Tag Archive for: healthy aging series

Our Country’s Greatest Scourge – Reflections on “It was Me all Along: A Memoir,” by Andie Mitchell | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 2

I am a cyclist. I don’t ride as much as I used to ride because my primary sport is backpacking and I’m usually preparing for backpacking trips to places like the Red River Gorge, the Smokies, the Grand Canyon, Colorado, or Utah.

When I was 55, I rode my bicycle across the state of Indiana in one day. They call it the RAIN Ride. It was on my birthday, and it started in Terre Haute, my birthplace. Pretty cool.

A year later, I flew to DC, took my bike, and rode the Vernon trail from Mount Vernon to DC, about 20 miles. I rode through the District Columbia and hooked up with a couple of local cyclists that guided me to the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, and finally to the Tryst Coffee Chop next to the Madam’s Organ Bar. Also, a cool trip.

It was a memorable trip, because of the conversation that I had with a musician I met near downtown Alexandria, just off the Vernon trail. I had stopped to take a bathroom break and struck up a conversation with a gentleman setting up his glass harp. He shared information about his life. He had immigrated as a young child from Eastern Europe. He told the story about how his father had a problem with alcohol. That they lost the family home and everything they owned because of his drinking problem. “Alcohol is the scourge of this country,” he declared.

My heart broke for him. It’s not the first time I’d heard a story like this. My son’s great-great grandfather lost his ranch to alcoholism.

But I beg to differ with him. 

The Real Scourge in this Country

There’s no doubt that alcoholism is a devastating social problem in our country and in the world, but I have come to believe that there is a more devastating scourge in this country, and that is childhood obesity.

According to the Center for Disease Control, for children 2 to 19 years old, from 2017 to 2020, 1 in 5 are obese or about 14.7 million. We are not talking about being overweight but being obese or having a BMI of over 30. Compare that to the obesity rate of 1 in 20, in 1974, the year I graduated from High School. Some of the reasons for this increase are easy access to high-calorie junk food, few opportunities for physical activity, a lack of parks and playgrounds, and at least one parent who is obese.

Here’s a kicker: obese children and adolescents are five times more likely to be obese adults then those who are not obese as children or adolescents. And obesity can leave emotional as well as physical scars.

I recently read, “It was Me all Along,“ by Andie Mitchell, a story about growing up obese and overcoming it in her early 20s.

One take away that I gleaned from this memoir, and it confirmed my beliefs, was that childhood obesity is a scourge in this country. There is an increased risk mortality in early adulthood for individuals who were obese as children. Obesity in adolescence is significantly associated with increased cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorders, such as Type 2 Diabetes in adulthood. There have been recent studies that show a higher BMI during adolescence increases the risk for several malignancies, such as leukemia, Hodgkin’s Disease, colorectal, cancer, and breast cancer in adulthood. These are some of the physical scars.

Andie Mitchell’s story has a difficult trajectory, but she struggled through years of trauma and shame as a child and adolescent suffering from obesity. 

I want to separate this blog into two episodes. Part one will look at childhood obesity through the eyes of Andie Mitchell. I think it’s helpful not just to look at the data but look at the damage caused by childhood obesity.

Part two will look at Andie’s break up with food. First, what motivated her to break up. I think her break up reinforces everything I write about in this season, and second, how did she maintain her breakup.

Andie Mitchell’s Childhood
Childhood obesity left an impression on Andie Mitchell that has continued throughout her life, even though she’s no longer obese. Obesity changes you and it is difficult to escape the physical and emotional scars.

Andie, in her 20s, had surgery to remove the excess skin that resulted from years of accommodating her obesity. Those scars are with her today at 32. But the emotional scars that obesity left, I’m certain, are deeper and at times painful reminders of her shame, embarrassment, and humiliation. She suffered at a time when social inclusion and acceptance by her peers was so important.

“The boys in my class called me fat,” she writes, “while the girls looked on, smiling.” 

Here’s what she learned as a child and teenager.

“I learned that if I made fun of myself for being fat, then the other kids couldn’t do it first. I learned that being funny, especially with the boys, made it much less likely they’d call me things like “wide load” or “lard butt.”

Recalling those moments, she writes, “The sadness I felt then and even sometimes now blares within me. It’s an all-encompassing, piercing sound – a fire alarm. It shrieks so loudly, I cower. I seek refuge by covering my ears. I think briefly about ducking beneath the stairwell, hoping its shrillness will be muffled if I hide from it. But it finds me always. It finds me when I am in the shower or walking on a treadmill; it wakes me suddenly in the night. It forces me to uncover my ears. And I hear it while trying not to listen to what it means. The pain, the sound – it’s deafening.”

“Eating,” she later rights, “made me forget.”

Through these years, Andie developed a relationship with food. She depended on it, not as fuel, but for companionship, someone to be comforted by and feel connected with. “Food came to exist as the only thing in my life that was mine, and mine alone.“

Andie’s most heartbreaking story happened as a freshman at the University of Massachusetts. I’ll share the story in her words.

“We decided to take a different route back to the dorm and in doing so, passed by a row of off-campus houses, hosting rowdy parties of their own. Inside the house, just ahead of on our right, people could be seen in every window and rap music thundered out of the front door. A group of guys stood out front. Feeling friendly Nicole called out,“Heey!“ As we slowed our stride, the guys turned around, and the tallest one stepped forward, immediately returning Nicole‘s enthusiasm. What are you girls up to? We stopped here on the sidewalk while Nicole explained in her friendly way that we just left  SigEp and that we were on our way back to our dorms. It was a gift of hers to create conversation with anyone, and it seemed her charm had found us a new party to Rock. That is, until one of the guys on the lawn shouted to us. “Hey you!” His eyes were on me. I smiled and started to toss a hello back his way. “No Fatties allowed!!“ It was a swift kick to my stomach.“

There are many, many things that affect us as children. Crooked or discolored teeth, facial scars, or birthmarks, a cleft palate, not to mention skin color, a gender assignment that mismatches with one’s identification, a first or last name, and I could go on and on. 

People can be Thoughtless, Mean, and Cruel

Children, high school peers, and adults can be thoughtless, mean, and cruel. Their actions dehumanize us. They make us into that one thing that is different about us. 

