From ukulele clubs to op-shop volunteering, women over 50 are finding new ways to meet people.
Rachel Halliwell has always been a people person. While her kids were in primary school, she took every opportunity to interact with other parents, helping with bake sales and distributing second-hand uniforms. But last year, shortly before her 50th birthday, her children left primary school, and all those daily interactions disappeared.
“When I told them about a medical condition, they checked in on me and made sure I was OK,” she says. “You can feel that they really do care about you … And they’re honest, too. I’m pretty sure if I let my hair fade, they’d tell me it’s time to re-dye.” Many are also navigating major life changes, Burgess says, such as retirement, bereavement or increased caregiving responsibilities, which diminish the amount of time and energy they can invest in new connections. The connections they still have may also begin to change or fade, as naturally happens within many relationships over time.Not only does loneliness often rise with age, but making friends becomes harder, creating a kind of vicious cycle.
Creating new friendships later in life, especially while taking part in some kind of shared interest, has been proven to decrease rates of depression and loneliness, improve wellbeing and decrease the chance of dying from heart disease, says Christina Bryant, an honorary appointee at the University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences.put it this way: people judge a hill to be less steep when accompanied by a friend,” Bryant says.
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