Dating Over 50? Here’s What You Need to Know
Let’s face it: dating is no cakewalk even when you’re young, but when you get older, it gets more and more difficult. You become busier, your needs and standards become more concrete, and depending on your situation, you might be getting back into the dating game after being out of it for a while. Sometimes, the whole thing might feel like more trouble than it’s worth, but just because dating in your 50s and above isn’t as easy as dating in your 20s, that doesn’t mean that you should simply content yourself to be alone if it isn’t what you really want! Finding and building a happy relationship in your older years is 100% possible, and whether you’re divorced, widowed, getting out of a long relationship or just never dated much to begin with, you can still find love at any age. Dating later in life can look quite a bit different to dating in young adulthood, so here are some tips for dating over 50 that you might find useful!
Don’t Apologize for Your Age
First and foremost, you should never feel like your age is something you have to conceal, be embarrassed about, or explain away. Trying to look or act younger than you are isn’t going to improve the impression you make on people– in fact, it’ll probably seem fake and might put people off. You may feel the urge to airbrush wrinkles out of profile pictures or even lie about your age, but that’s an urge worth resisting.
Age is not something to be ashamed of! You’ve lived a wonderful life, experienced many fun and interesting things, and you still have a long way to go on your journey with more goals to achieve. Don’t be scared to let people see that about you. Confidence and embracing who you are will always be attractive.
Don’t Dwell on Past Relationships
You can tell a lot about someone by the way they talk about their ex. This is both a pointer for you and a tool that you can use to screen potential significant others. Relationships, especially long-standing ones, can be messy, but if a person talks about a past love or spouse with a lot of anger and hatred, especially while you’re still just getting to know them, it’s almost always a red flag, especially if they have more than one story of a relationship turned sour. Remember, if they have one “crazy” ex, it’s probably the ex. If they have multiple crazy exes, it’s probably them that’s the crazy one.
If you have a relationship in your past, try to always talk about your former partner with as much respect and composure as possible, even if things didn’t end on the best of terms. Additionally, although it can be hard, fight the urge to compare your new relationship to a past one. You’re getting to know a new person now, so try to put aside your expectations and meet them with an open mind!
Embrace Technology
If you’ve been out of the dating game a while, getting back into the swing of things can make you feel like you went to sleep and accidentally woke up years in the future. Things have changed a lot in the dating world, and adjusting to it can be tricky. However, once you get over the fear factor, you might find that the rise of technology in dating is actually very useful. Dating apps are a great way to get the ball rolling on meeting people nearby, particularly if you don’t have a lot of time to meet people out and about. There are even apps aimed specifically at older age groups, so don’t be afraid to get in there and give them a try. Don’t be scared to get flirtatious over text either!
Additionally, technology can help with the safety element of dating. Now you can do a quick google search of a potential partner, and it’s always better to find out about that mugshot right from the start than it is to be surprised by it down the line. On most phones today, there’s also a feature that lets you share your geographical location with a contact, which is a good thing to do as a safety precaution before you head out on a date with someone you don’t know that well.
Have Fun!
Take a deep breath and try to relax. Trying to balance your busy life with finding love can be stressful, but remember that dating is supposed to be fun! One of the downsides of dating as a young adult is that the pressure to get married and have a family before you’re “past your prime” is intense. When you date at an older age, one of the main perks is that the pressure is off! You can still date with the intention of getting married, and having a family together isn’t off the table, but you can take things at a relaxed, more casual pace and fall in love with someone in your own time. Feel free to let loose, be playful, and enjoy where the next years of your life are going to take you. Good luck!
Mental wellness and sex are a lot more closely connected than they might seem at first glance. Although they’re incredibly different from person to person, everyone needs to have balance between these two factors. Whether they engage in intimacy with one person, multiple people, or individually, good mental health is tied to a healthy sex life, and a healthy sex life is tied to good mental health. With age, it can be common for sex drive to decrease, which can have unexpected results on a person’s mental wellbeing, so making an effort to keep your sex life active later in life can be very helpful! Here are some of the benefits of a healthy sex life on your mental wellness.
Relationship Benefits
If you’re in a relationship, keeping up with your sex life can do a lot of good things for you and your partner. Physical intimacy encourages communication and bonding between partners, boosts self esteem and self image, and can help lower relational anxiety, or anxiousness around relating to or bonding with other people. Overall, it helps to bring you closer together and make your relationship stronger and happier, which is never a bad thing!
Lowered Stress
Sex offers all the same benefits of exercise, so it has the added side bonus of lowering your stress levels by releasing your body’s feel-good hormones, endorphins and oxytocin. Overall they help you to feel more relaxed and stave off feelings of anxiety and depression.
Improved Mood
Just like your daily mental health walk helps you to feel happier, so does sex! The same hormones that are associated with lowered stress levels, endorphins and oxytocin, as well as serotonin, can help you to feel happier and put some more pep in your step throughout the day.
Better Sleep
A healthy and active sex life will be a big help to your sleep patterns. The brain chemicals released during sex help you to feel relaxed and sleepy, which can help you get a better night’s shut-eye. Poor sleep can be extremely detrimental to your mental health, even just one night and especially if it becomes a chronic problem, so by helping you to sleep better, sex can also better equip you to handle your mental wellness.
Between changes in your sex drive as you age, increased stress, and a busy lifestyle, keeping your sex life active and healthy can start to feel like an afterthought, but the benefits you can get from making it a priority in your life are worth the effort it takes to make time for it. Whether you’re in a committed or casual relationship or you’re single, you can still enjoy all the mental health benefits, not to mention the physical health benefits!
If you’re struggling with sexual issues like low libido, speaking to a professional can make a huge difference. Renewed Vitality in Berks County is the area’s premier facility for hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which can be exceptionally helpful in terms of improving your sex life, especially as you age. We have both male and female patients, and we offer safe, effective treatments to help with hormone imbalances and restore your quality of life. Contact us to learn more about what this treatment can do for you!
Happy National Women’s History Month! It’s March, and that means it’s time to look back and celebrate the accomplishments of incredible women of the past and present who made amazing advances in their field. Medicine was regarded as a man’s profession in many places and times throughout history, but that didn’t stop their female counterparts from making contributions to the medical sciences in spite of the barriers in their way. For instance, Florence Nightingale is the reason that nursing is a profession today, and many of our modern medical sanitary practices can be traced back to her work. There are plenty of other amazing women in medical history to be discussed, so let’s take a look at some of them!
Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in America to receive a medical degree. Early in her life, she had an experience in which a friend of hers became very sick and remarked that if she had been able to have a female physician, she might not have suffered so much, and this inspired her to pursue medicine. Blackwell, who began her professional life as a schoolteacher, began applying to medical schools and was turned away almost everywhere she applied, except for Geneva Medical School, which is now the Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University. Her admittance there was put to a vote of the all-male student body, with the rule that if even one of them voted no, she would not be admitted. As the story goes, the students assumed it was a joke and unanimously voted to accept her. Blackwell got the last laugh, as she graduated from Geneva Medical School in 1849. Ultimately she went on to found medical schools and infirmaries, organize nurses for the Union during the American Civil War, and publish several books on medicine.
Margaret Higgins Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger is one of the pioneers of the field of contraception, which was a dangerous profession during the early 20th century. Her work was so controversial, in fact, that at one point she was forced to flee America and stay in Britain until she knew it was safe to return. She was arrested for opening a birth control clinic in 1916, but was undaunted, and went on to found the American Birth Control League in 1921, which later became Planned Parenthood. In New York City, she organized the first birth control, which was staffed by all-female doctors, and she also organized a clinic in Harlem with an all African-American advisory council. Her work was pivotal in contraception becoming not only legal but socially acceptable in America.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Rebecca Lee Crumpler was America’s first female African-American physician, which is especially amazing given that when she attended medical school and was named a Doctor of Medicine, America was in the midst of the Civil War, and Crumpler faced not only sexism but intense racism in opposition to her becoming a physician. After the war, she worked in Richmond, Virginia, caring mostly for poor African-American women and children, which she considered to be excellent missionary work. Eventually she published a book, titled A Book of Medical Discourses, in 1883, which focused mostly on the care of women and children based on what she learned working in Richmond.
Gertrude Elion
Gertrude Elion was an American biochemist and pharmacologist who won a Nobel Prize in 1988 in Physiology or Medicine, an honor she shared with George H. Hitchings and Sir James Black. Their work focused on a principle called rational drug design for the creation of new medicines. Her parents were Eastern European Jewish immigrants, and after she graduated from Hunter College in New York, she had to work as a secretary and teacher and take an unpaid position doing research in a lab, since it was incredibly difficult for women to find paid research jobs at the time. The work she went on to do later in her life would lead to the creation of AZT, one of the first drugs available to treat HIV and AIDS. She also helped create immunosuppressants used for organ transplants, treatments for leukemia and viral herpes, and other lifesaving drugs.
Becky McClure
Last but certainly not least, Becky McClure is an incredible woman in medicine! She helps to change people’s lives with her individualistic approach and cutting-edge hormone replacement therapy. Her work helps both men and women to feel revitalized, active, and healthy. She’s been in healthcare for over 30 years now and has been practicing state of the art pellet therapy for over 10 years, and helping people to take their lives back is her passion. Her work might be able to help you too, so don’t hesitate to contact Renewed Vitality today to learn more!