With childhood obesity, children begin seeing themselves as a body, not as a person with feelings, hopes, needs, intellectual gifts, whit, and other amazing interests. Consequently, everything is seen through that lens. They see themselves as powerless to change and learn to hate themselves. They begin to equate beauty with thin and become obsessed with the idea that they will never be beautiful. They begin to hate food. 

Complexes

The inner scars from childhood obesity can run deep. Dr. Carl Jung, the founder of Analytical Psychology describes this as a complex, an unconscious, organized set of memories, associations, fantasies, expectations, and behavioral patterns or tendencies around a core theme, which is accompanied by strong emotion. 

Childhood obesity develops a complex within a child’s unconscious that possesses and controls them throughout their life, which can lead to neuroses, depression, and self-loathing, if not treated . 

Getting Help with Obesity

Andie Mitchell got help from a therapist and a nutritionist. They didn’t heal her because individuation, the process of becoming your true self, is a lifelong process. She lost weight, changed her relationship with food, changed the way she looked at food and is now helping people through her website, “Can You Stay for Dinner.“

Part two will come later in the season and look at how Andie broke up with food and maintained that breakup for years.

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Breaking Up (with Food) is Hard to Do – The Mark Neese Version | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 1

[Verse 1]
Don’t take my food away from me!
Don’t you leave my stomach in misery?
If it goes then I’ll be blue!
‘Cuz breaking up (with food) is hard to do.

[Verse 2]
Remembering how it taste so good.
I even dream of full plates of food.
Think of all that we’ve been through.
And breaking up with food is hard to do!

[Chorus]
They say that breaking up with food is hard to do,
Now, I know, I know that it’s true!
I lost some weight, but now it’s back!
Instead of breaking up, I think I’ll have another stack (of cookies)!

[Verse 3]
I beg of you, don’t say goodbye!
Why can’t I have another piece of pie?
Come on, donuts, let’s start a new!
‘Cuz breaking up (with food) is hard to do!

[Chorus]

They say that breaking up with food is hard to do
Now, I know, I know that it’s true!
Why can’t I keep off all those pounds!
Instead of breaking up, I think I’ll have another Mounds (Bar)

[Verse 4]
I beg of you, don’t say goodbye!
Can’t I have another order of fries?
Come on, sugar, let’s start anew!
‘Cuz breaking up with food is hard to do

The original “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” is a song recorded by Neil Sedaka, co-written by Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. Sedaka recorded this song twice, in 1962 and 1975, in two significantly different arrangements, and it is considered to be his signature song. -Wikipedia

Why is it so hard to lose weight AND keep it off? 

You know the drill. Over the course of 3 or 4 years, you put on an extra 20 lbs. You get tired of seeing yourself in the mirror. You muster up the motivation to start a weight reduction diet, something healthy like the Whole 30 Diet. There are several healthy diets, but the Whole 30 has worked for me.

You set a goal to lose 20 lbs. and give yourself 8 to 12 weeks to lose those pounds.

You struggle. You experience diet fatigue. You add an exercise regimen to the weight loss plan. And slowly, you lose the weight. As each week goes by, you’re amazed that your clothes are fitting better and you’re able to wear clothes that you never thought you’d wear again. You feel great. You’ve been able to show discipline over your appetites and control over food.

Now comes the depressing part. 

A year later you gained all the weight back. All of it. In fact, you settle in at the same weight that you were when you started the diet.

And this isn’t the first time you’ve done this. You’ve lost weight before. Six months or a year later you’re back at the same weight. It feels like a yo-yo.

There are some that refer to this weight that you always come back to as your Set Weight Point (SWP).

There was a recent Ted Talk that attempted to explain the SWP. The speaker explained that the SWP is mostly genetic and is “hard-wired” into our bodies. 

“The set point theory says that the body will settle at a specific weight where it likes to be,” says MD Anderson Senior Exercise Physiologist Carol Harrison. “And it will defend itself so that it stays at this specific weight.”

“The set point is established over a long period of time,” says Harrison. “It’s a very complex thing, but it appears that it is your body’s attempt to regulate itself, and that attempt results in a certain weight.”

I want to propose a different way of looking at SWP. Your SWP reflects the kind relationship that you have with food.

Your SWP reflects the patterns and routines that you develop with food over the course of your life. These patterns include what you eat, how much you eat, where you eat, how often you eat, who you eat with.

Food comforts us. It brings us pleasure. Much of our social life revolves around food. We think about it even when we’re not hungry. We eat when we are angry, or sad, or happy. We have an emotional attachment to food.

At times, we have a toxic or dysfunctional relationship with food! And it’s a difficult relationship to change. 

If you want to change the how, what, when, where, and why about food, then you must change your relationship with food.

Maybe we need to have a “break up” with food and by break up I mean changing how we live our lives with food.

Think about being in a toxic friendship. You can’t simply keep seeing the person, talking to them, and spending time with them and then expect that it’s going improve without addressing the things about that friendship that make it toxic.

Maybe your relationship with food isn’t toxic but, at a minimum, it’s dysfunctional.

This season was originally intended to be one episode in Season 9 but as I read and wrote, the episodes grew and there will be at least 12 episodes. 

I’ve included several episodes from “obesity memoirs,” from people who struggled with obesity, had a breakup with food and maintained that breakup.

There are two books that I devoured (sorry for the pun) during my reading this season. One helps you change the way you think about food and yourself, “The Beck Diet.” And the other is “Dopamine Nation,” which will help you understand that you can be addicted to food.

In Episode 3, I explain what it means to have a dysfunctional relationship with food.

In Episode 5, I explain why is so difficult to break up with food.

Starting with Episode 7, I give several cognitive-behavioral strategies that will help you in the breakup process.

In Episode 2, my next episode I share an “obesity memoir” entitled, “It was Me all Along,” by Andie Mitchell. A wonderful story about a woman’s breakup with food.

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Healthy Aging Series: Season 9 Preview…and It’s My Birthday!

Healthy Aging Series: Season 9 Preview…and It’s My Birthday!

It’s my birthday! I turn 67 today. And I’ve got lots to talk about. I want to talk about myself, of course, and about my upcoming season in my Healthy Aging blog, Season Nine. First about me. 

This past weekend I did my annual hike to the top of Mount LeConte in the Smoky Mountains. I did 11.6 miles in five hours. That’s about 27 minute/ miles. I did 3000 feet of elevation with an average heart rate of 126 bpm. I took the next day off and recovered well. I feel good. I’m back in my weekly routine of 8 to 10 hours of activity per week. Walking 30+ miles. Resistance training 2 to 3 times weekly. 

