Living with the Body we have – Aging Consciously

When I was in my forties, I fell – on the way to an exercise class (ha-ha) – and fractured my ankle.  It required three pins to hold it back together.  That was probably my first tap on the shoulder saying, ‘hey, that body is fragile.’  Despite various other ills that came along – rheumatoid arthritis in my 50s, the chronic illness of my husband for years that culminated in a transplant, my knee transplant last year and A-fib this year. I have truly been “blessed,” I think, with good health.  I’ve taken my medication and kept going and doing and mostly felt well.

               When my son and a friend opened a Cross Fit gym, I was sixty-seven.  I attended twice a week for two years.  It was one of the most fun activities I’ve ever done.  The younger members were warm and welcoming and happy to lend a hand if needed.  This is not about saying look at my illness or look at what I did.  It’s about what I understand through experience about going through life and collecting scars and working with what we have.

               There’s a non-profit organization called The American Institute of Stress.  I’m not personally familiar with it, but something it put out online caught my eye…partly because I recognized the truth of it.  It mentioned the “Five Pillars of Longevity: Movement, nutrition, sleep, stress reduction and social connection.”  The Institute was founded at the behest of an endocrinologist often called the “father of stress research”.

               When a pill is the only way to go to live a productive life, then I’m all for taking that medication.  Sometimes, though, I think medicine has stopped looking at cause in the interest of treating symptoms.  That is my rant for the day.  The truth is probably that the healthcare professionals work with a lot of people – many who don’t want to do the work of figuring out a healthy diet plan, or exercise, or learning to de-stress in a natural way.  That’s on all of us.  When we’re working and tired and hurting, we just want it to go away.

               Healthy aging and longevity take self-discipline or a lot of luck, but the Five Pillars above are telling us something about what we want to work toward as we go through life at whatever age. I wear a Whoop band because I’m very serious about maintaining a healthy old age. It’s not about perfect health now. It’s about moving forward with the body we have. The band emphasizes sleep patterns, movement, caffeine and alcohol and stress reduction.  It is up to me then to form social connections that enrich and give color to my life. It is up to me to form habits that reduce stress and make for better overall nutrition. I plan to be considering all of these topics and more as we go down this new road.