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Growing Older Better

My Take On Aging

There is no golden ticket

There is no ticket, activity, pill, etc. that “magically” works to improve your aging process. There are many things that you can do and very often it takes all or many of them. It’s often trial and error to see what works for you. Buying into the hype of “this is what you need to be healthy if over 50” is usually not true.

It requires work

Movement is your friend. You don’t have to run like in the image but walking around is perfectly acceptable as is weightlifting, yoga, core work, Pilates, or anything that makes your body work, but the work is necessary. If you’re in a wheelchair or bedridden, be sure to check what kind of exercise you can and are able to do.

And a bit of a caveat here it helps if you start moving when you’re younger, but it’s never the wrong time to start moving.

It requires good nutrition

Good nutrition does not mean expensive food. In fact, one of the most nutritious and least expensive foods is beans. If you have dietary restrictions, you have to think about that – if you have a garden, you can grow a lot of nutritious food. You don’t even actually need a garden – you can grow in pots. I did container gardening for years. There’s a lot of good food out there, but be a label reader – that is important. That’s too long a conversation to have for now. I’ll come back to this at another time.

It requires using your brain

Keeping your cognitive activity working is something that also helps with aging. So keep [or start] doing things like crossword puzzles, or most any kind of puzzle, learning new things, going to classes, or doing classes via apps or online.

04/05/2025
This Makes Me Happy

The above photo is a northern cardinal – Photo by Patrice Bouchard – from unsplash

I’ve been thinking of late – since spring weather has arrived – that I really like hearing birds chirping, and watching flowers come into bloom. Being in nature has always been my happy place and that’s a good place for me right now – and it might be a good place for many of us!!

This morning when I was out with my dog, I heard a lot of birds. I did not see them even though the trees don’t have leaves yet but with the dog around, they stay pretty far away like on the neighbor’s property. But I hear them – and I’m beginning to recognize the sounds of the different birds. Many are new to me!

Here is a recording from this morning.

I use the Merlin app [https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org] which identifies by sound or photo and it told me those sounds today came from:

Northern cardinal, Carolina wren, European starling, Dark-eyed Junco, Tufted titmouse, Red-winged blackbird, Blue jay, White-breasted nuthatch, Red-bellied woodpecker, and Cedar waxwing/// WOW!!

On my phone, when I replay the sound recording, it shows a picture and gives the name of the bird making the sound. It does that also while it’s recording, but this way I can listen afterwards and match sounds with pictures because occasionally I do see the birds – when I don’t have my dog out there with me.

And a few hours after hearing the birds, my tulips started blooming.

Go find your happy place….

04/03/2025
There Is No Magic Starting Date

What Is A Good Starting Date?

For me? Any day of the week/month/year!

Any day is a good time to start

for me, waiting for a specific day or time for a start never works – my brain is not like that

It’s why I do not do new year resolutions – they are made to be broken! In fact, I learned a new thing this year. There is actually a date that people quit their new year resolutions. It’s called quitter’s day and it’s the second Friday in January!!

In years past, I already knew that people quit their health club workouts early in January and I really never paid attention to the fact that it was a specific date. I learned that this year and it fits with everything I know about people’s making promises to themselves.

We humans have a hard time sticking with some of our specific promises to ourselves. So why punish ourselves for it?

In fact, why do it just consider any day your starting day? No promises needed!!

Q1 being gone posts are annoying

does telling someone the first quarter of the year is gone create positive or negative thinking?

Maybe we are all like the moon – visually, it cycles through quarters but always returns to full. And full moons are seen as omens – so why not think of quarters like the – they aren’t gone and the good omen-ness of them will soon be back!! [it’s now April 1 and the next full moon is in 11 days.] We’ll go through the rest of the crescents and have another full thing happening in 11 days. Why worry about what quarter we’re in? It can be the beginning, middle, or the end of whatever you want to consider your quarter.

I know for some people if you tell them they missed a quarter their first thinking is oh well I might as well miss the next three. Someone I knew used to say “I’m going start this on September 1” and when she didn’t start on September 1 she’d go “oh well I’ll wait till next semester.”

We all have very personal relationships with time and how we manage it.

It’s MY start!!

and it might not coincide with anyone else’s timeframe

I’m not driving so therefore I do not have to stop and start with the signals that I see. I’m a good driver. I pay attention – but blogging, writing, publishing, are not the same as driving for me. They may be for you. That’s your thing – but they aren’t for me and that’s my thing.

I’m starting today and it feels good. Will I continue tomorrow? We’ll see. No promises!!

04/01/2025
My Latest Aging Mantra

Ode To Aging

What I am writing here – it’s not a new thought for me. In fact, it’s more than 20 years old, but in those 20 years I did not think of this daily. Now I do!!

So here goes – my ode to aging or my latest mantra.

Everything takes longer

I had moved many times as an adult and my move to the west coast made me realize that packing and stacking boxes was taking a lot longer than it used to – AND – that was nearly 19 years before my most recent move!!

I knew over 20 years ago that things were taking longer, but wow since my current move, which is now a year ago, I have really come to recognize that everything I do takes longer.

Over the years I had noticed that I was not as fast doing things like biking, hiking, walking, kayaking, etc – but since I was still doing them pretty regularly, I didn’t really notice.

It wasn’t until I did them more sporadically prior to my move [and because of the move] that I realized the doings took longer – especially when I started the packing thing.