I had lab work done this past week. My PSA was good. Check. Kidney functioning good. Checked. Cholesterol was all within the good range. Check. But… no not everything is good. I woke up in the middle of the night on July 4 with an excruciating pain in my big toe, and maybe you’re one of the few who wouldn’t have guessed it but yes, I have gout. My doctor said that my uric acid was in the high normal range, but I needed to go on a low purine diet. I’m writing a blog in titled, “My Big Toe Saved My Life,” because I am learning about uric acid and its effects on longevity. I’m going to be fine.

It’s good to take a snapshot of your life on your birthday. I’m pleased with where I’m at.

Season nine will be a mini season with five episodes related to Healthy Aging. There’s no question that a major part of healthy aging is weight management. Being overweight, or obese are contributing factors for many ailments that plague us as we age, including Type 2 Diabetes, heart disease, strokes, sleep apnea, body, pain, and difficulty with physical functioning like walking. Weight management is crucial for a high quality of life as we age. I’ve written a miniseries in titled “how to have a breakup with food.”

In Episode 1 I’ll share my understanding of Set Weight Point. Your set wait point is the weight you always return to months after you’ve taken off weight. I’ll provide a different approach to set weight point that is determined more by your relationship with food and less by genetics. Thus, the reason why I am suggesting a “break up” with food.

Episode 2 explains why it’s very difficult to break up with food. As an example, one reason that it’s so hard to break up with food is because it’s everywhere and abundant. No more hunting and gathering. I’m sitting at McDonald’s on Bardstown Road as I write this blog. Not only is food, convenient, easily accessed, and cheap, you don’t even have to leave home to access a sausage biscuit with egg because Door Dash will bring it to you.

Episode 3 and 4, will share strategies to ensure that you break up and maintain your breakup with food for years to come. One strategy is thinking differently about food. I’ll share strategies from Judith Becks book, “The Beck Diet solution: Train your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person.”

Episode 5 will explain the Self-Binding process of weight management. I’ve taken this procedure from Dr. Anna Lembke’s book, “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence.”

An example of self-binding would be limiting your eating window to, let’s say, eight hours. That would mean fasting for 16 hours. Typically, people skip the morning meal which we called breakfast. Breakfast is the meal that breaks our fast, so you’re not skipping breakfast, but delaying it until 11 AM or 12 noon.

That’s season 9. It’s a shorter season and one that I think will make a difference in your life and in my life as we age.

During my break between seasons, I started reading the classic, “The Road less Traveled,” by Scott Peck. The first line of the book is “Life is difficult.” He might as well have said “Aging is difficult.“ I wonder if maybe we’ve forgotten that. 

I’ll write a blog about this book in season 10 or 11. Life is difficult. Peck writes that most of our mental health issues come from our unwillingness to come to terms with that. 

Life is difficult. Aging is difficult.

Peck offer strategies for coping with that reality. I am offering some strategies that will help you as you come to terms with the fact that aging is difficult.

I hope you join me during this season. 

Start taking snapshots of your life. What do they look like?

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

How to Find Your Own Mr. Miyagi | Healthy Aging Series: S8, E10

This blog references “Triumphs of Experience”: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study,”  Written by George E. Vaillan

“Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good. Balance, bad, better pack up, go home. Understood?” Mr. Miyagi

“First learn stand, then learn fly. Nature rule, Danielson, not mine.” Mr. Miyagi

“Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life must have a balance. Everything be better.” Mr. Miyagi

“Never trust spiritual leader who cannot dance.” Mr. Miyagi

Mr. Miyagi represents the mature, aging man or woman. The quotes above, to Daniel, are from his many  years of experience, learning from good and bad decisions, learning from being out of balance, learning from the mistakes of trying to fly without, first, knowing how to stand, and from learning to follow leaders, who did not know how to dance. There was a maturity about Mr. Miyagi‘s words to Daniel-San.

Mr. Miyagi represents the image of a focused, giving, and wise, aging adult.
Do you know any Mr. Miyagi‘s? I can name a few. But, maybe a more important question is: How do you find a Mr. Miyagi? What does a real Mr. Miyagi look like?

The Harvard Grant Study

We’ve been looking at the Harvard Grant Study. George Vaillant, in his book, Triumph of Experience,” gives us a snapshot of maturing, aging men. This is my last blog on the Harvard Grant Study. The details of this study document the lives of 268 men, starting in 1937 and following them through to 2010. In the last blog of this season I want to focus on what it means to be a maturing, aging adult. I want to share two life task that indicate that an adult is maturing or getting wise.

What did Vaillant discover from examining the lives of 268 men as they aged? Vaillant writes that, “In a sense it was their ability to transcend decay and maintain human dignity, despite the ravages of mortality.“ What Vaillant discovered was that those men, who had completed certain life tasks, aged well.

Life Task One

The first task he calls generativity or what I would I call, “giving back.” Vaillant defines generativity as a capacity to foster and guide the next generation to independence. It means giving back or paying forward, for the guidance and mentoring that others gave to you.
I can name a few that gave back by giving to me. Bill K. Ken N. Clifford V. Allen N. And I can recall many, many others that I chose to keep unnamed. Men and women that shepherded me and shared their lives with me. They were my Mr. Miyagi.

Life Task Two

Valent list a second task which he calls Integrity, and I call “letting go.”
“How do we maintain hope,” he asks, “when the inevitability of death is staring us in the face?”

The answer is letting go.

In some sense, it means divesting yourself of the things that you have fought so hard to keep, like your home, your health, or your things.

Betty Neese was my Mr. Miyagi

In this sense, my mother was my “Mr. Miyagi.“ More than anyone else, she has helped me come to terms with the process of dying. She did not appear to have a shred of fear of dying. When I asked her what she thought about being 60, 70, or 80, she responded “I love the age I am right now. I would never want to be younger.“ What words of wisdom! She taught me to let go. She was my Mr. Miyagi.

Finding You Mr. Miyagi

How do you find your Mr. Miyagi? Maybe they are already in your circle of friends, family, or acquaintances.

First, look for someone who is a giver.
Has an older person invited you to coffee or to walk in the park? Is there an older person that inspires you to be a better person?

