Healthy Aging: Body, Mind & Spirit

It’s OK to be pleasingly plump, but don’t over do it!

According to a recent Australian study, moderately overweight elderly live longer than those obese or of normal weight.  But you still need to exercise as much as possible!  So keep moving!   Learn more here.

Andropause and YOU!

Check out this article about a Yale physician who is a specialist in “age management medicine.”  She is “sounding the alarm on a male concern that has fallen through the medical cracks: male menopause, known as andropause.” The problem, she says, is that few doctors are trained in andrology (counterpart of gynecology), which creates a real and present danger for men.

I AGREE FULLY! Mainstream medicine is too much like the mainstream media, so behind on what’s really happening in the world!  My husband Mike has been taking a low level of pregnenolone for a few years now, and it has really helped him.  His blood test showed he had almost none before he started!

Departures, a Japanese film about life transitions

Want to learn more about how another culture deals with life transitions like death, lost love, job loss, bringing new life into the world, and finding right livelihood?  Here’s my review of the Academy Award winning film Departures. It won for Best Foreign Language Film in 2008.

So you think you want to live to 100?

Then go over to Contemporary Retirement and view this EXCELLENT short video on the 9 common diet and lifestyle habits which are shared by all of those who live PAST 100!

Dan Buettner does a great job of summarizing myths about aging, and then lists what personal traits seem to predict human longevity.

Did you know the year you retire is the most dangerous year of your life?  Time to find your own personal reason to wake up each day and smell the coffee!

A unique TBI therapy finds great success!

Have you heard the fascinating story of singer Melody Gardot yet?  At 19 Melody Gardot was hit by an SUV as she was riding her bike to school. Her pelvis was shattered and she received traumatic brain injuries which affected her speech and left her hypersensitive to light and sound.

The way her neurologist described it,  her memories were all still in there, but it would take some time for the connections between them to grow back.

After trying all of the usual therapies to heal her memory problems, her neurologist recommended that she try music as a way to rebuild her neural pathways.  This strategy proved quite successful!

From her pain, she experienced a renaissance or rebirth.  From the wreckage, a beautiful voice has emerged and Melody has gained critical praise, quickly gaining an enthusiastic following. The latest album of this singing sensation, now 25, is number one on a key French chart this week.

Having experienced a TBI last year in a bike accident, I can REALLY relate to this story!

The End of Overeating – A book review

If you would like a well-written, easy to read summary of recent research on why we eat what we eat, and why we apparently cannot quit eating so much of it, go find yourself a copy of:  The End of  Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, by David Kessler.

In this book, the author takes a personal journey into what about our foods today make them absolutely irresistible to the point of obesity, including recent brain research into why rats cannot resist junk food.

Have no doubt, scientists in the food industry are studying us daily to see how they can convince us to purchase and eat ever more of their products.

“Higher sugar, fat, and salt levels make you want to eat more,” a high-level food industry executive told the author.  When asked whether they designed food specifically to be seductive and addictive, the food industry consultant responded with, “Oh, absolutely!”

Major changes in the American diet started in the 1980s.  In 1960, women ages 20-29 averaged about 128 pounds; by the year 2000, women in that same age group average around 157 pounds!  The food industry has done their homework.  They know how to keep us overeating.

Read this book so you can begin to fight back against this take over of the American brain!  At the end of the author’s conversation with a high-level food industry consultant, the expert concluded,

“We are the manipulators of the consumers’ minds and desires!”

This, of course, leaves the food industry with the same conundrum as the tobacco industry: There is NO FUTURE in knocking off YOUR BEST CUSTOMERS!

Dr. Oz and aging research

Here’s my problem with the new Dr. Oz TV show.  I would like for him to actually follow through on his promises, and TEACH ME SOMETHING NEW SOMETIMES!

For example, yesterday he advertised the show as being all about aging research.  Then he spent maybe 15 minutes on that topic, teaching me very little that I didn’t already know.

OK, so I wasn’t completely sure why our hair goes gray.  Turns out it’s mainly genetically determined, but stress and cortisol levels also play a part in when we go gray and how quickly.  That explains why my hair started going seriously gray when I got divorced and lost my job back in 2004!

Then he went through the five “foods” that age us the quickest: simple sugars, high fructose corn syrup, bleached flour, trans fats, and saturated fats.  What helps us in the aging process? Lots of sex and blueberries.  Honestly, that’s all he mentioned!

The other fun fact he mentioned?  When we are young, genetics are the primary factor in how long we will live.  But by the time we reach midlife, our genetic make-up is only one third as important.  Lifestyle choices like what we choose to eat, how much we eat, stress and exercise levels, and environmental factors figure in prominently.

If you want to learn more about how to lose some belly fat, go see my recent post! It much more detailed and informative than his silly segment on it!

Does early exposure to TV influence our dreams?

The advent of color TV may have injected color into generations of dreams.

According to a new study, kids who watched only black and white TV are more likely to have black-and-white dreams throughout their lifetime.

Scientists have debated whether we humans dream in gray scale or color for many decades. Most of this research took place in the period between 1915 and 1950s, when it was thought that all our dreams were in black and white.

However in the 1960s, scientists discovered that about 83 percent of dreams include some color. This particular time in history saw the transition from black-and-white film and TV in technicolor.

Previously scientists based their research on questioning participants in mid-day, when they might have forgotten many details of their dreams and assumed that they only dreamt in black-and-white.

In order to clarify these issues, Eva Murzyn from the University of Dundee, UK, decided to interrogate 60 people, half under age 25 and half over 55.  Participants were asked questions related to the color of their dreams, their exposure to film and TV, and  asked to keep a morning dream diary.  Researchers discovered that the results from the questionnaires and those from the dream diaries were quite similar.

After analyzing her findings, Murzyn found that 4.4 percent of dreams reported by subjects aged under 25 were black and white and 7.3 percent of dreams reported by participants aged over 55, who have been exposed to color TV and film during their childhood, were also black and white. However, those over-55, who were exposed to black-and-white media, said that they were dreaming in grayscale a quarter of the time.

“There could be a critical period in our childhood when watching films has a big impact on the way dreams are formed,” said Murzyn.

Despite the fact that subjects spent only a couple of hours each day watching television, their concentration along with emotional engagement can be amplified, thus leaving a profound impact on their minds.

Nevertheless, the scientists stated that it is still impossible to determine whether a person dreams in black-and-white or if exposure to television modifies the way a human’s mind interprets dreams when we wake.

Findings do suggest that TV leaves a huge imprint on developing minds.  TV is interesting and emotionally engaging and even dreamlike.  So when you dream you may copy what you have seen on the screen. However, Murzyn noted that reports from dreamland are rarely reliable.  It’s possible TV only makes us think our dreams are in color.

I would like to add that after seeing AVATAR in 3D recently, I woke up and immediately knew that I do definitely dream in COLOR!

New research on aging and happiness

An impressive new study, representing a sample of about 28,000 Americans age 18 to 88, interviewed from 1972 to 2004, has found that the happiest Americans are the oldest.

The study’s author, Yang Yang, says: “The good news is that with age comes happiness.  Life gets better in our perception as we age.”

The author says a certain amount of stress in old age is inevitable, including aches and pains and the deaths of loved ones and friends, but our elders generally have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults.  They have also learned to lower their expectations and accept with pride their lifetime achievements.  One interviewee said, “It’s fine that I was a damn good schoolteacher, and not a Nobel prize winner!”

This research is important on a number of different levels.  For one, it dispels the beliefs which spread fear among those of us in our middle years, that aging is just a depressing downhill trudge into oblivion.

Part of the reason midlife is so difficult is that it brings up our fears about aging.  We fear that life is almost over and we still have not yet attained our long held goals.

This study shows that with age, many of us learn to live more comfortably with ourselves, and accept our human imperfections and frailties.  We stop comparing ourselves to others, and begin to appreciate what we have.

I believe midlife is when we truly begin this process of acceptance.  We change what we need to, but also learn to accept ourselves and our fate on a deeper level.

Midlife is difficult because it may be the first time we have seriously confronted our own mortality, but that is also exactly why it is so significant.  We begin the process of asking ourselves: Is this all there is to life?  Is this as good as it gets?  And we change things, if we find the answers to these questions unsatisfactory.

Thoughts arise in our minds that may very well have nothing to do with reality.  From thoughts come fears about aging and your future.  Challenge your perceptions about aging (and everything else!)  Don’t assume that just because you believe it, that it is true.

Aging today is different than 50 years ago and, hopefully, we’ve all got a few good years left!  Try to take advantage of these extra years we have in the middle of our lives to follow your dreams!

How to make changes that last

New research shows that two separate parts of our brain do battle, when we decide to change something major in our lives.

Our older emotional, instinctive side goes straight for pleasure, instead of pain.  It likes instant gratification!  And most changes require short-term sacrifices for long-term gains.

Our rational side sees the need for positive changes and then analyzes and plans.  It tries to talk us into changes that would improve our lives in the long-term, when it doesn’t get lost in over analysis or over thinking the situation at hand.

How do we then fool our brain into making changes that we know are necessary and good for us?

Here are a few ways we can assist our rational side when this battle begins:

1.   Give your brain very specific directions. Don’t say, “I want to eat healthier.”  Say, “I’m now cutting all sugar from my diet.” or “No more alcohol”  or “No more pop.”  Then hang up a picture that you will see constantly, of how you would like to look in six months.

2.   Keep motivated by setting small steps towards your desired change. Set little micro-milestones, something you can do everyday that moves you a tiny bit closer to your larger goal.  Then reward yourself every time you do what you wanted to.

Example: Attending your exercise class three times a week, or attending Weight Watchers once a week.  In these cases, think of none food rewards that are fun for you, like going for a walk in the sunshine, going shopping, seeing a movie or reading a book.

3.   Change your surroundings to support your desired change. If you want to stop eating junk food, stop buying it.  And also stop going to places where it is easily available.  Get others in your household to support your changes.

Remember change is NOT an event.  It is a process.  Keep trying and reinforcing small steps towards good behavior in yourself.

Learn to love the positive, changing person inside.  What can you do to help yourself feel even more loveable?

Perhaps you should consider a workbook to help you change for the better!