Live Longer Better
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Helping others in greater need is not only good for them but it is also very good for you

Already older people play a vitally important role in society. For example if people in their 70s, 80s and 90s gave up helping others the NHS would collapsee the next day 
​

-PEOPLE WHO HAVE LIVED LONG HAVE MANY ASSETS 

In a very good book titled The 100-Year Life, sub-titled Living and Working in an Age of Longevity, authors Lynda Gratton & Andrew Scott emphasise that although we use the term 'assets' to mean financial assets, people acquire other types of assets as they live longer, and they describe three types of assets:

1.    The first category of intangibles is productive assets.  These are the assets that help an
        individual become productive and successful at work and should therefore boost their
        income.  Obviously, skills and knowledge will be a major component of this category, but
        there is much else as well.
2.     The second category is 
vitality assets.  Broadly these capture mental and physical health
        and well-being.  Included here are friendship, positive family relationships and partnerships,
        as well as personal fitness and health.
3.     The final category is 
transformational assets.
  Across a 100-year life, people will experience
         great change and many transitions.  These transformational assets refer to their self-  
         knowledge, their capacity to reach out into diverse networks and their openness to new
         experiences. 


The old concept of three phases of life - education, work and retirement - is no longer relevant. People need to think in a new way and recognise the talents and the assets, they have at the age of 60 or 70 or beyond and use them either in work, or in starting a new business or in volunteering to help others. One of the good points about helping others is that this type of activity is precisely what is needed to reduce your risk of dementia, and for this reason we see volunteering as a very important part of our Brainability Programme. 

The wonderful Zooniverse project is ideally suited to involving people who cannot get out to help others but can use their brainpower to become part of the research team, for example gathering information from hand-written records of weather, which cannot be done by AI, Artificial Intelligence, and needs human intelligence.

We are also developing methods  to include people who are housebound and can only do very short spells of walking of cycling to join a walk virtually, even though it might take a month to do an 8 mile walk using virtual reality. This would also enable the person who is housebound to participate in sponsored walks, for example the Macmillan Mighty Hike on the Thames path. 

Because being a volunteer has such important benefits on wellbeing it is often arranged or recommended as part of social prescribing
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