Social interaction can minimise risk of dementia
It's important to forge and maintain healthy relationships.
Healthcare counsellor Athena Haralambous, a psychologist by profession and a communicator at heart shared on relationships at Stonecroft Ministries’ February meeting.
She opened by saying relationships are tricky and she hasn’t perfected them yet.
Athena said it is important to forge and maintain strong relationships, particularly in later life, when loneliness and isolation can become a mental health problem.
She referenced the value of late life marriages when people marry for love and companionship as loneliness is known to be a key contributor to dementia.
Strong marriages are not luck but founded on trust and commitment. She quoted Dr John Gottman mentioning criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling as behaviours that can break relationships.
Athena then addressed relationships in general, particularly as social interaction stimulates the brain and can minimise the risk of dementia.
Accomplished musicians John Blewitt and Daniel Oosthuysen entertained with a thoughtful programme that was very well received by the audience, particularly a moving original version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’
Pastor Trevor Downham of Norwegian Settlers Church spoke on God’s unconditional agape love for mankind.
He said that we can’t love like that as it is humanly impossible, adding right from the beginning in Genesis God chose to shed an animal’s blood to clothe Adam and Eve after they had sinned.
Trevor said the book of Hosea, where God had Hosea forgive Gomer, his wife, every time she betrayed him, even restoring her from the gutter, is a picture of how very much God loves us.
The next meeting is at the Shelly Beach Methodist Church this Friday at 09:30.
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