Age with grace. Have fun with it!

Many people don’t get it. They think of older folks as a separate species. Do you think that? Fact: they are you in the future. Aging starts when you are born. You only get one body. Take care of it or suffer the consequences.

Are you in your forties or fifties? Don’t FIGHT aging. Embrace it! Now is the time to really focus on what is good for your body if you haven’t done it before now. Better late than never definitely applies here. Even if you are in your late seventies, you can start now to age with grace.

A woman near her sixtieth birthday came to visit us for the first time this past week. She still thinks of herself as ‘young’, and not in need of what we do here. She saw what we do here as serving those who are in the latter stages of aging. She said we needed a bigger television and some rocking chairs! It was all I could do not to laugh. Television and rocking chairs are not what we are about here at Aging With Grace! I understand where she was coming from, however. Her comments reflect our popular culture’s misperception of aging and the aged. Well, it is true that some people spend their latter years in rocking chairs and watching television. But it is definitely not an illustration of HEALTHY aging. Watching television and sitting around all day is the most unhealthy thing that people of any age can do. Bad for the brain, bad for the heart. Do you want to maintain as much of your ability to function as independently as possible as long as possible? Then you must get up and move!

We have some members of our club that use a walker or a wheelchair. Even people who can’t use their legs well can move them as much as they are able and move their arms, torsos and heads and benefit from exercise.

Television viewing is an enemy of healthy aging! Your brain benefits from learning and challenges from others. Face to face interaction, eyeball to eyeball contact has been shown in studies to slow the progression of dementia in those who already have it and to prevent it in those who do not have it at all. Here is Bea’s health tip for the week:

So what else can you do to improve your chances of aging well? Read Aging With Grace by David Snowden. You will learn a lot and you will feel better about healthy aging. Then you can begin your own personal plan for aging with grace 50+. And if you are almost sixty, it is not too late!

May you and yours enjoy this beautiful warm weather that God has blessed us with this week!