Safe Effective Sleep Aids For Seniors

10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

Safe Efective Sleep Aids For Seniors

Choosing a safe, effective sleep aid can be difficult, especially as we get older. Take for example this research review, which practically says, when it comes to drugs, “Nope nope nope nope nope, definitely not, we don’t know, wow no, useful in one (1) circumstance only, definitely not, fine if you must”:

Review of Safety and Efficacy of Sleep Medicines in Older Adults

Let’s break it down…

What’s not so great

Tranquilizers aren’t very healthy ways to get to sleep, and are generally only well-used as a last resort. The most common of these are benzodiazepines, which is the general family of drugs with names usually ending in –azepam and –azolam.

Their downsides are many, but perhaps their biggest is their tendency to induce tolerance, dependence, and addiction.

Non-benzo hypnotics aren’t fabulous either. Z-drugs such as zolpidem tartrate (popularly known by the brand name Ambien, amongst others), comes with warnings that it shouldn’t be prescribed if you have sleep apnea (i.e., one of the most common causes of insomnia), and should be used only with caution in patients who have depression or are elderly, as it may cause protracted daytime sedation and/or ataxia.

See also: Benzodiazepine and z-drug withdrawal

(and here’s a user-friendly US-based resource for benzodiazepine addiction specifically)

Antihistamines are commonly sold as over-the-counter sleep aids, because they can cause drowsiness, but a) they often don’t b) they may reduce your immune response that you may actually need for something. They’re still a lot safer than tranquilizers, though.

What about cannabis products?

We wrote about some of the myths and realities of cannabis use yesterday, but it does have some medical uses beyond pain relief, and use as a sleep aid is one of them—but there’s another caveat.

How it works: CBD, and especially THC, reduces REM sleep, causing you to spend longer in deep sleep. Deep sleep is more restorative and restful. And, if part of your sleep problem was nightmares, they can only occur during REM sleep, so you’ll be skipping those, too. However, REM sleep is also necessary for good brain health, and missing too much of it will result in cognitive impairment.

Opting for a CBD product that doesn’t contain THC may improve sleep with less (in fact, no known) risk of long-term impairment.

See: Cannabis, Cannabinoids, and Sleep: a Review of the Literature

Melatonin: a powerful helper with a good safety profile

We did a main feature on this recently, so we won’t take up too much space here, but suffice it to say: melatonin is our body’s own natural sleep hormone, and our body is good at scrubbing it when we see white/blue light (so, look at such if you feel groggy upon awakening, and it should clear up quickly), so that and its very short elimination half-life again make it quite safe.

Unlike tranquilizers, we don’t develop a tolerance to it, let alone dependence or addiction, and unlike cannabis, it doesn’t produce long-term adverse effects (after all, our brains are supposed to have melatonin in them every night). You can read our previous main feature (including a link to get melatonin, if you want) here:

Melatonin: A Safe Natural Sleep Supplement

Herbal options: which really work?

Valerian? Probably not, but it seems safe to try. Data on this is very inconsistent, and many studies supporting it had poor methodology. Shinjyo et al. also hypothesized that the inconsistency may be due to the highly variable quality of the supplements, and lack of regulation, as they are provided “based on traditional use only”.

See: Valerian Root in Treating Sleep Problems and Associated Disorders-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Chamomile? Given the fame of chamomile tea as a soothing, relaxing bedtime drink, there’s surprisingly little research out there for this specifically (as opposed to other medicinal features of chamomile, of which there are plenty).

But here’s one study that found it helped significantly:

The effects of chamomile extract on sleep quality among elderly people: A clinical trial

Unlike valerian, which is often sold as tablets, chamomile is most often sold as a herbal preparation for making chamomile tea, so the quality is probably quite consistent. You can also easily grow your own in most places!

Technological interventions

We may not have sci-fi style regeneration alcoves just yet, but white noise machines, or better yet, pink noise machines, help:

White Noise Is Good; Pink Noise Is Better

Note: the noise machine can be a literal physical device purchased to do that (most often sold as for babies, but babies aren’t the only ones who need to sleep!), but it can also just be your phone playing an appropriate audio file (there are apps available) or YouTube video.

We reviewed some sleep apps; you might like those too:

The Head-To-Head Of Google and Apple’s Top Apps For Getting Your Head Down

Enjoy, and rest well!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • What Size Breakfast Is Best, By Science?
  • Applesauce vs Cranberry Sauce – Which is Healthier?
    Applesauce beats cranberry sauce with less sugar, more vitamins B and C, and a healthier mineral profile. Choose wisely, health seekers!

