“Aging is for people who don’t
know better.” This Tony Horton quote came to mind as I read Alison Gopnik’s
column in today’s Wall Street Journal (“A More Supportive World Can Work
Wonders for the Aged.”) The article highlights the demeaning
language that is often applied to old people and the negative impact of those
messages on their condition. Gopnik contrasts the experience of people 60 to 99
years old in a Yale study who were exposed to positive (though unconscious) ideas
about aging and saw their physical functioning improve
Yet even the word “spry,” which was
treated as a positive adjective in the study, carries with it the patronizing
implication of “pretty good for your age.” Disparaging talk about aging is
sometimes encountered in medical offices. “You can’t expect to be able to do
what you could do when you were younger,” said one orthopedist to a very
athletic woman in her forties. With all due respect to doctors in general, this
is presumptuous nonsense. Some of us are fitter and in better health than we
were as sedentary young adults. As a thirty-year-old, I couldn’t do even one
pushup; now, at age 68, I can do at least forty. I’m not spry, I’m strong!
Much of the mental and physical
deterioration traditionally considered to be an inevitable part of aging is
actually a consequence of improper diet and inadequate exercise. Diet-wise, it’s
important to get enough vegetables and fruit and enough protein. If you can’t
or won’t buy and prepare lots of vegetables, drink vegetable juice. There are low sodium varieties at the store
or you can make your own. Even if you eat vegetables anyway, drinking juice is
like having extra insurance. And, drinking juice, any kind of juice, at least
three times a week was associated in a Vanderbilt University study with a 76% lower
risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
For years, my annual blood work
showed that my protein was a bit low, yet my doctor never suggested a protein
supplement. These days I have a protein smoothie in the mid-morning (recipes
here) and a take an enzyme supplement that helps me to digest protein. The
proteolytic enzyme also helps me to recover from injuries more quickly. Take protein supplements or eat protein
bars to maintain muscle strength.
Keeping muscles strong is one of the most important (and most underrated)
contributors to a good old age. Strong people can pursue a greater variety of
activities and are less likely to be injured if they have an accident. Also,
the heart is a muscle; what’s good for the other muscles is likely to be good
for the heart as well.
Keeping muscles strong means
that exercise, especially weight
lifting, is essential. But there are other types of movement that also need
to be practiced and maintained, including flexibility, balance, explosive
movement (plyo or jump training), and cardio. When it comes to cardio, older
people are often told that a little swimming or walking around the
neighborhood is enough. My own experience has been that you have to work a lot harder if
you want to stay in really good shape. Everyone’s body is different but my
particular body requires 33 minutes of intervals on an elliptical twice a week,
averaging 85% of maximum heart rate. (I use a heart rate monitor.) For exercise
overall, it takes about a little over an hour six days a week for me to feel
comfortable and get a good night’s sleep.
Finally, I think it’s important
to keep doing things for myself. Once you’re retired, to farm out tedious
chores and errands to someone else seems like an attractive idea. After all,
you’re retired, you should take it easy, right? Wrong! I don’t necessarily love
grocery shopping or house cleaning but doing those tasks means that I am taking
care of myself. The more I delegate the workings of my day to other people, the
more I will have the sense that I can’t
do those jobs anymore, almost as though I have become a child again. Doing
things for myself helps me to maintain a sense that I am capable and in control
of my own life. In this world there are only two things that I actually own: my physical body and my time. If I take care of one, I will have more of the other.
