Dr. Sue Varma

If you feel that you are a burden on somebody else, just say, what can I do to

offer you help.

And it may seem so counterintuitive because I think when a lot of times people age, they feel like I'm not relevant.

I don't matter.

You don't need me.

But just making them feel relevant.

If you know your mom makes great aloo parathas, you know, be like, mom, you make this such a good thing.

Like, can you please make it or some version of it?

So mastery is really key, I think, for older adults.

And the other thing I would say is with their phones to make them slightly less enticing, the idea of like making it like gray scale so it's not as colorful or like small little things like, okay, you like to watch the news.

Could I get you a subscription to a paper newspaper?

You know, like, because they grew up with that.

That was the norm for them.

Or I need to know the time, or an alarm.

So I bought old school alarm clocks for my kids and for my dad.

So I was like, anything that you're going to use as an excuse to turn to, or how about a watch, an old school nice watch, so you don't turn to your phone.

So just thinking of all the small hacks.

But to me, I think the most effective component in this, instead of taking away, is adding back value.

the nature, just saying even going for a walk.

One of the things my parents would always do together was there was a duck pond park near our house, and that was something that they used to do routinely together every single day, like sunset, and it was beautiful.