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Grains: Bread Of Life, Or Cereal Killer?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Going Against The Grain?

    In Wednesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your health-related opinion of grains (aside from any gluten-specific concerns), and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

    • About 69% said “They are an important cornerstone of a healthy balanced diet”
    • About 22% said “They can be enjoyed in moderation, but watch out”
    • About 8% said “They are terrible health-drainers that will kill us”

    So, what does the science say?

    They are terrible health-drainers that will kill us: True or False?

    True or False depending on the manner of their consumption!

    There is a big difference between the average pizza base and a bowl of oats, for instance. Or rather, there are a lot of differences, but what’s most critical here?

    The key is: refined and ultraprocessed grains are so inferior to whole grains as to be actively negative for health in most cases for most people most of the time.

    But! It’s not because processing is ontologically evil (in reality: some processed foods are healthy, and some unprocessed foods are poisonous). although it is a very good general rule of thumb.

    So, we need to understand the “why” behind the “key” that we just gave above, and that’s mostly about the resultant glycemic index and associated metrics (glycemic load, insulin index, etc).

    In the case of refined and ultraprocessed grains, our body gains sugar faster than it can process it, and stores it wherever and however it can, like someone who has just realised that they will be entertaining a houseguest in 10 minutes and must tidy up super-rapidly by hiding things wherever they’ll fit.

    And when the body tries to do this with sugar from refined grains, the result is very bad for multiple organs (most notably the liver, but the pancreas takes quite a hit too) which in turn causes damage elsewhere in the body, not to mention that we now have urgently-produced fat stored in unfortunate places like our liver and abdominal cavity when it should have gone to subcutaneous fat stores instead.

    In contrast, whole grains come with fiber that slows down the absorption of the sugars, such that the body can deal with them in an ideal fashion, which usually means:

    • using them immediately, or
    • storing them as muscle glycogen, or
    • storing them as subcutaneous fat

    👆 that’s an oversimplification, but we only have so much room here.

    For more on this, see:

    Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load vs Insulin Index

    And for why this matters, see:

    Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    And for fixing it, see:

    How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver

    They can be enjoyed in moderation, but watch out: True or False?

    Technically True but functionally False:

    • Technically true: “in moderation” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. One person’s “moderation” may be another person’s “abstemiousness” or “gluttony”.
    • Functionally false: while of course extreme consumption of pretty much anything is going to be bad, unless you are Cereals Georg eating 10,000 cereals each day and being a statistical outlier, the issue is not the quantity so much as the quality.

    Quality, we discussed above—and that is, as we say, paramount. As for quantity however, you might want to know a baseline for “getting enough”, so…

    They are an important cornerstone of a healthy balanced diet: True or False?

    True! This one’s quite straightforward.

    3 servings (each being 90g, or about ½ cup) of whole grains per day is associated with a 22% reduction in risk of heart disease, 5% reduction in all-cause mortality, and a lot of benefits across a lot of disease risks:

    ❝This meta-analysis provides further evidence that whole grain intake is associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and total cancer, and mortality from all causes, respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, diabetes, and all non-cardiovascular, non-cancer causes.

    These findings support dietary guidelines that recommend increased intake of whole grain to reduce the risk of chronic diseases and premature mortality.❞

    ~ Dr. Dagfinn Aune et al.

    Read in full: Whole grain consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all cause and cause specific mortality: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies

    We’d like to give a lot more sources for the same findings, as well as papers for all the individual claims, but frankly, there are so many that there isn’t room. Suffice it to say, this is neither controversial nor uncertain; these benefits are well-established.

    Here’s a very informative pop-science article, that also covers some of the things we discussed earlier (it shows what happens during refinement of grains) before getting on to recommendations and more citations for claims than we can fit here:

    Harvard School Of Public Health | Whole Grains

    “That’s all great, but what if I am concerned about gluten?”

    There certainly are reasons you might be, be it because of a sensitivity, allergy, or just because perhaps you’d like to know more.

    Let’s first mention: not all grains contain gluten, so it’s perfectly possible to enjoy naturally gluten-free grains (such as oats and rice) as well as gluten-free pseudocereals, which are not actually grains but do the same job in culinary and nutritional terms (such as quinoa and buckwheat, despite the latter’s name).

    Finally, if you’d like to know more about gluten’s health considerations, then check out our previous mythbusting special:

    Gluten: What’s The Truth?

    Enjoy!