Second, look for someone that is letting go.

Look for someone who has started loosening their a hold on the reins of this world. Look for someone who values the inner world, and not just things. Find a Stoic.

Stoicism is a philosophy of life that teaches us to stop wanting more things, and start learning to value the things and people we already have.

I think, as we age, and as we mature, we begin divesting ourselves from things, and we begin looking for ways of giving back. We begin looking for ways of letting go of the things that have given us so much meaning in our lives, and investing in others.

Many of the men from the Harvard Grant Study accomplished these two tasks: giving back and letting go.

Maybe the unasked question is: Are you becoming a Mr. Miyagi for a “Daniel“ in your life? If not, begin learning balance. Begin learning how to stand, and then learning to fly.

And then, begin learning how to dance.

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Live Life While You’re Alive, No One Will Survive | Healthy Aging Series: S8, E9

This blog features “It’s All About Me,” by Mel Brooks

My father hated the fall. “Everything is dying,” he would tell me. He wasn’t a pessimistic person. He didn’t complain a lot about getting older, at least not to me. He was proud of his nine children. He loved his 25+ grandchildren. But fall, I’m guessing, reminded him that, as Mel Brooks wrote in his recent autobiography, “No one will survive.”

I’m reminded of this often. News headlines. Car crashes and shootings. Family members facing terminal illnesses. The loss of a close friend or loved pet. You look at the mirror and you see your father’s or your mother’s face. The trend lines on your blood work slowly point downward. And you realize that you’re slowly dying. Sorry for the negativity.

OK, what do you do with that epiphany? Mel Brooks‘ advice is live life while you’re alive! I heard him give this quote while being interviewed for his new book, “It’s all About Me!“ Which he wrote, when he was 95 years old. I decided to read the book. Here are my takeaways from his book:

1. Mel Brooks followed his bliss. I borrowed this phrase from Joseph Campbell when he was interviewed by Bill Moyers and was asked what advice he would give to young people today and his answer was: follow your bliss. Mel Brooks found his happiness and success by following his bliss. His bliss was making movies. “Movies,“ he writes, “rescued my soul.“ I think that some people misunderstand what it means to follow your bliss. It’s not like a stroll in the park. It’s not the 10% rule, which says that you only need to “show up.”  Following your bliss means hard work, persistently paying the price, and never giving up. Look has something to do with it. Brooks writes that “you never know when and how a stroke of luck is going to come and cross your path.“ Following his bliss put Brooks into situations that made it seem like luck, but luck resulted from all the effort that it took to follow his bliss.

“I worked hard,“ he writes, “and I conquered my fear of the empty page.“ He never took no for an answer. He would never have found his bliss if he had never followed it. 

I followed my bliss, my passion, and I started working, in the helping profession 40 years ago. That was my dream as a young man. At the time I completed several internships. After graduating, I worked as a therapist for almost nothing, barely making $10 an hour. But I did it because I loved what I was doing. Forty years later, I love what I do I have found my bliss because I followed my bliss. Live while you’re alive.

2. Brooks learned one of life‘s most important lessons: he learned to stand on his own two feet. Credit his time in the army during World War II for helping him grow up. The military can do that. He did it to me. I spent a year in Texas, a year in Ohio, and two years in Korea. A long way from home. No hovering parents. OK, maybe a hovering drill sergeant. I tell the parents that I’m working with that soon, very soon, the school of hard knocks is going to kick in with their teenager. And then, that’s when real growth happens. The “learning to stand on our own two feet,“ comes, not necessarily books, or from time in a classroom. Most of our learning experiences come from outside the classroom, in the trenches, and because of the challenges that life presents to us. Brooks learned from every experience and everybody! From Neal Simon, he learned “that every second counts in comedy.” Even at 95 he continued to learn!

3. There would be no Mel Brooks without his friends. Specifically, he writes at if there had never been a Sid Caesar, there would never have been a Mel brooks.
He describes Carl Reiner as the best friend anyone could ever have. Brooks recalls the long walks he took with Woody Allen and the refreshing chatter that they had on those walks after work. His 40-year marriage with Anne Bancroft was a constant source of creativity and support. If you’re going to live while you’re alive, friendships matter, and if you let them, your friends will help craft you into someone that otherwise would not have been. We live in a culture of rugged individualism, where we are taught to be self-sufficient and need no one. But we need to remember the somewhat corny song by Barbra Streisand that says, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world,“ and the pronouncement that “No man is an island entirely of itself.”

I think living life while you’re alive, means seeking out new friendships and nurturing the friendships that you have.

I loved this book, and Mel Brooks has become my new hero. When asked “What is the secret to living a long life?” He responded, “Don’t die!” 

I love it.

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Alcohol and Aging Bodies

Alcohol is Poison: At Least That’s What Some Experts Are Saying | Healthy Aging Series: S8, E8

Pat Morita, who played Mr. Miyagi was an alcoholic, and his alcoholism contributed to the loss of his health, the loss of a career, and eventually contributed to a shortened life. 

We looked at his life in a previous blog. I want to expand this topic of alcohol and aging and see what light the Harvard Grant Study sheds on it. Later this year, I will expand the topic of alcohol and aging by looking at the effects of alcohol on the brain, on sleep, and on our aging body. 

What did the researchers from this study discover about the effects of alcohol on aging when they looked at the men of the Harvard Grant Study? Let me first state that the study did not find significant issues with social drinkers. In fact, 72% of the social drinkers lived to be 80 years old, but there were two lessons that we learned from the effects of alcohol abuse.

Two Lessons on Alcoholism and Aging

Lesson One: Alcohol prematurely ages the body.

Of the 54 identified alcoholics in the study 19 or 35% were dead at 70 and only three lived or were alive at 80. “Their average lifespan,” Vaillant writes, “had been 17 years shorter than those of their social, drinking study peers.” 

I listen frequently to a podcast called “The Huberman Lab.” In a recent episode, Dr. Huberman, a neurologist, I asked the question: What does alcohol do to your body, Brain, and Heart. I did not enjoy this episode because throughout the episode, he referred several times to alcohol as a poison. But as I’ve reflected on the podcast, and as I’ve investigated the research, and I’ve concluded that he is right. Alcohol is a poison. There I said it. And again. Alcohol is a poison. Here’s what researchers say:

First, if you only consume one or two drinks daily, you will lose white and gray matter in your brain as you age. 