It’s been hard for me to accept this, but I don’t have a choice, so I just keep telling myself this is going to take longer than I planned.

Everything takes longer than it used to.

Everything is more tiring

It seems most all I do not only takes longer, but I get tired more quickly. I love gardening and was happy to again have a garden in the ground – not just in containers. But the raking, weed pulling, soil digging, etc. took much longer than the last itme i had a garden. Maybe, I thought, it was due to my not having done this in almost 2 decades – but as I keep at it, I realized it really was more tiring because I was 20 years older.

I used to go to several stores in one shopping trip but over time I found I can not do that. One store per trip is now my max – unless someone else is driving – then I can do a few. But even then I often opt to sit in the car and wait.

It’s not walking per se – for fun trips, like going in to D.C. – I can still walk several miles a day – with a few breaks – but it’s the shopping walking that has begun to more quickly tire me.

Many things are more tiring than they used to be.

Everything needs a longer recovery time

Things take longer and are more tiring – ok – but I also found that my reccovery period was longer as well. Not just for gardening, or yoga, or walking – but everything! In years past, my body and I had an agreement that I played hurt, and as I aged, we agreed it had 2 days to get over the hurt.

Then I took a slip and fall [I’m really ok] but I brusied my ribs and O.U.C.H.

I remembered when I used to rock climb and the rope caught my ribs when I fell. My friends and I kept climbing [after we made sure nothing was broken.] When I played softball and was pitching or catching I got dinged many times – same thing – “nothing broken – let’s play.”

But here I was many years later [actually many decades later,] and the ribs were very very sore. It was hard to drive because the seatbelt crossed the sore ribs. Sleeping was difficult because if I moved the sore ribs were more ouch.

It’s now four weeks later and they’re finally feeling better but that’s longer than I usually “allow” my body to catch up with what our agreement was – so I think my body is telling me we need to reach a different agreement.

I need a longer time to recover.

I’m sure as I continue aging, I’ll be adding to this mantra… but for now these 3 are the ones I need to remember as I go about my life – gardening, shopping, working out, etc….

10/31/2023
One Size Rarely Fits All
One Size Rarely Fits All

but gurus often tell you differently

I have written several things, including book reviews, about the concept of one size fits all.

It seems to be a concept widely used for “diets,” for telling people how they should live their lives, how they can be more productive, and sometimes for describing clothing.

From what I have learned over a rather long life, one size fits all is rarely true!

But I keep hearing it! Hmmmmmmmm

Some Examples

Diets

Ads for most “diet” products usually announce that “this is for you!” Yes YOU!

The ad is predicated on the idea that the person reading it wants to lose weight. That’s all they need to know about their audience.

Who does the ad show? Very often a young thin-ish person. You’re supposed to think wow if I take this product I am going to look like that.

That’s an age old advertising tactic: youth and sex sell – and it’s been like that since I can remember.

And you, the audience are expected to believe that it will work for you as there was no indication is was NOT meant for you and your body.

Lifestyles

Do you want to be the person who has fun, who has energy, who gets a lot of things done every day? [And makes huge amounts of money?]

Well?
1. Then you must get up at 4:30AM and go to the gym or work out at home doing specific sets of exercises.
2. Then you must meditate.
3. Then you must take a very cold shower [ice cold] – better yet you should live near a cold lake and you should jump in.
4. Then you must drink a lot of water – the gurus differ on how much you should drink but basically it’s a lot.
Work

To get the most done every day, you must start immediately after drinking all that water mentioned above. You must work for a certain amount of time take a certain length break and get right back to working setting a timer to make sure you stick to the schedule.

If you have a job where you work on somebody else’s schedule, then you have to fit all of this into your daily routine but best if you can keep your schedule as close to the same every day.

Also, don’t forget about your gratitude journal, your daily to do list or the other daily things that you’re supposed to do before your workday starts – although this could be part of what you do after drinking all that water.

I laugh at these because after drinking all that water the last thing I’m going to do is sit and make a to do list … I’m going to run to the bathroom.

Clothing

I have shopped at stores that had clothing labeled “one size.” I think what they mostly meant was the store was for people who wore sizes 6 to 8 or 10 because if you were bigger like a size 12 or 14 the clothing was not going to fit you. There were some stores that had baggy clothing. This was several years ago when baggier clothing was popular, so yeah, one size could fit many different body types, but basically clothing comes in sizes to fit the varied sizes that people. And clothing is so oddly sized anyway that a small in one brand is a medium in another and a large in yet another.

Here’s a shopper trying to find the “one” that fits them….

Moral? Caveat Emptor!!

I have to say that one of the benefits of growing up in a big city what is that you learned to not really get caught up in all the advertising because you were bombarded with it. We did pay attention to it, but we mocked it. That said I’ve still been caught by some of the advertising tricks even with a PhD in psychology, so yeah, it’s hard sometimes to not get caught up in the hype.

That’s what advertisers want to have happen.

It all means is that you have to be a very conscientious shopper with blinders on most of the time so that you can avoid the hype. If you can’t avoid the hype, you have to really think about what is being sold to you and ask if it sounds actually reasonable.

But especially – ask yourself if this is for everyone – is it really what I want for me?

Aren’t I individual enough to want something that seems a bit special?

Something that is for ME?
04/18/2023