    Share This Post

  • Stop The World…

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Some news highlights from this week:

    “US vs Them”?

    With the US now set to lose its WHO membership, what does that mean for Americans? For most, the consequences will be indirect:

    • the nation’s scientists and institutions will be somewhat “left out in the cold” when it comes to international scientific collaboration in the field of health
    • the US will no longer enjoy a position of influence and power within the WHO, which organization’s reports and position statements have a lot of sway over the world’s health practices

    Are there any benefits (of leaving the WHO) for Americans? Yes, there is one: the US will no longer be paying into the WHO’s budget, which means:

    • the US will save the 0.006% of the Federal budget that it was paying into the WHO annually
    • for the average American’s monthly budget, that means (if the saving is passed on) you’ll have an extra dime

    However, since US scientific institutions will still need access to international data, likely that access will need to be paid separately, at a higher rate than US membership in WHO cost.

    In short: it seems likely to go the way that Brexit did: “saving” on membership fees and then paying more for access to less.

    Why is the US leaving again? The stated reasons were mainly twofold:

    1. the cost of US membership (the US’s contribution constituted 15% of the the overall WHO budget)
    2. holding the US’s disproportionately high COVID death rate (especially compared to countries such as China) to be a case of WHO mismanagement

    Read in full: What losing WHO membership means for the U.S.

    Related: What Would a Second Trump Presidency Look Like for Health Care? ← this was a speculative post by KFF Health News, last year

    Halt, You’re Under A Breast

    More seriously, this is about halting the metastasis of cancerous tumors in the breast. It is reasonable to expect the same principle and thus treatment may apply to other cancers too, but this is where the research is at for now (breast cancer research gets a lot of funding).

    And, what principle and treatment is this, you ask? It’s about the foxglove-derived drug digoxin, and how it stops cancerous cells from forming clusters, and even actively dissolves clusters that have already formed. No clusters means no new tumors, which means no metastasis. No metastasis, in turn, means the cancer becomes much more treatable because it’s no longer a game of whack-a-mole; instead of spreading to other places, it’s a much more manageable case of “here’s the tumor, now let’s kill it with something”.

    Note: yes, that does mean the tumor still needs killing by some other means—digoxin won’t do that, it “just” stops it from spreading while treatment is undertaken.

    Read in full: Proof-of-concept study dissolves clusters of breast cancer cells to prevent metastases

    Related: The Hormone Therapy That Reduces Breast Cancer Risk & More

    Force Of Habit

    “It takes 21 days to make a habit”, says popular lore. Popular is not, however, evidence-based:

    ❝This systematic review of 20 studies involving 2601 participants challenges the prevailing notion of rapid habit formation, revealing that health-related habits typically require 2–5 months to develop, with substantial individual variability ranging from 4 to 335 days. The meta-analysis demonstrated significant improvements in habit scores across various health behaviours, with key determinants including morning practices, personal choice, and behavioural characteristics

    So, this is not a lottery, “maybe it will take until Tuesday, maybe it will take nearly a year”, so much as “there are important factors that seriously change how long a habit takes to become engrained, and here is what those factors are”.

    Read in full: Study reveals healthy habits take longer than 21 days to set in

    Related: How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits

    Share This Post

  • What Weston Price Got Right (And Wrong)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Weston Price: What Stood The Test of Time?

    This is Dr. Weston Price, a dentist. You may guess from the photo, or perhaps already knew, his work is not new in 2023. We usually feature current health experts here, but we’re taking a day to do a blast from the past, because his ideas endure today, and inform a lot of people’s health views. So, he’s a good one to at least know about.

    What was his deal?

    Dr. Price (1870–1948) wanted to study focal infection theory—the idea that repairing root canals allowed bacterial infections that caused everything from heart disease to arthritis. His solution was that the teeth should be extracted instead.

    This theory was popular in the 1920s, was challenged in the 1930s, ignored in the 1940s (the world was a bit busy), and by broad medical consensus anyway, rejected in the 1950s. But, while it was being challenged in the 1930s, Dr. Price decided to find more evidence for its support.

    The result was his famous world tour of peoples living traditional lifestyles without the influence of “modern” diet. His findings, and the conclusions he drew from them, extended to far more than just dental health.

    What did he find?

    Dr. Price found that people living traditional lifestyles, with their traditional diets based on locally-sourced foods, had much better overall health. Of course, he was a dentist and not a general practitioner, so aside from examining their teeth, he largely relied on self-reported diagnoses of illness, or lack thereof.

