Humour, beauty, and culture as personal health resources: experiences of elderly Swedish women

Abstract

Aim: This paper explores how a group of elderly women used humour, beauty, and cultural activities to maintain physical and mental well-being.

Methods: The paper reports on one aspect of a qualitative study on women's work and health in a lifetime perspective. Interviews with 20 strategically selected Swedish women, aged 63 to 83 years, were audiotaped and analysed according to a phenomenological approach.

Results: During the interview process, the researchers became increasingly aware that the women had clear ideas about what enabled them to feel well and healthy - even when actually quite diseased. Creating and enjoying humour, beauty, and culture formed part of such strategies. Joking with workmates made hard, low-status jobs easier, helped them endure pain, and helped balance marital difficulties. Creating a nice and comfortable home gave pleasure and a little luxury in a life filled with necessities. Making articles for everyday use more beautiful was regarded as worthwhile, because it gave delight to them and their families. Gains from cultural activities were social, aesthetic, and existential - the latter through a feeling of self-recognition and being heard.

Conclusions: Humour, beauty, and culture formed a greater part of these women's survival strategies than expected. Making everyday life more aesthetic is an undervalued aspect of women's health-creating work in the family. Through their lifelong experience as carers and homemakers, elderly women possess special knowledge regarding what may promote health, a knowledge that should be tapped. When supplying elderly women with social care, their needs for humour, beauty, and culture should be respected.