grow older better

Tag: human interest

  • Heat Exhaustion: Does It Really Get Worse As We Get Older?

    heat exhaustion

    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…. 

  • Beware: Medical Alert Impostors Targeting Seniors

    medical laertThe 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.

    ***********

    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.

  • Pets And Health

    PuppyMany of us pet owners know that pets keep us saner, happier and healthier.

     

    Now there is research that backs up our life experiences.

    A recent study indicated that owning a pet, especially a dog, might reduce the risk of your having a heart disease.

    Is it the constant walking, playing with, snuggling with or just having a living critter in your home that you have to take care of?

    I know I have lost weight since getting my puppy – it’s the weight I put on after my old dog died.

    It’s too easy to NOT take a walk in the early morning or late at night when you do not really have to…but with a puppy or a dog – those walks are necessary and are as good for you health-wise as they are for the puppy or dog.

    So here’s to our pets… and if you are not a dog person, please do not go out and get one thinking it will be “good” for you…try taking care of a neighbor’s dog or puppy for a while first.

     

    Pets come with lifetime commitments!!

     

    Comments? Thank you!! 

     

     

  • When I Was Young, I Wanted To Be A ……

    reading_a_book

    Me?  I always wanted to write.

    When I was a kid, I used to write books for children.

    They were usually about horses and/or dogs.

     

    Anyway – I grew to be an adult who did write [and talk] about children because I was in the field of early childhood and developmental psychology – but I kept thinking about books for children.

    Then somewhere in the early 70s I started writing some books, but in those pre-computer days it was typewriters, carbon paper, and sending manuscripts and queries to children’s magazine and book editors.

    Never had much interest shown, but I still kept writing things for children, and things for adults. The adults ones, text books and Kindle books, were published and that was good.

    BUT….I still wanted to write books for kids

    Then a few weeks ago I thought okay – I saved all of these old type written papers and I looked and found them.

    All sorts of writings. For children, adults, text book ideas, etc.  With all my many moves, it was remarkable that the old files were not lost over the decades.

    So now I am going to use the advent of technology to put these ideas into books for Kindle.

    Even in the pre-technology days, somewhere in my head I always wished there was some way that would make it easy for me to put my words and my pictures together and you that day has arrived.

    I am so happy that the world of technology has finally caught up with all the things that I’ve always wanted to do!

    So – I am going to write some children’s books

    When you are young, what did you want to do? Did you? Will you?

    Comments?

    Thank you.

  • Your Aging Brain and Scams

    brainIt 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.