    In short: he found that people in places without modern medical institutions had fewer diagnoses of disease. From this, he concluded that incidence of disease was much lower.

    There was also an unexamined element of survivorship bias—an undiagnosed disease is more likely to be fatal, and he questioned only living people, which skewed the stats rather. Nor did he examine infant mortality rate nor adult life expectancy, both of which were not great.

    Was it all useless, then?

    Actually no! He did hit upon some observations that have stood the test of time:

    • He correctly concluded that modern diets with sugar and white flour were ruinous to the health.
    • He correctly concluded that locally-sourced food, and grass-fed in the case of pastoral farming, tended to have much more nutritional value than the mass-produced results of intensive farming.
    • He correctly concluded that many modern preservation methods robbed foods of their nutrients.
    • He correctly concluded that many grains and seeds are more nutritions when fermented/soaked/sprouted.

    About that “locally-sourced food”: the reason locally-sourced food tends to be more nutritious is that it has required less in the way of preservation for a long trip around the world, and will also tend to be fresher.

    On the other hand, this does mean a lot of the foods that Dr. Price recommends are very much subject to availability. It may well be true that the Inuit people do not eat a lot of fruit and veg (which mostly do not grow there), but if you live in Nevada, maybe locally-sourced whale fat is just as difficult to find.

    One person’s “this fatty organ meat contains the vitamin C we need” may be another person’s “that’s great; I have an apple tree in my garden though”.

    Want to learn more?

    Dr. Price’s most influential work is his magnum opus, “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”. It’s a fascinating book in its historical context, but do be warned, it was written by a rich white man in 1939 and the writing is as racist as you might expect. Even when making favourable comparisons, the tone is very much “and here is what these savages are doing well”.

    If you don’t fancy reading all that, here are two other sources about Weston Price’s work and conclusions, presented for balance:

    Enjoy!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • What Size Breakfast Is Best, By Science?
  • 6 Ways To Look After Your Back

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Back To Back

    When people think about looking after their back, often thought does not go much further than sitting with good posture, and perhaps even standing with good posture. And those things are important, but:

    1) People’s efforts to have good posture often result in overcorrecting creating an anterior pelvic tilt that causes lower back problems.

    Quick tip: if you’re sticking your butt out, you’re doing it wrong (no matter how great your butt is). Instead, to find the correct posture, go up on your tip-toes for a moment, then imagine a plumb-line down the center of your body, thus perpendicular to the floor, going all the way down to the ground. Now, slowly return your heels to the ground, but as you do so, keep your spine aligned to the plumb-line, so you’re not moving backwards as you drop, just directly down. This will land you in perfect posture.

    Unless you have scoliosis. In which case, it’ll get you as close to good posture as is likely attainable from any quick tip.

    2) There’s a lot more to looking after our back than just good posture!

    Here are 5 other important things to do:

    Be strong

    Do strength-training for your back. How to do that is beyond the scope of today’s feature, but there are many good guides and also personal trainers that can be found.

    Start off easy and work up, but do start. The stronger your back is, the less likely a momentary lapse in concentration is to throw out your back because you picked something up with imperfect form.

    See also: Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)

    Stretch intentionally

    Many back injuries occur as a result of stretching and/or twisting awkwardly, so if you ensure your basic mobility and range of motion is good, the less likely it is that unthinkingly twisting around 270° to see where that wasp was going will slip a disk.

    The more you stretch intentionally (carefully, please), the more you will be able to stretch unintentionally without injury.

    See also: Building & Maintaining Mobility

    Stand when you can, walk when you can

    We humans have outrun our evolution in a lot of ways, and/but one thing our bodies are definitely not well-adapted for is sitting. Unless we are sitting in a low squat the way you might often see an orang-utan sitting, sitting is not a good way of being for us. Even sitting seiza-style or cross-legged is passable for a short while, not for too long.

    So, while there sure are times we need to sit (especially if you’re driving!) minimizing those times is ideal. There are a lot of activities that are traditionally done sitting, where there’s no need for it to be so. For example, your writer here sits for the day’s main meal, but takes any smaller meal standing (and when guests visit for a coffee or such, I’ll offer them the couch while I myself prop up the fireplace). Standing desks are also great if you spend a lot of time at the computer for any reason.

    See also: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less & Move More

    Rest when you need to

    You can’t stand all the time! But know this: if you want to rest your legs, lying down is a lot better for your back (and internal organs) than sitting.

    Taking a 5 minute break lying on your couch, or bed, or floor, is a perfectly good option and only social convention says otherwise.