Second, consuming alcohol interferes with the brain-gut axis. We are only beginning to understand the role of the gut microbiome, but more and more evidence suggests that the relationship between the brain and gut is very important for our overall well-being. How does alcohol affect the gut? Alcohol consumption alters various chemical processes in our bodies, and creates a disharmony between our internal systems, including our brain  as well as our nervous system, and digestive track.

Third, alcohol affects our sleep architecture. I’ll speak more about this in upcoming blogs.

Forth, consuming alcohol increases our sleeping heart rate. I have been meticulous about following my heart rate over the past few months. I’ve been on an alcohol sabbatical and have noticed a dramatic decrease in my resting heart rate. Even one drink affects my sleeping heart rate.

Lesson Two: Alcoholism and Aging Marriages.

It’s difficult to determine a single cause for divorce. Marriages and long-term relationships are complicated and the reasons they fail are numerous. Add to that, the issues of aging, religion, and economics. They are complicated. The Harvard Grant Study looked at the effects of alcohol abuse on marriages. Of the 59 divorces that occurred throughout the study, 33 marriages or 57% occurred when at least one spouse was abusing alcohol. Vaillant writes, “It looks very much as though alcoholism within marriages often caused not only the divorce, but also caused failed relationships, poor coping styles, and evidence of a shaky mental health.“

Alcoholics Anonymous, The Big Book

If you want to understand the effects that alcoholism has on relationships and on people’s lives, I suggest reading Alcoholics Anonymous or what has been called the Big book. I reread it again this week. It gives you a glimpse into the life and death struggles that alcoholics have with alcohol. 

Vaillant writes, “Prospective study has consistently shown alcoholism to be the cause, not the result, of many personal and social problem. Alcoholism is the cause, not the result, of unhappy marriages. Alcoholism is the cause of many deaths, too, and not only through liver cirrhosis and moto vehicle accidents -suicides, homicides, cancer, heart disease, and depressed immune system can all be chalked up to this serial killer.”

Whole 30 Diet and Alcohol

I started the whole 30 diet the week before Christmas. If you’re not familiar with this diet, it involves not drinking alcohol during that 30-day period. As I write this blog, I’ve completed five weeks and I’ve lost 15 pounds. There are other factors that helped to include: one hour a day of exercise. No sugar added to any food. No grains. No dairy. And time restricted eating which is also called. Intermittent fasting. I’ve lost weight and feel better. Is it because of abstain from alcohol? Maybe. I’m not sure how to interpret the data, but my hypothesis is, most likely.  I recently listened to a podcast that discussed the topic of dopamine and how chronic alcohol use can affect our dopamine levels, which, of course affects our mood. Therefore, I’m going to extend my whole 30 lifestyle through the rest of this year at least the abstaining from alcohol part. I’ll consider this a one-year sabbatical from alcohol. I’ll share my progress and results in upcoming blogs.

To see more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Image of men standing in the woods

How to Channel Your Parents (When They’re Gone) | Healthy Aging Series: S8, E7

“Kevin!” I’ve seen the movie (Home Alone) a 100 times and I can conjure up the scene where Kevin’s parents realize that he’s not on the plane while it’s on its way to Paris. It’s a cute movie. Kevin is “Home Alone.” No parents, no family members, and no Buzz. And let’s not forget the two completely incompetent burglars. There is, of course, a cartoonish feel to it. Somewhat “roadrunneresques.” Lots of laughs.

Life isn’t so cute and funny when, during your life, you lose one or both of your aging parents. Then, you and your adult siblings are left alone without the anchors that your parents provided all those decades in the past.

Every family is different.

Some of you lost your parent or parents when you were we were young. Some lose a parent that was not the wished-for anchor that you needed or those parents that struggled with mental illness, addictions, and their own abandonment. Some of you had to be your own anchor and had to parent yourself. And some of you have no siblings.

My Family

I’m writing this blog primarily for people who have siblings and have lost their aging parents. I have eight siblings. Our ages range from 61 to 75. My father died in 15 years ago and my mother died in 2015. Both were anchors for us. And now we are “home alone“ without those anchors.

Step up and be the sibling that channels your parents

Are there any rules for older siblings when their parents are gone? Or maybe just simple suggestions to keep from drifting “out to sea” so to speak. I think so. Think of this as a way of channeling your parents. What would your parents want? How did they hold things together. That’s what I mean by channeling. Start with this:

First, be the brother or sister that reaches out and becomes a new and different anchor for the family.

We can reach out and pull the family together in a text thread, keeping everyone informed about what’s happening with each of the brothers and sisters. One of my siblings had a medical crisis this past year and we were able to stay informed and  we were excited when they made a full recovery. That brought us all together and we saw all the love and concern expressed in the text.

Some examples of Anchors

We can reach out and pull the family together in various ways. Start with a Google photos file that the siblings can share with each other. We have one called Neese Fam. This month seven of us got together and shared pictures. The two siblings that live out of state were able to view the pictures. Facebook can also be a way of sharing. Some of my siblings do not use Facebook and some people prefer to keep family issues and photos private. We can reach out and pull the family together by having lunch, making a phone call, or having a camp out at the local campground. I hear people complain that they never hear from family members. I often remind them that they have a phone and maybe they should consider making the phone call.

The second suggestion involves agreeing to leave politics and religion at home.

There are nine of us and we have a lot of different views of religion, and a lot of different views of politics. Our country is polarized, and families must be militant to keep that polarization out of their get togethers. Make it a rule: no politics and religion. There is plenty to talk about! At our last get together, we talked about health issues. When senior adults get together, those get togethers usually turns into an “organ recital.” You know what I mean: talking about body organs, like the prostate, the ears, the heart, and so on. We gossip when we get together. Gossip can be good when done right. It’s a way of sharing what you know about family members that others may not know. Of course, avoid being judgmental, but it can pull family members together.

The third suggestion is to learn to compromise and find a consensus.

I’m so proud of my family. Both of my parents wanted to be cremated. As my father’s next of kin, my mother had to sign the agreement to have him cremated. When my mother died, she had nine next of kin, and some of my siblings did not like the idea of having her cremated.  The document was passed around at the local restaurant where we met, and everyone signed it.

The fourth suggestion is to forgive and forget.

This means the sins of omission and commission. Nothing pulls members apart like hurt feelings. I was able to do the eulogy at my mother’s memorial service. If there was any person that was justified in holding a grudge and holding resentments, it was my mother. I’m not listing details but take my word for it. Here’s what I told the gathering at her memorial service.  “Our mother,” I preached, “didn’t let stupid shit rob her of her peace and serenity.” She didn’t let it push her family members and friends away. Most family members get upset, get their feelings, hurt, and become estranged because of stupid shit. It’s usually about religion or money, or sex and almost always forgivable. Everyone thinks, the offense against them is unforgivable, but put yourself in the offender shoes. If you want forgiveness from others, then forgive others of the stupid shit they do to you.

Channeling Your Parents

Most of us have parents that were strong and important influences in the lives of their children. They were anchors.
What I’ve been talking about is providing the same affect in our families that our parents provided for us when they were with us. These suggestions are in some ways channeling your parents because that is most likely what they did for the family when they were living.

Channeling a parent, be it your mother or father is what you do when you take on the role as a surrogate anchor, or leader, for your family. It doesn’t matter who does it. Anybody can channel their parents. You channel your parents by being the kind of person that would promote the things that they promoted when they were living. Nothing would make them prouder!

Post Script: I channeled my parents this past weekend. It was Easter Weekend. I orchestrated a one-night backpacking trip into the Hoosier forest with three of my brothers. It was a wonderful weekend.

We talked about our parents. We talked about our children. We told stories about growing up together.

We laughed as we struggled to cross a stream. We shared our freeze-dried meals (Coconut Curry Chicken.) We sat and stood around the warm campfire and gossiped!

No Politics. No religion. Just Love. Just what Mom and Dad would have wanted!

To see more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

The Real Mr. Miyagi: How to Die Badly! | Healthy Aging Series: S8, E6

He described himself as a unique drunk. He could work almost every day, and no one would know it.”

“I’m drunk almost every day.” Pat Morita.

Mr. Miyagi. I’m guessing most of you have heard his name. He taught Daniel LaRusso karate in the three karate kid movies. Such a great character, and Pat Morita did a wonderful job bringing that character to life.

I’ve written about Daniel and Johnny in the Karate Kid/Cobra Kai Series. Both of them are petty, resentful, jealous of each other, egocentric, and basically really immature. Mr. Miyagi, on the other hand is portrayed as the wise sage. He is in the “giving back“ stage of his life. His story is about the early rivalries and losses during World War II, and how he rises above them, and becomes a man of peace and tranquility. It seems like the Bonsai trees are the metaphor for his life.

That is Mr. Miyagi. The story of Pat Morita is a much sadder story. I became interested in his life and watched a very good documentary, “More than Miyagi: The Pat Morita story.” Marita had what he described as an abandoned childhood. He gave up his dream of attending college and medical school, to follow his parent’s dream of working in their Chinese restaurant. Later, he did stand-up comedy and had several TV roles, including a part in the series, Happy Days. And then he got his big break with Karate Kid.

What the general public did not see but what Marita confesses is that he was drunk almost every day throughout his adult life.

He described himself as a unique drunk because he could drink almost every day, and no one would know it. He died at 73 from kidney failure . The last decade of his life was filled with a steep decline in health. He was practically penniless due to his two failed marriages and his inability to show up for work commitments. I encourage you to watch the documentary.

I’ve been writing blogs on healthy aging, and refer back to the book, “Triumphs of Experience,” by George Vaillant. It’s a book about the Harvard Grant Study, which was a longitudinal study of 268 men that began when they were 20 years old and students at Harvard. The study followed them until they died. I’ve looked at the overall lessons from the study, and I’ve  shared the predictor for successful aging (having healthy adult relationships when you’re 47 years old) and now I want to look at what predicts longevity or living to 90.

What predicted that the men of the Harvard grant study live to 90 years old? I want to know what those predictors are! Are there things that I can do or not do that will increase my chances of living to 90 or 95 years old?

There’s no question that there are things completely out of our control that affect longevity.

Heredity and the predisposition to various illnesses like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease affect longevity. Ancestral longevity plays a role in your longevity, but not as much as you think.

Five things that we learned from the Harvard Grant Study about living a long life!

The factors that contribute to a decrease in longevity are more lifestyle related. Vaillant spotlighted five risk factors or as he lists them, Vascular Risk Factors. Here is the checklist. Check off the boxes that apply to you!

  1. Smoking.
  2. Alcohol abuse.
  3. Hypertension.
  4. Obesity.
  5. Type 2 diabetes.

“Men with no vascular risk factors,” Vaillant writes, “lived to an average age of 86. Men with three or more, live to an average age of only 68. This complex of factors subtracted 18 years from a man’s expected life.”

The Bad News

Did you check smoking?

Throughout my studies on aging, smoking is the king of bad behaviors. Thirteen Hundred people die each day in our country from cigarette related disorders. If you smoke, do everything you can to stop now. There are several strategies for stopping. Smoking will contribute to a shorter life span and also to a very difficult “Marginal Decade.” If you haven’t followed my past blogs, the Marginal Decade is your last decade and if you haven’t prepared for it, it could be a very difficult 10 year for you. Nothing ruins your life like COPD!!

Did you check Alcohol Abuse?

Although alcohol related deaths per day are significantly less,  it is still 260. I remember, many years ago, selling a car to an acquaintance that had an alcohol problem. I was such a tragedy. She died a year later from her alcohol abuse. It happens. Alcohol abuse shortens your life.

Did you check obesity?

Obesity has become a very serious health issue in our country. The U.S. obesity prevalence was 41.9% in 2017 through 2020. It’s difficult determining the number of annual deaths attributed to obesity because of other overlapping disorders like type 2 diabetes, but a conservative estimate was, 300,000. That’s about 820 deaths per day from complications related to obesity.

Did you check hypertension or Type 2 Diabetes?

Untreated hypertension and type 2 Diabetes contribute premature death that can be avoided, to some degree, by wise lifestyle choices.

Marginal Decade

In a previous blog I introduced you to the concept of marginal decade. The marginal decade is your last decade, and it has the potential and prospects of being the most difficult in your life.

You have a chance now to make decisions and make lifestyle changes that will improve your quality of life and increase your chances of living to 90. In the documentary on Pat Morita, alcohol abuse took at least 10 years away from his life. It’s interesting in the first karate kid he gets very intoxicated, which is in some ways a very tragic way of mirroring the life of Pat Morita, the real Mr. Miyagi.

To see more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

How to Escape the Rat Race | Healthy Aging Series: S8, E5

This blog will examine the work, “The Country Chronical,” by Gladys Tabor

I love sleeping in a tent, especially when it’s raining. I’ve had a few unpleasant experiences camping. Mostly I love it. I’ve slept through a blizzard in the Sierra mountains. Woke up to a foot of snow. I’ve slept through a “no see him“ infestation in Utah. I think mosquitoes are worse. And I’ve slept through a 14° night on the Knobstone trail in Indiana. I had to thaw my boots to put them on the next morning. Backpacking has always help me escape the rat race as you get older. Don’t you just crave peace and quiet?

Isn’t it nice to get away from people, and your computer, and traffic. That’s a big one for me. Getting away from your job, and people, and the news, and have I mentioned people? Backpacking is one way I get away from all that. Hiking is another. Sitting in my easy chair with a good book is yet another. I’m escaping now as I write this blog.

My male kitty, Hansel, is stretched out on the floor in front of our gas fireplace. I can hear him purring from several feet away. He looks up periodically and then jumps up on the arm of my chair and kisses my nose. I love his nose kisses! All of this calms my nervous system.

I think I learned how to escape from my mother.  A recent study that I read on aging suggests that as men age they are influenced more by their fathers and then by their mothers. Maybe. But I feel my mother’s legacy even now, as I slowly approach 70.

You might not believe what I’m about to tell you, but she introduced me to some books by an author, Gladys Tabor, when I was a teenager, and I read them, and I loved them! I asked for them before she died, and I cherish those early memories of reading them. I guess they helped me escape the rat race of adolescence, even just a little. Gladys Tabor left city life in 1935 and moved  into a vintage 1690 farmhouse she called Stillmeadow. I think my mother moved out of the city when I was 14, in part, because of Stillmeadow.

Through my four years of high school, we lived on a 20 acre farm. She named Terre Boon, which means the good land. I’m sure she thought it was going to be harder for me to get into trouble when we lived on a farm. Not impossible but harder. I reread “Country Chronicles,“ this past evening. It’s a journal of Taber’s first full year at Stillmeadow. It was written in 1974 when she was 85 years old. Country Chronicles is written in four parts, based on the four seasons, starting with winter.  I really can’t tell you what the appeal was when I was a teenager and first read these journals. They are the insights of an older woman and her life with her good friend, her children and her cocker spaniels. She writes about her meals, her neighbors, the snow, her house, the fresh smells of the country and the chores around Stillmeadow.

I randomly opened Country Chronicles to page 62 and here’s what Tabor wrote:

“On a clear day, toward the end of winter, the sky is forever. It loses the flat look of a bitter cold days, and seems to have a special promise. Even the birds fly differently, in widening circles instead of huddling. The air smells of melt instead of ice, and the buds on the lilacs are freshly varnished.”

Gladys Taber loved country life and shares tidbits of her “philosophy of life” throughout her books. Many of them were written during the Vietnam war and have an activist feel to them at times.

Here are some of the things that drove her to leave the rat race, and pursue country living:

  1. She writes a lot about the Vietnam war, and the effect that it had on relationships. I think her comments are somewhat appropriate in this very polarize time that we live in today. She writes, “The Vietnam war has been blamed for many things, and I suspect it had something to do with personal isolation, therefore, we now tend to keep conversations superficial in case that other person does not agree with our policy. We keep our cool, as we say, by talking about the weather.” I find myself in today’s rat race withdrawing and keeping my topics on small talk.
    2. Tabor worried about the loss of farmland and about progress. She wonders, “what the next hundred years will bring is not predictable. But I hope the basic personality of our town may survive with some woodlands and meadows left, some streams, still rippling with trout, some winding country roads unpaved.“ I think this is still relevant today.
    3. Clocks. Tabor hated clocks. “Within our society,” she writes, “we all watch the clock, nevertheless. They are clocks in almost every room in the house, and practically everyone wears a wrist watch. Radio and television announce the time hour after hour, to be sure, we know exactly what time it is.” Part of the rat race is being at the mercy of the moment, and at the mercy of time, and at the mercy of schedules. Maybe unplugging means leaving your wrist watch and your smart phone at your bedside for a day or two.
    4. Tabor loved her pets! She writes: “I stand firmly on my belief that both dogs and cats give richness to life, and both have been invaluable to humankind down through the ages.” Pets were a large part of her life, and I’m sure helped her have a sense of getting away from the rat race.
    5. For Taber, happiness was a choice. “I believe happiness,” she writes, “is simply reaching out for something lovely and believing in it. All of us need some magic in our lives, and all we have to do is believe in it.” Later she writes, “It may be that happiness is as simple as accepting what we are, and never envying those who seem to be endowed with other gifts.”
    I think that part of the rat race that we create for ourselves, is the competition that we create for ourselves with other people. Tabor reminds us that life is not a competition and maybe it’s as simple as appreciating the magic that is around us.
    6. Being grateful. By the time she wrote this book, she had lost her husband, but instead of feeling pity, she practiced gratitude. “I think,” she explains, “when we find so much to complain about, we should spend a little time, adding up what we have, and being grateful. I myself never open a box of tissues, without being thankful. I am not boiling up squares of linen.” I am not sure what, “boiling up squares of linen,” means, but it must not be one of her preferred activities.
    7. Tabor had a rather old fashioned idea of parenting. Maybe this is why my mother was drawn to her. She believed that mothers should stay home and take care of their children. I think in today’s world, the application of Taber’s old fashionness should be interpreted as: parents spend as much time as you can with your children. The rat race acts as a siren, pulling us away from our partners and our children. We should realize that those wonderful moments with family are in fact, a way of escaping the rat race, which soothe our sakes.

I think we can safely say that Stillmeadow rescued Gladys Tabor from the rat race. Maybe Stillmeadow can rescue you as well even though her books are difficult to find because they are out of print.

Or maybe you can escape by taking a walk or hike in the Jefferson Memorial Forest, or The  Parklands. May be reading sci-fi is a way for you to escape. Or adventure novels.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s time to move to the country.

To see more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

 

The Healthy Aging Series by Mark Neese at True North Counseling

How to Finish the Race of Life | Healthy Aging Series: S8, E4

This blog will continue examine the work, “Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study,”  written by George E. Vaillant.

How do we sucessfully finish the race of life? 

Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence see life as a competition. Johnny is “jelly” because Daniel has a beautiful family, a very successful car dealership, and frankly Johnnie thinks Daniel believes he’s better than everyone else. Johnnie, is it an alcoholic and has a strange relationship with his son, and doesn’t have enough money to pay his rent.

They spend the first five or six seasons, literally fighting each other, miserable, and both languishing out the year. They not only failed to flourish, but failed to thrive. They both seem confused about what it means to flourish and what successful aging looks like.  The Harvard Grant Study followed 268 men (the study, included a number of the other men that were part of the study, called the Inner-City Study) throughout their lives in over a period of 85 years.

Instead of depending on Johnnie and Daniel’s idea of aging, let’s look to this study and consider what the Harvard Grant Study determined as flourishing.

Decathlon of Flourishing

From age 60 to 80…

  1. Included in Who’s Who in America
  2. Earning income in the Study’s top quartile
  3. Low in psychological distress
  4. Success and enjoyment in work, love, and play since age 65
  5. Good subjective health at age 75
  6. Good subjective and objective physical and mental health at age 89
  7. Mastery of Ericksonian task of Generativity
  8. Availability of social supports other than wife and kids between 60 and 75
  9. In good marriage between 60 and 85
  10. Close to kids between 60 and 75

Take a look at this picture of aging. Keep in mind that this is not about longevity. We will look at longevity in our next blog. This is more about quality of life. If you’re like me, you’ll immediately dismiss the first two criterion, income and professional status. In my opinion, these do not always equal flourishing in our modern world. But the last four or eight assessments they boil down to:

1. Psychological well-being. Generally speaking, this criteria means good coping strategies and mental resilience.

2. Physical well-being. This means the ability to do the things that most people need to do to take care of themselves. This would include shopping, chores, self-care, and other things that we call activities of daily living.

3. Social supports. I think this means our connectivity to people, family, and friends.
Flourishing simply put means doing well, physically, mentally, and socially.

What Predicts Successful Aging?

The Director looked at several factors that contribute or were possible contributing factors to successful aging. I’m not going to go through that lengthy list of things they looked at, but I am going to share one identifying factor that strongly predicted successful aging. Can you guess what it was? Of all the factors that they looked at, which included things like: a warm childhood, overall college, soundness, and coping strategies, the fact that predicted successful aging, the most, was the ability to find and maintain friendships at middle age.

When the study looked at the Decathlon of Flourishing, finding and maintaining friendships had the highest predictability for scoring high on this standard for successful agent. Here’s what the study did. They took a snapshot of men at age 47 years old. Those men who had developed friendship skills flourished. Here is my take away: the skills that you need to maintain good friendships, are also the skills that promote healthy aging, or help you flourish as you age. It isn’t necessarily the friendships that lead to flourishing but the skills that you need to maintain those friendships.

So what skills promote making and maintaining adult friendships? Here is my list:

1. The ability to tolerate other people’s opinions.

The world is full of opinions. I reminded of the saying that I overheard often while in the military: opinions are like assholes, everyone has won it. And I might add: everyone is entitled to their opinion. Learning to tolerate, appreciate, come, and respect the opinions of others serves as a type of Teflon for your sake, and is essential for good friendships.

2. The ability to see other people as multi-dimensional beings.

Labels are a curse to friendships. No one is just Democrat, Republican, Christian, Muslim, atheist, mother, or father. No one is just one thing. We are all multifaceted, multi-dimensional people. People are complicated. We are better equipped to age and flourish if we see everything about the people in our lives.

3. The ability to forgive and forget when people have wronged us.

Friendships are healed by forgiveness. People who do not or cannot practice forgiveness become prisoners of the resentments. I know that forgiving others isn’t easy but harboring, resentment, and anger almost always turns into depression. If we can learn to forgive others, we can learn to forgive ourselves from that internal cancer that eats away at our sake.

4. Being generous with yourself, and with your things.

Your friends need you and benefit from the gift of yourself to them. I never loan money to a friend or family member. I give them what I have as a gift. My friends, my family, my world, is better, I am better, when I give them all generous portion of my cell.

5. Seeing everyone as a peer.

Nothing disarms, others better or more effectively than treating them the way you would want to be treated. Nothing disarms others better or more effectively then treating them the way you would want to be treated. We live in a world of status and we are made to feel less than others because of that. I have two masters degrees, a license, and several certificates, but everyone I meet I treat like a fellow traveler, fellow, struggler, and a fellow explorer. I’ll never forget the interview of Norman Lear when he was 93. The interviewer asked him how he maintain his youthfulness and he responded “I treat everyone like my peer.”

6. Being humble.

Putting others before yourself. This is a hard one, but egocentrism, self-centeredness is a constant threat to our friendships and to us. Learning to think not what your friends can do for you, but what you can do for your friends is a skill that promotes peace and harmony.

7. Balancing being a giver and a receiver.

There must be a balance in a relationships in the world. We cannot always be the giver, and we cannot always be the receiver. Those who are always giving become bitter, and those who are always receiving become a burden.

8. Reach out as often as you can.

You cannot have a relationship with others if you refuse to initiate your get togethers. Pick up the phone. Send a text. Set up a coffee, date or dinner, or a walk in the park. Reaching out ensures that you experience the richness of others. It allows others to infect you with their hope, optimism, and love.

9. Avoid giving unsolicited advice.

Stop giving your family, friends, children, spouses, partners, neighbors, employees, and for that matter anyone else unsolicited advice. Giving unsolicited advice is a subtle form of disapproval. It’s a subtle form of being judgmental. People hate it. You become a conditioned punisher, and people will avoid you. There is that old principle that I have heard many, many times that applies to this and all other friendship, skills, and it’s this: live and let live.

If you want to be a person who is aging successfully, then look at your life and determine what your adult friendships look like. I think as we age, we tend to be more intentional about our relationships and therefore we don’t linger with relationships that are toxic or dysfunctional. But we do nevertheless, have friendships and those friendships will indicate how well you age because of the skills that you have used to maintain these relationships.

Friendship skills are, in essence, successful aging skills.

To see more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.