“The best medicine any of our assisted living residents can have is time with their families.” That’s what I tell families who come to take a tour of our assisted living homes. And I firmly believe it. Spending time with your family releases a Happy Hormone (Oxytocin) in your brain. As I will describe later, this leads to positive health outcomes for our residents.
I don’t have visiting hours at my assisted living homes. You can come over any time you want. Day or night. And we encourage it.
We have the golden rule for visiting – treat the other residents as you would want their families to treat your loved one. For example, don’t bring all the grandchildren over from the ice cream shop hyped up on sugar at 11 at night. That’s going to dampen the Happy Hormone for the rest of our residents.
Besides just making the families happy with that rule, I honestly believe time with family is a very important part of the health of our residents.
When people have cognitive issues, the last people they will forget is their family. Seeing those familiar people help them give confidence that some of their memory is still there.
The Benefits of the Happy Hormone
There’s some scientific basis for it as well. Psychiatrists have found spending time with families increase the Happy Hormone Oxytocin levels in the brain, along with some other ‘Happy’ hormones. Oxytocin helps reduce feelings of stress and anxiety. Stress and anxiety are very common amongst people with Dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other ailments of the brain.
Not only does it make the person with cognitive decline feel better, it helps us with their treatment. Our residents are far more likely to:
- Eat our healthy meals
- Exercise
- Do red light therapy
- Step into our sauna
- Take the supplements A Mind for All Seasons recommends from blood tests
- Take medications
Overall families can really help us with their treatment plan. In fact, one of the biggest reasons people move into our assisted living homes is because they don’t take their medications at home. They live at home alone.
I can’t help but feel it’s more than just cognitive decline. They’re losing hope if they don’t see their family. And that decreases those Happy Hormone levels.
Those elderly family members are the ones who raised us. They fed us, clothed us, taught us about the world, disciplined us, and were there for us when we needed them.
Now they need us. And we can really make a difference for them. Even if you don’t have a resident in one of our assisted living homes, why not improve ‘Happy Hormone’ levels in your elderly relatives? Spend some time with them and see their health improve. Even if you can’t measure their Oxytocin levels.