    If you want a compromise option, though? A recliner chair, in the reclined position, is a better for your back than being scrunched up in the Economy Class Flight position.

    PS: About that bed situation…

    What Mattress Is Best, By Science?

    Kill pain before it kills you

    Painkillers aren’t great for the health per se, but pain (or rather, our bodily responses to such) can be worse. Half the time, when it comes to musculoskeletal problems, things get a lot worse a lot more quickly because of how we overcompensate due to the pain. So, take your pain seriously, and remember, the right amount of pain is zero.

    If you’re thinking “but pain relief option xyz isn’t good for me”, we strongly recommend checking out:

    The 7 Approaches To Pain Management

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • 5 Things You Can Change About Your Personality (But: Should You?)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    There are many personality-typing systems that, with varying degrees of validity*, aim to describe a person’s personality.

    *and often pseudoscience:

    • sometimes obviously so like astrology
    • sometimes dressed up in clinical words like the Meyers-Briggs
    • sometimes openly, per “this is not science but you may find it useful to frame things this way”, like the Enneagram

    There is currently one kind of personality-typing system (with some minor variations) that is used in the actual field of clinical psychology, specifically under the umbrella of “trait theory”, and that is…

    The “Big Five” personality traits

    Also called the OCEAN or CANOE model, based on its 5 components:

    • openness to experience: inventive/curious rather than consistent/cautious
    • conscientiousness: efficient/organized rather than extravagant/careless
    • extroversion: outgoing/energetic rather than solitary/reserved
    • agreeableness: friendly/compassionate rather than critical/judgmental
    • neuroticism: sensitive/nervous rather than resilient/confident

    The latter (neuroticism) is not to be confused with neurosis, which is very different and beyond the scope of today’s article.

    Note that some of these seem more positive/negative than others at a glance, but really, any of these could be a virtue or a vice depending on specifics or extremity.

    For scientific reference, here’s an example paper:

    The Big Five Personality Factors and Personal Values

    Quick self-assessment

    There are of course many lengthy questionnaires for this, but in the interests of expediency:

    Take a moment to rate yourself as honestly as you can, on a scale of 1–10, for each of those components, with 10 being highest for the named trait.

    For example, this writer gives herself: O7, C6, E3, A8, N2 (in other words I’d say I’m fairly open, moderately conscientious, on the reserved side, quite agreeable, and quite resilient)

    Now, put your rating aside (in your phone’s notes app is fine, if you hadn’t written it down already) and forget about it for the moment, because we want you to do the next exercise from scratch.

    Who would you be, at your best?

    Now imagine your perfect idealized self, the best you could ever be, with no constraints.

    Take a moment to rate your idealized self’s personality, on a scale of 1–10, for each of those components, with 10 being highest for the named trait.

    For example, this writer picks: O9, C10, E5, A8, N1.

    Maybe this, or maybe your own idealized self’s personality, will surprise you. That some traits might already be perfect for you already; others might just be nudged a little here or there; maybe there’s some big change you’d like. Chances are you didn’t go for a string of 10s or 1s (though if you did, you do you; there are no wrong answers here as this one is about your preferences).

    We become who we practice being

    There are some aspects of personality that can naturally change with age. For example:

    • confidence/resilience will usually gradually increase with age due to life experience (politely overlook teenagers’ bravado; they are usually a bundle of nerves inside, resulting in the overcompensatory displays of confidence)
    • openness to experience may decrease with age, as we can get into a rut of thinking/acting a certain way, and/or simply consciously decide that our position on something is already complete and does not need revision.

    But, we can decide for ourselves how to nudge our “Big Five” traits, for example:

    1. We can make a point of seeking out new experiences, and considering new ideas, or develop strategies for reining ourselves in
    2. We can use systems to improve our organization, or go out of our way to introduce a little well-placed chaos
    3. We can “put ourselves out there” socially, or make the decision to decline more social invitations because we simply don’t want to
    4. We can make a habit of thinking kindly of others and ourselves, or we can consciously detach ourselves and look on the cynical side more
    5. We can build on our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses, or lean into uncomfortable emotions

    Some of those may provoke a “why would anyone want to…?” response, but the truth is we are all different. An artist and a police officer may have very different goals for who they want to be as a person, for example.

    Interventions to change personality can and do work:

    A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention

    There are many ways to go about “being the change we want to see” in ourselves, and yes there can be a degree of “fake it until you make it” if that works for you, but it doesn’t have to be so. It can also simply be a matter of setting yourself reminders about the things that are most important to you.

