grow older better

Category: Aging

Birthday Thoughts [for our adult kids]

35 years ago, at 3:55AM in Boston Massachusetts, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy!

Then, about 20+ years ago, when he was a teenager, we went to see City Slickers.

There is a scene where Billy Crystal is awoken at 5:16AM by his mother who reminisces about his birth.

She does this every year – and Billy Crystal mouths her exact words as she says them.

“Oh no” said my son, “I can see it now!”

Well – I never did start the reminiscing calls – because for one thing – 3:55AM and I have become strangers in these 35 years. But it keeps him wondering if I will!

But I can schedule this to appear at 3:55AM EDT 🙄

And for most of his birthdays, he calls me and says…”yes, mom, you HAVE aged [whatever age he is] years…because I tend to say how can you be [x age] when I have not aged that many years….

Do you have a birthday custom that has gone on as your kids grew into adulthood?

Please comment below and thank you.

07/15/2013
Heat Exhaustion: Does It Really Get Worse As We Get Older?

Good grief! I hope not!

I’ve had problems with hot weather and humidity since I was born.

I was the kid on the beach with a hat, long sleeved shirt, and long pants with zinc on my nose.

As a teen, I kind of went out there without parents around, and got too much sun and got burned many times – but you know you do that when you’re a teenager… and then you hope as an adult that you didn’t do “too” much that you now have problems…

So far, I’m okay.

But heat, especially when it is over 80 degrees F, starts me on a path to heat exhaustion. This is worse for me when I can not acclimatize.

I lived in Washington, D.C. for a long time, but there the temperature increases from May thru summer. I had issues some summers, but generally I survived all my D.C. summers.

Where I am now, in Oregon, we don’t get a chance to acclimatize. It goes from pleasant in the 70’s to near 100 in one day!

One day is about all I can take, so when it is brutally hot for 2 or more days, I have heat exhaustion issues.

I get nauseous, irritable, headachy, and dizzy. These symptoms and I are on such familiar terms, we recognize each other.

Have they worsened as I aged? I’m not sure, as I also changed the coast I was on, and reduced the humidity factor. I do note that the symptoms come on after a day of excessive hot, but they go away when it cools off.

I do pay attention to the weather and try to plan ahead – and one of these years, I will get an air conditioner….maybe when I am “old.”

How does the heat affect you?

Thoughts? Thank you….

07/02/2013
Beware: Medical Alert Impostors Targeting Seniors

The following alert came from the Oregon Atty. General, but it applies to anyone in any state who is a senior citizen or who knows any senior citizens.

Scammers are not picky as to what state they operate in.

Please pass this message along. Thank you.

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The Oregon Department of Justice has recently learned older Oregonians are receiving pre-recorded messages from medical alert imposters claiming to be from Life Alert, a personal emergency response and home medical alert system company.

The recordings sound like a real person claiming that either “someone has purchased a Life Alert system for you,” or that “you qualify for a free Life Alert.” Others may say they are calling from a shipping department to confirm a free order or to send you new Life Alert equipment.

Life Alert has confirmed the calls are not made by the company. (See Life Alert’s Fraud Alert online at http://www.lifealert.com/fraudalert.aspx.)

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum urges Oregonians to simply hang up the phone if they receive a recorded call saying they are with Life Alert or the “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” people. “DO NOT press a button to talk to sales person, and never give personal information or credit card numbers over the phone unless you have initiated the contact or you are sure you know who you are dealing with,” says Attorney General Rosenblum.

If you think you have fallen victim to these medical alert imposters, contact the Oregon Department of Justice online at www.oregonconsumer.gov or call 1-877-877-9392.

05/29/2013
Your Aging Brain and Scams

It turns out that as we age, some brain changes seem to make it more difficult to assess untrustworthiness.

It turns out that older people have less activity in a part of the brain called the anterior insula.

A study on brains and scams indicates that:

One of the functions of this area of the brain is that it helps interpret sensations in the body that form “gut feelings,” according to lead author Elizabeth Castle.

[This part of our brain is sort of behind the green section in the image]

This may account for older persons being more prone to believing scam artists.

Email scams, telephone ploys and door-to-door scam artists are taking advantage of older citizens and taking off with large amounts of money.

The scammers seem to know this and older people are being targeted more and more..

So if you are getting older, or know people who are older – PLEASE tell them to say NO or “let me think about it” when asked for money, car rides, or approached by strangers to do “house repairs.”

Thoughts? Comments? Thank you.

04/07/2013
Is It Age? Or Is It Me?

I seemed to have had a harder time adapting to the time change this Spring and gave it some thought.

Adapting To Light, Dark, And Other Phenomenon

I know, as I have aged, I am learning to accept that my body reacts differently to various phenomenon.

For example if I do a lot of heavy work like lifting, hauling heavy stuff around, gardening etc. I need extra time to feel like I’m back to normal.

And, as I wrote, I do tend to hibernate in the winter and I think this has to do with light/dark [as opposed to my being a bear.]

In the Portland winter, it is dark until nearly 8 AM. I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a place where it is so dark so late in the morning that I am waking up when it’s still very dark out.

This phenomenon can be adapted to. We go from summer to fall – gradually losing a minute or two of morning daylight and we adapt. After a while, I am waking up in total darkness and that’s ok.

But then we suddenly shift the clock and this year I had a more difficult time adapting to the time change and I wonder if it’s age-related.

It took me almost 2 weeks to get back into the swing of getting up in the dark.

For me, the time changes are not a matter of gaining or losing an hour of sleep because I personally sleep the same amount of time.

I figured it is the sudden shift of the light/dark cycle that gets me…

We humans like to adapt to changes but it seems it is easier to adapt over some period of time than it is to adapt so suddenly.

You? Comments? Thoughts?

Thank you

04/07/2013