This is NOT Mrs. Miller.

What do you think when someone speaks of being “90 years young”?

I’ve always heard that expression as a cute substitute for “old.” Since the expression rarely refers to someone younger than 50, it’s at once an admission of age and a determination not to be categorized.

On NPR’s August 9^th Weekend Edition, in a story entitled “Remember: The Ball is Your Friend,” essayist and “literary activist” E. Ethelbert Miller tells about his 59-year-old wife’s decision to play basketball for the first time in her life. In passing, he mentions that the “challenge” he and his wife face is “being 60-young instead of 60-old.”

So I’m not the only one!

Somehow, the number 60 motivates some of us to stop and ask, “Will I be 60-young, or 60-old?” It seems to be a time for decision:  ”From here on, will I travel down a decline, up an incline, or just try to keep the road as level as possible?”

Trying to keep the road level is to hold on to the status quo, to maintain your standard of living, your present level of health and activity. It is saying, “I can relax now. Life is good; I want it to stay just this way.”

That seems reasonable, but is it possible? Can I hold onto a job using only the job skills I’ve always used? Can I maintain my level of health without exerting some effort? Can I eat the same amount I’ve always eaten without putting on pounds? Can I guarantee that family circumstances will remain the same?

Trying to keep the road level could also be, “Life may not be the way I want it, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” In essence, this is the same thing as choosing to decline.

I try to avoid using expressions such as “at my age” or “I’m too old” as a reason not to try something new. Because somewhere, someone my age is getting on a bicycle for the first time in 45 years, or learning to swim, joining a women’s basketball team or starting a new business. Obviously, age has nothing to do with it.

In last summer’s Olympics in Beijing, 41-year-old American swimmer Dara Torres not only won the gold medal for the 50-meter freestyle event, but set a new world record. Her philosophy? “Age is just a number.”

Does she have to train differently than her younger competitors? Of course. Because there’s no denying that aging causes certain physical and mental changes, even deterioration, beyond our control.

At age 85 or 90, getting out of bed may be the biggest challenge to an arthritis-riddled body. I hope I’ll be blessed enough to find out. Until then, I’m determined not to take the downward slope into old age, nor to accept the status quo.

Will it mean leaving my comfort zone? Absolutely! You can’t reach the mountaintop unless you climb.

What do you think? Is it possible to maintain the status quo without extra effort? Is it foolish to think we can still have our choice of challenges into our 80’s and 90’s?

A couple of months ago I mentioned to a young man – who is in his late teens – that my 87-year-old mother has a Facebook account. His response startled me. It was something like “That’s just sick.”

This is how I interpreted his response: “I can’t believe I would enjoy anything an old person would enjoy. Facebook is for the young, so an old person on Facebook is just not age-appropriate.”

Misconceptions. I extrapolated that reaction into attitudes a lot of us may unwittingly hold, no matter how many years we have lived. As I consider the aging process and observe those who are decades older than me, I am becoming more aware of misconceptions about those we would call elderly.

Photo by Michael Melrose

The misconceptions can begin with this phrase:

“Once you’re over the age of _____”:    [Fill in the blank with your age plus 20.]

1. You’re so set in your ways you couldn’t change if you wanted to.
2. You have no needs beyond being fed and out of pain.
3. You’re content to sit in a room by yourself in an assisted living or nursing facility with occasional social interaction with those of your own age.
4. The desire to have fun and to enjoy new experiences is important only for those younger than you are.
5. Your history doesn’t matter. What’s past is past.
6. You can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be my age. Haven’t you always been old?
7. You don’t mind being dependent on others. After all, you’re old. What do you expect?
8. You’re too old to care about your appearance. Your wrinkles and sagging skin shouldn’t worry you; you can’t expect to be attractive anymore.
9. You don’t mind if I talk about you in the third person while you’re present.
10. You should keep any strong opinions to yourself. They’re sure to be outdated.

I trust none of us would express these misconceptions out loud, but as I move closer to the front of this queue we call our lifespan, I realize how many times I have misjudged, misspoken, and behaved badly toward those whom I would consider elderly.

What I Learned from Abbie Deal. This realization smacked me between the eyes a couple of months ago through the fictional character, Abbie Deal, heroine of A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich. A Nebraska pioneer, she made countless sacrifices for the benefit of her family, resulting in their financial and professional success. Toward the end of her life, though her children loved her, they tended to patronize her and disregard her wisdom. Once, when she began to talk of something that had no connection to their conversation, they decided she was losing touch with reality. In reality, she was standing apart from them, viewing the whole picture, while they could see only the parts.

I can’t expect my young friend, with a remembered history of about 16 years, to identify with an 87-year-old woman who survived the Great Depression and the dust bowl years, with the experiences of her own generation as well as those of three generations to follow.

That’s why the more mature may not need me to defend them. They probably possess enough grace to excuse our misconceptions. They probably have enough experience to understand our misunderstandings. After all, they were our age once.

Talk to me. Am I wrong about what I perceive to be misconceptions? Do you have observations to add?

Did you know that as you age, you are more likely to use both sides of your brain?

In an intriguing report in The Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper, Sarah Hampton cites recent research at Duke University, in which MRI’s and PET scans of the brains of people over 50 showed that when they perform tasks, they use both sides of the brain at the same time. The brains of younger adults tend to be more asymmetrical – one side is more dominant than the other.

This was good news to Dr. Gene Cohen, founding director of the Center on Aging, Health and Humanities at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who has been a gerontologist since his medical school days. His most recent book is entitled The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain.

In Hampton’s interview, he made the following assertions:

• “Aging should not be viewed as a problem.” While we have to accept some physical deterioration with aging, our brains can remain vibrant. The adage “either you use it, or you lose it” still applies to the aging brain. Dr. Cohen suggests such activities as educational classes, writing and book groups, volunteer or paid work and arts programs.
• “Changes happen not in spite of aging but because of aging.” Wow! According to Dr. Cohen, “we have the capacity to produce brain cells all of our lives.” Is that good news, or what? If you’re like most of us, you probably won’t mind being physically incapacitated as you age if you can keep your mental acuity. When we visit a nursing home, it’s not seeing people who need a walker or a wheelchair that troubles us; it’s seeing those who stare into space, unaware of their surroundings.
• As we age, we tend “to dwell on positive rather than negative emotions.” According to the report, brain-imaging studies indicate that while the old and the young process positive emotions the same way, negative emotions are less intense in those who are older.
• “As people enter their 50s, they experience a ‘liberation phase.’” This freedom comes from two realizations: 1) If I don’t do it now, I never will; and 2) “What can they do to me now?” If you’re over 50, you may recognize both of these motivators. I believe some of this comes as a result of living in an empty nest; we are free to pursue our own interests without neglecting our responsibilities to our children.

It seems, from this report, that the wisdom of the aging comes not just from life’s experiences but from a physiological development of the brain. Dr. Cohen calls this moving “into all-wheel drive.” We may not be able to move – or even think – as fast as we once could, but with both sides of our brains engaged, we can climb hills we’ve never climbed before not only efficiently but with energy and enthusiasm.

Pop-up Proverbs are sayings that catch my fancy as I go about my day. Some have surprising sources; all of them have made me stop and think – and maybe smile a little.

#5 – Aging

Grace: “Mother, there’s a splendid new book on avoiding old age. You ought to read it.”
Abbie Deal: “I’m only sixty-two, Grace, and I don’t see any signs of senility. You can’t avoid old age, but you don’t need to think about it.”

From A Lantern in Her Hand, page 221
by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Infancy: Grabbing Independence

My son and daughter-in-law have produced a video of their baby girl’s attempts to crawl. She rocks back and forth, happy yet apprehensive, not knowing quite how to start. She tries, falls on her face, gets up and tries again, while her mother holds out her hands in encouragement. [Cute, isn't she?]