    Writer’s example: pinned above my digital workspace I have a note from my late beloved, written just under a week before death. The final line reads, “keep being the good person that you are” (on a human level, the whole note is uplifting and soothing to me and makes me smile and remember the love we shared; or to put it in clinical terms, it promotes high agreeableness, low neuroticism).

    Other examples could be a daily practice of gratitude (promotes lower neuroticism), or going out of your way to speak to your neighbors (promotes higher extraversion), signing up for a new educational course (promotes higher openness) or downloading a budgeting app (promotes higher conscientiousness).

    In short: be the person you want to be, and be that person deliberately, because you can.

    Some resources that may help for each of the 5 traits:

    1. Curiosity Kills The Neurodegeneration
    2. How (And Why) To Train Your Pre-Frontal Cortex
    3. How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
    4. Optimism Seriously Increases Longevity!
    5. Building Psychological Resilience (Without Undue Hardship)

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • To Err Is Human; To Forgive, Healthy

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    How To Forgive (And Why)

    There’s an old saying that holding onto a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. If only it were so simple and easy as just choosing to let go!

    But it’s not, is it?

    When people have wronged us and/or wronged our loved ones, it’s hard to forgive, especially if they have not changed. For that matter, it can be hard to forgive ourselves for mistakes that we made, too.

    Either way, “drinking that poison” can be close to literal, in terms of what harboring such anger and resentment can do for our cortisol levels.

    So, what to do about it?

    If you have a dialogue with the person, our previous article on communication may help a lot.

    If you don’t, there are various other angles that can be taken:

    The Unsent Letter

    You can even send it, if you like, but it’s not the point here. The idea is to write to the person, expressing your grievances. But, (as per the above-linked article on communication) try to focus at least as much on your feelings as their actions. “When you did/said x, I felt y”, etc.

    This is important for helping you process your feelings. If you send the letter, it’s also important for the other person to be able to understand your feelings.

    Sometimes, we feel the things we do so strongly because we don’t have an outlet for them. Pouring out our emotions in such a fashion, on the other hand, means (to labor the metaphor) they’re no longer bottled up. Even just in and of itself, that can provide us a lot of relief.

    And when we the negative emotions are no longer such high pressure, it can be easier to let go of them.

    Mindfulness

    Following on from the above idea, a good strategy can be simply sitting and feeling everything you need to feel, noticing it without judgement, like a curious observer.

    Sometimes what we need is just to be heard, and that starts with hearing ourselves.

    Compassion

    There’s a Buddhist exercise that involves actively feeling compassion for three people: a loved one, a stranger, and an enemy. Many people report that it’s actually harder to feel compassion for a random stranger, than an enemy. Why? Because we don’t know them; we don’t know what’s good and bad about them in our estimation.

    If you’re reading this because you want to be able to gain the peace of being able to forgive someone (even if that someone is yourself), then in at least some respect right now, that person is in the “enemy” category. So how do we unpack that?

    To err is human. Everybody screws up sometimes. And also, everyone has a reason (or a complex of reasons) for acting the way they do. This does not mean that those reasons excuse the behavior, but it can explain it.

    You don’t get angry at a storm for soaking you through. Even if you might not understand the physics of it in the way a meteorologist might, you understand that there were things that led to that, and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    So why do we get angry at someone else for wronging us? Even if we might not understand the personal background of it in the way their psychologist or therapist might, we (hopefully) understand that there were things that caused them to be the way they were, and we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    And ourselves? We probably know, when we made a mistake, why we made it. Maybe we were afraid, insecure, reactive, forgetful, or too focused on some other thing. Whatever it was, we did our best at the time and, apparently, our best wasn’t as good as we’d like.

    If we didn’t deserve forgiveness, we wouldn’t be critical of our past selves in the first place.

    And, the science is very clear that it’s important for our health for other reasons besides cortisol management, too.

    And as for others? They did the best they knew how. Maybe they were afraid, insecure, reactive, forgetful, or too focused on some other thing. Same story, different character.

    Remembering that can be key to “accepting the apology we never received”.

    Forgiving without forgetting

    Developing the ability to forgive is a useful tool for our own mental health. It doesn’t mean we must or even should make ourselves a doormat.

    “I forgive you” does not have to mean a clean slate; it means remembering that the thing happened, and just not holding on to the anger/resentment associated with it.

    It may be water under the bridge now, but it might have been a devastatingly destructive wave at the time, and continuing to acknowledge truth that is sensible. Just, from a position of peace now, hopefully.

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: