Healthy Aging: Growing Old Gracefully

This week I want to share with you some great advice for growing old in this article from the Huffington Post : 

Healthy Aging: 10 Tips For Growing Old Gracefully

In the last two decades, people have not only been living longer but they also have been staying much healthier later in life, according to a recently released study. Previously, researchers found that very poor health usually hits people in the last several years of life. But now, thanks in large part to medical advances, poor health is more likely to occur only just before death.

So what can you do to make sure you are among those who live longer, healthier lives? We asked Peggy Buchanan, coordinator of vitality/wellness programming for Front Porch, this question. (Front Porch is a large not-for-profit provider of retirement living communities in southern California.) She responded with her top 10 tips for healthy aging. Here they are below. Have your own ideas? Let us know in comments.

1. Fight afternoon fatigue –- Fatigue is a common problem among older adults, especially after lunch. Having a glass of water and a high-antioxidant food like a prune can revitalize the body and stimulate the mind.

2. Exercise from the neck up -– Keeping the brain active and fit is imperative to the health of older adults. Not only does it stave off memory-loss illnesses like Alzheimer’s and dementia, but it also fosters executive function. Try word games and recall exercises. For example, find 5 red objects during a walk in the neighborhood and recall them when back home.

3. Pole walk -– Walking poles allow for more balanced mobility than walkers or canes. Walking with poles engages the muscles of the upper torso, which increases upper-body strength and cardiovascular endurance. Consult a physician before making the switch to poles.

4. Dine in duos -– Those who share meals with others eat less than those who eat alone. This is an easy weight-loss tactic and one that fosters social interaction and engagement. While this is easy for those aging in community, older adults aging at home can plan to have meals with family or friends at least several times a week.

5. Break routine -– Routine limits brain stimulation. Introduce new foods or new ways of eating the same food. For example, replace canned peaches with freshly sliced ones. Also, try taking a different route to the grocery store or shopping center.

6. Sole Support -– As people age, the fat pads on the bottom of their feet compress, creating fatigue and pain. Consider wearing supportive shoes or inserting foot pads for better stability and comfort or socks that have extra padding and a wicking agent to keep feet dry and comfortable.

7. Fats: Out with the bad, in with the good –- Older adults with an increased genetic risk for dementia can reduce the risk by increasing the amount of Omega-3 fatty acids in their diet. These fatty acids, found in fish, nuts, olive oil and green leafy vegetables, can reduce brain inflammation, a possible cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

8. Decrease salt and increase your salsa -– High blood pressure, which can lead to strokes and a significant decline in cognitive function, often increases with age. As adults get older, the sense of taste also fades, leading to a desire for more salt on food to enhance flavor. Decreasing salt intake by putting down the shaker -– and increasing exercise habits by shaking to a salsa beat -– will enhance cardio and cognitive health.

9. Balancing act -– In addition to exercises that build strength and improve flexibility and cardiovascular endurance, make sure to add balance activities to the daily routine. Good balance requires maintaining a center of gravity over the base of support. Tai chi, yoga, walking on challenging surfaces and water exercises all enhance overall balance.

10. Dance like there’s no tomorrow -– Older adults getting regular physical exercise are 60 percent less likely to get dementia. Exercise increases oxygen to the brain and releases a protein that strengthens cells and neurons. Dance involves all of the above plus the cerebral activity present in learning and memory.

Original Article Found Here: http://bit.ly/1dajdlo

#LongLife #AgingGracefully #Longevity #HealthyAging

7 Questions We Need To Ask Older Generations

Enrich your life with the knowledge of generations! Advice for living, from those who've been there!

Today I bring you an article by - By Karl A. Pillemer, Ph.D.

I’m proposing a new holiday. Or rather, a new use for an old holiday. I believe that we should make Thanksgiving the day when we celebrate elder wisdom by asking older people to tell us their advice for living. Here’s why.

Occasionally, the question runs through younger people’s minds (whether they admit it or not): What are old people good for? Our society’s unremitting ageism portrays older persons as sick, frail, unproductive, and even the culprits for busting the federal budget.

Earlier retirement and increased residential separation of older people has broken age-old contacts between the generations. Indeed, our society has become extraordinarily segregated by age, such that young people’s contact with elders is almost exclusively within the family (and even that is limited). Combined with the persistently negative images in the media, this question - What good are old people? - lurks in the background.

But the answer is amazingly simple. For as long as humans have been humans, older people have played critically important roles as advice-givers. Indeed, anthropological research shows that survival in pre-literate societies was dependent on the knowledge of the oldest members. It’s easy to forget that it is only in the past 100 years or so that people have turned to anyone other than the oldest person they knew to solve life’s problems.

Now here’s the important point: Old people are still a unique source of advice for living for younger people. And we need to tap this source much more vigorously than we are currently doing — both for young people’s sake and that of our elders. That’s why I’m proposing that we make learning elder wisdom a part of our families’ Thanksgiving holiday.

We often do ask our elders to tell their life stories. But that activity is very different from asking their advice. You don’t just want their reminiscences; what’s truly valuable are the lessons they learned from their experience and that they wish to pass on to younger generations.

Now for the holiday. Thanksgiving is something most Americans celebrate, regardless of religious persuasion. And it’s the one time in the year when families are most likely to gather — and include their older relatives. What if we all take a half hour (okay, it can be before or after the football game) to consult our elders about their lessons for living?

Your children are the best ones to start this conversation and they can ask questions that are highly relevant to them. Is Sammy concerned about bullying? Some elders (especially immigrants) were ferociously bullied as children. Is Pat concerned about finding the right partner? You have elders who have long experience in relationships, but who are rarely asked for their advice about them. Are your college kids worried about the job market? If so, how about advice from people who went through the Great Depression?

Remember that this is different from asking Grandpa “What did you do in World War II?” or Grandma “What was life like in the Depression?” The goal is to genuinely and interestedly ask for advice: “What lessons for living did you learn from those experiences?” Taking this approach elevates the role of elders to what they have been through most of the human experience: counselors and advisers to the less-experienced young.

Give it a try on Thanksgiving (and let me know how it went!). Here are some questions to get you started; it can help to send these in advance to your elders so they can ponder them a bit. We’ve used these questions in interviews with hundreds of elders in the Legacy Project, and they work very well). More information is available in the book 30 Lessons for Living.

So let’s declare Thanksgiving (or a part of it) Elder Advice-Giving Day. Our elders won’t be here forever, so this year is a good time to start!

Questions for the elders:

What are some of the most important lessons you feel you have learned over the course of your life?

Some people say that they have had difficult or stressful experiences but they have learned important lessons from them. Is that true for you? Can you give examples of what you learned?

As you look back over your life, do you see any “turning points”; that is, a key event or experience that changed over the course of your life or set you on a different track?

What’s the secret to a happy marriage?

What are some of the important choices or decisions you made that you have learned from?

What would you say you know now about living a happy and successful life that you didn’t know when you were twenty?

What would you say are the major values or principles that you live by?

Add your own!

Original article found here: http://bit.ly/2f4AgkA

This subject goes wonderfully with my book “The First and Last Thanksgiving”: Embracing the Generations in Our Razzle Dazzle Family!  

http://www.firstandlastthanksgiving.com/

#embracinggenerations #elderwisdom #questionsforgrandparents #thingstodoonthanksgiving