Why get involved?

'It doesn't matter what you do - any kind of creation is good.' So says Margaret Gaffney, who took part in 'La Vie en Rose' with the Cois Ceim Dance Theatre during Bealtaine 2009.

The Irish Centre for Social Gerontology studied the effects of the Bealtaine festival on those who participated in it (both older people and the arts / cultural / social organisations). According to the findings, Bealtaine:

• is the major creative programme for older people in Ireland and has international recognition as an innovative and original festival,
• has a profound and visible impact on arts practice in Ireland at national and local level,
• improves feelings of well-being and improves psychological outlook and morale among participants,
• enriches the experience of ageing by creating an outlet for social connections and enhanced social relationships,
• enhances self-confidence and self-esteem of participants and nurtures social cohesion and social capital,
• generates a high degree of satisfaction among organisers and participants,
• succeeds, according to participants, in promoting positive attitudes to the arts,
• has attracted new, participatory audiences and ‘in kind’ support to the arts.

If, for no other reason, get involved in Bealtaine because over 55,000 get involved in it every year and get great pleasure and satisfaction from their involvement. At its very least, it can be an enjoyable day out, but at its best, people have reported to us that it has completely transformed their lives.

The Inspired Brain

In our 2008 Challenging Attitudes newsletter, writer and publisher Seamus Cashman provided an introduction to the work of Gene Cohen, who has been studying the effect of the arts on ageing brains:

Brains get better with age – that is a core message of ‘The Mature Mind’ by Dr Gene Cohen. A renowned psychiatrist and gerontologist, Cohen suggests that understanding more about the brain is important for care specialists and, indeed, for older people themselves because understanding can spur motivation. Even in our era of mass information, while it remains true that knowledge is power, it is understanding and action that will implement change.

According to the neuroscientists, it is not old age per se that reduces the brain’s functioning. It is stagnation – the brain needs to be challenged which is why, as Cohen affirms, quality arts programmes are so valuable, indeed essential, in the later years.

Arts activities challenge the deepest elements of our personal and cultural identities, and our responses to those challenges are reflected and expressed through the creative process. In the second half of life, creativity can blossom. Cohen provides examples of late-blooming artists, such as Grandma Moses, Picasso and Georgia O’Keeffe, who reached their creative peaks late in life. Science now affirms that not only can older brains produce new cells, but that the brain can draw on areas of itself underused in earlier years, thereby compensating for the effects of ageing. The brain has the capacity to ‘re-sculpt’ itself as certain genes are activated by experience as we grow older. Citing the latest scientific research as well as in-depth interviews with older women and men, Cohen’s book demonstrated for the first time how positive changes are taking place in our minds as we age.

Quoting physicist James Trefil, he says: “Your brain never stops developing and changing. It’s been doing it from the time you were an embryo, and will keep doing it all your life. And this ability, perhaps, represents its greatest strength.”
Cohen, a Professor of Health Care Sciences and of Psychiatry, is, without doubt, a writer to read if you are interested in ‘planning wisely for the rest of your life,’ no matter what age you are now, 40 or 80.

His writing is fluid and vigorous, and entirely accessible. Two books to begin with are: ‘The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life’, and ‘The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain’. As James Birren, Associate Director of the UCLA Centre on Aging, says: “Gene Cohen has provided a doorway for older adults to search for their own creativity.”