogue that leads to action

In 1919, the first Danone yogurt was made – a simple food with the simple aim to support children’s health. 100 years on, we want to bring together pioneers and innovators to help shape the next 100 years, building a healthier and more sustainable food future.

Today’s generations are getting involved and changing food as we know it. They are determined to understand what they and their children are eating, and how the food on their dinner table can support their health, but also that of the planet.

How can we rise to the challenge and create a better food future?

“The Love Behind Food Summit” will host talks, debates and case studies from changemakers, focusing on powerful Spanish and international initiatives in the fields of culture, education, health and sustainability.

Peoplehum interview with Co Founder Najan Jadeja

Finding your Tribe and Building your Community

When you think of tribes you might think of prehistoric caveman huddled together, going out for hunts together, but thousands of years later humans have changed in many ways but the desire to connect and find your community remains the same. Communities are groups of people who share something, an interest, an attribute, a sense of belonging, they are alike in one way or another. People in communities build connections and grow together. More and more people are working remotely which can leave people isolated. This means that finding your tribe has never been so important. Coworking spaces are growing in popularity but how can you reach out to the people surrounding you? From the day we start preschool we begin searching for our tribe and people to fill our world with, but how as adult communicators and networkers can we find our tribe?

The importance of Communities

Communities are so important, even if you are an introverted person everyone needs human interaction through shared experiences which can form valued relationships. People crave a sense of belonging and one of the best ways to do this is to find groups of likeminded people but the challenge today comes from the large amounts of people working remotely, which makes these skills even more valuable.

It is time to do some self-reflection!

What aspects of yourself do you want to build and what kind of relationships do you want to form? In your life you may feel that something is missing so finding people with the attribute you are missing may help to fill this gap. Take this time to meditate on what you need and once you know what you need it will make it easier to find your people. This will also allow you to see what value you can add to other people’s lives and how your skills and ideas can contribute to others.

Don’t Judge!

Although it is important to rely on your gut instincts, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give people a chance. Whether you realise it or not everyone has a voice inside their head that judges’ people on their first impression, but if you move past first impressions and focus on what you have in common you never know what this person could contribute to your tribe.

How to attract the right kind of people

Nothing beats authentic and compassionate relationships that can be formed between people with common attributes and values. Now that you know the kind of people you want to attract, time to let everyone know! Get online, join Facebook groups, or plan a meetup to get in contact with these people. Say that you have an amazing idea for a startup but you are struggling with the paperwork aspect, attend a meetup event for entrepreneurs and discuss with them how they overcame their challenges. When giving your business a kick-start remember to not only build your community within the workspace but also build your following through clients and consumers.

Get Out there!

As valuable as it is to connect online, the most valuable relationships are formed in person. Many freelancers and startups choose to work in coworking spaces as opposed to their homes. These provide you with the opportunity to connect with others face to face and chances are these people are going through similar situations and you can learn and grow alongside one another. If you get chatting to someone at work but want to learn more, see if they want to meet up out of hours to share ideas in a casual environment.

The 5 Keys to Engaging Content

Content, a very complex concept. Content can be defined as a state of peaceful happiness, a state of satisfaction. But this post isn’t about finding your inner peace but about how to fill your website, social media, conference, launch party or event with engaging content. Let’s start by defining engaging, it is something that occupies your full attention, and allows you to fully immerse yourself in the content. Now creating content is relatively easy, you find an idea, write a title, maybe 500 words, choose a picture, pop it online, you’re done right? Well, the challenge is creating content that breaks through the never-ending deluge and makes people want to read it, listen to it and see it. You need to focus on building a great content brand not just an efficient content machine. The question is how do you direct people to your content and then how do you keep them coming back? Below are the five keys to unlock the door to engaging content.

Find your idea!

These are the key to any kind of content, these will help to block out all of the noise and allow you to hone in on what counts. The problem now is sourcing an idea that is relevant and the best way to do this is to get talking, asking and thinking with those around you. Many hands make light work and many hands will make your idea lightbulb light up! Bounce your ideas off each other and narrow them down to one concise and clear concept. If all of your ideas are completely run dry you can always turn to keyword search tools, that can help conjure up great content ideas, like Bottlenose, Soovle and Built Visible. Your audience is going to follow you for your content so ensure that you stay in your niche and create authentic and consistent content.

Know your audience and create with them in mind!

These are the key players in your creation of content you need to think about who your content is for, why are you making it and what value does it add to your audience’s life. Everything you produce needs to be directed at them, through language, time of posting and marketing. Create everything with intention, why are you creating, who are you creating for and what is the goal of your content?

Keep it simple, short and easy to follow

We live in a world that is getting busier day by day, people want things to be simple, get the message across and not waste any time getting there. For a blog post, this means don’t ramble on, use subheadings throughout to break it up and make it easily readable, keep a consistent voice throughout and don’t over complicate your ideas. Don’t rely purely on the written word, mix it up with multimedia and infographics, at your events display these infographics and allow people to explore this up and coming form of content. So you’ve carefully curated and created your content but, how are you going to present it, online, in person or a bit of both? The future is all about using multimedia, this means, audio, videos, pictures and infographics. Everyone takes in information in different ways to ensure that when you create media that it is accessible to everyone in your selected audience.

Pack it full of keywords, and not just ones for SEO

Using keywords will get your online site more traffic but these are useful for much more than just Search Engine Optimisation. Keywords create consistency in your content and ensure that you remain on track with the message you are trying to portray. There is no better way to do this than by starting strong by using them to create a catchy title that will grab the attention of the audience.

Use a call to action

This is the key to getting your audience engaged, keeping them engaged and start conversations about your content which will turn into shares. This is a great way to reach a wider audience. A call to action can be as simple as a question for your selected audience, it could be a challenge you set them or asking them to share your content online through social media. Always make sure that your form of content is sharable as social media is your gateway to sharing your content around the world.

We want your audience to be more than just content with your content, we want them to be engaged and inspired, so take these keys and go create!