Social and active lifestyle behaviors in late life : implications for older adults’ pain

Pain increases as individuals age and is prevalent among older adults. Positive lifestyle behaviors have long been viewed as serving an adaptive function when experiencing pain. The vast majority of research on pain has focused on the biological (e.g., inflammation) and psychological (e.g., attention) aspects of pain, leaving the social factors relatively unexamined. Further, prior research on pain in late life has relied on retrospective reports or experimental paradigms with only a few investigations examining pain in a naturalistic setting throughout the day. Drawing from the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study (DEWS), I examined how lifestyle behaviors influence older adults’ (aged 65 and older, N = 313) experiences of pain every three hours throughout the day. The first study investigated associations between negative social encounters and pain. This study also explored whether negative mood mediated this association and whether the closeness of the social partner mattered. Findings revealed that negative encounters with any social partner was associated with greater pain at each 3-hour interval. Further, models revealed evidence of full mediation, such that negative social encounters led to pain due to increased negative mood. Additionally, negative encounters with less close social partners were associated with pain; yet, negative encounters with close social partners were not associated with pain. The second study explored pain as a function of being involved in various lifestyle behaviors. Results revealed that involvement in physically-engaging behaviors were significantly associated with older adults’ greater pain at each 3-hour interval. Older adults’ engagement in cognitively-engaging behaviors, socially-engaging behaviors, and sedentary behaviors were not significantly associated with experiencing pain at each 3-hour interval. Together, this research demonstrates the importance of lifestyle behaviors throughout the day and pain. Collectively, this work sheds light on avenues for intervention including helping older adults to effectively regulate negative emotion in the face of stress to create resiliency against pain. It may also be important to examine long-term effects of specific behaviors that may shape the experience of pain.Human Development and Family Science