What if she had given up after the 15^th or 20^th or 30^th time she tried? Would she be pulling herself up now, about to walk? Why has she kept on, when each stage is so difficult, sometimes taking weeks or months from when she first tried it?

Why? Because somehow she knows that if she doesn’t turn over, doesn’t keep trying to crawl, or to walk – despite the danger of falling – she will always be physically dependent upon her parents.

Childhood and Adolescence: Slowing Down. Maybe if we could remember through our childhood, adolescence and young adulthood what a struggle it was to gain our physical independence as infants, we would pay more attention to keeping it.

In America, that’s not happening. A study by the National Institute of Health indicates that adolescents between the ages of 9 and 15 decrease their level of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) from 3 hours (180 minutes) per day to 49 minutes per day, with only 35 minutes per day on the weekend. The recommended minimum is 60 minutes a day (2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans). At ages 9 and 11, more than 90% were meeting that minimum. At age 15, only 31% reached the minimum on weekdays, 17% on the weekends.

The Middle Years: Spreading Out. You’ll find a calculator at Discovery Health that estimates your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), the number of calories you’d burn if you slept all day. By entering each age in the appropriate box, you’ll see that at age 21 you burn about 100 more calories per day than at age 41.  That means – at 3500 extra calories per pound gained – if you continue to consume the same calories you did at age 21 -without increasing your physical activity – you’ll gain about 10 pounds a year. [Sound familiar?] At the same time, you lose stamina and strength – not easy to recover.

The Later Years: Feeling the Neglect. We cannot overcome some aspects of our aging bodies. In a study of “Australian independent urban-dwelling women” between the ages of 20 and 89, researchers found that “Age was the most potent predictor of muscle strength, and even the strongest women in each age group were unable to maintain the strength of the young women.”

However. In their comparison of active and inactive women, they concluded that an active woman can have a 10-year advantage over one who is less active. If you’re active, everything’s easier. The stronger your muscles, the less effort it takes to do what you need to do.

Unfortunately, this is often the age when we stop moving. Even at a rate of only one pound gained a year, we’re 40 or more pounds overweight, with hip and knee problems. Often we just don’t feel like it. Been there, done that, and now it’s time to rest.

Maybe we can learn from our youngest grandchildren. They happily engage in the struggle, knowing it’s worth it in order to gain physical independence.

Can’t we work just as hard – with just as much enthusiasm – to keep it?

]]> http://aginginwonder.com/2009/06/10/want-to-age-well-keep-moving/feed/ 5 http://aginginwonder.com/2009/05/27/celebrate-aging/ http://aginginwonder.com/2009/05/27/celebrate-aging/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 16:29:18 +0000 Cheryl http://aginginwonder.com/?p=31

Everyone wants to age, unless they have some kind of suicide wish. When you’re under ten years old, you call it growing up. When you’re a teenager you may say, “When I get older,” but you say it with hope, not dread.

So when does the dread start? At what age do we stop wanting to admit we’re aging? 20? 30?

Remember how when you were 12 you wanted to be 18 and when you were 18 you wanted to be 21? Is that the age when we stop wanting to be older?

In this age of emphasis on the kind of energy that only the very young can have, some people dread turning 30, because they see only a downhill slope after that.

But I believe it’s all in your attitude, which is why I’ve decided that 106 is the age to dread. By then I’m certain to be blind, deaf, toothless and no longer ambulatory. And that’s the year my oldest child will turn 80 years old and may not be able to take care of me any longer.

So go ahead. Try to talk about aging like a teenager would: With hope, with plans for the future. Why not? Because if you’re aging, it means you’re still alive.

Grab your life, shake it up, and drink it with enthusiasm.

Let’s talk about it. What age do you – or did you – dread the most? What are you planning for the future?