We Are Not Sick Because We Are Old, We Feel Old Because We Are Sick
Take back your spry body and pour fresh oxygen on hope.
“Take care of your body.
It’s the only place you have to live.”
- Jim Rohn
Staying in sick mode and feeling lousy is not what we signed up for. Despite facing health challenges during the boomer years, we don’t have to succumb to disease labels without evaluating the why. As long as we are in the repair age, body function can be restored and upgraded.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics show that 25.1% of adults 65 and older report that their health status was fair to poor, in 2019.
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in those 65 and over, according to one other CDC report.
Having this pertinent information in our knowledge base can help us to stay clear of becoming a victim of those statistics. We do not have to give up all sensory pleasures, like delicious food and sedative activities.
But we do have to change course and develop a personal health philosophy. That means we must practice a therapeutic lifestyle on most days of the week. Most days are at least five days in my book. We get two days per week for straying.
My health philosophy is simple, “I want to be spry and live with autonomy and optimal physical and cognitive health until age 113.” Then, when my youngest grandchild turns 50, I’ll be ready to wrap it up.
Here are some things that I do, on most days, to keep decay, decline, and misery out of my body. So far, at age 73, I have managed to stay clear of lasting major physical impairments, but I was pretty close to losing out.
I spent more than a year at the bottom of a rabbit hole, wearing diapers and being out of my regular loop. But fortunately, my body was repaired and restored to about 90% operation capacity. I changed course and developed a lifestyle that put me back in control.
You can adopt the same strategy or tweak your lifestyle as it suits your own needs.
If your current lifestyle is in the dumps, no worries. The body is a remarkable machine that forgives and resets with our slightest positive behavior modification. I did it and so can you. With a new beginning, you don’t have much to lose, but a whole lot to gain.
A new beginning to reclaim your spry body
- Create your personal health philosophy. Be clear on how you want to show up for yourself, your family, and your community. Take charge of your body and hold yourself to a higher health standard than the average person. This is what works for me.
- I start the day with extreme gratitude for my strong and healthy body. In my mind, I see and feel the wonders of my dependable operating system. My imagination allows me to have the body that I want.
- I eat two good meals per day. At times, I have a snack of fruit and nuts in between. This allows the body to digest and metabolize the food already in the gastrointestinal tract before I put more food down the tank. The big WHY here is that this gives the liver the opportunity to do its housecleaning and detoxification job as it was designed to do. The liver is our largest internal organ and deserves respect and consideration. Love your liver.
- I exercise regularly for at least 30 minutes on most days. Swimming, biking, walking, or a jazzercise class are part of the routine. After dinner, I brush my teeth, close the kitchen, and take a stroll around the block with my hubby. The why is to metabolize excess carbohydrates and prevent high blood sugar.
The biggest why here is that this lifestyle combats or improves inflammation, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, brain fog, and lethargy.
The Super WHY is that adopting a better lifestyle will prevent you from reporting having fair or poor health to the CDC. Most likely, it will also prevent you from dying prematurely from heart disease.
“If you don’t take care of yourself, the undertaker will overtake that responsibility for you.”
-Carrie Latet
2. Be aware of how your body feels and operates. Don’t allow minor health issues to creep into your life.
- Look at your body. See yourself in the mirror and know when you look good and when you don’t look good. Think and know why you look that way. Do you see a healthy glow, or do you see someone who needs an extra dose of sleep, sun, fresh fruits and veggies, or some stimulation? Throw yourself a kiss and a smile while you are at it.
- The skin is our largest external organ. It works as a protective shield. Do a daily inspection and check for tears, rashes, ulcers, and molds. Take care of small issues before they grow into bigger issues.
- Get enough sleep. Go easy on the sugar and wine in the latter part of the day. Sugar and alcohol disturb the quality of restorative sleep
The reason that a good, working lifestyle matters is because you matter. You matter, I matter, we all matter. Therefore, we have to give ourselves appropriate and supportive care.
“Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind, and spirit. When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the gate of the soul opens.” — BKS Lyengar
3. Connect to your higher self. Enjoy your unique abilities and do activities that give you pleasure and joy. Know that you are a unique, spectacular human being. You are a star in your own right, but you are also connected to the rest of us. We are all together in this Uni(one)verse.
- Get rid of shame and guilt. These harmful emotions can kill us. You are allowed to be who you are and want what you want in your own life. That also means getting rid of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors where we play small.
- We have a body, a mind, and a spirit. By connecting all three, we become more than the sum of the parts. Life, as we know it, can be fabulous or it can be hell on wheels.
- Keep your mind free from unnecessary clutter. We are responsible for the thoughts that we let into our heads. Make the thoughts positive and let them support your overall health and well-being. I take a few minutes of daily meditation. I am mindful and grateful for the good in the status quo.
Taking responsibility for our health puts us in the driver’s seat. Keeping good health standards don’t take extra time or sacrifice. It is only a matter of prioritizing what works for us and what supports your personal health philosophy.
Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.”
- Mark Rippetoe
Growing old is a privilege that dead people don’t have. My beloved father didn’t, he died from an acute heart attack at age 41. This propelled me into nursing and put me on a cardiovascular prevention track, long, long ago.
For many adults, 65 and over, the aging process can be messy and painful. By being proactive in our own health care, we increase the odds of keeping misery at bay.
Embrace your age and your dreams as long as you can. Do what you can to turn dreams into goals. Include them in your health philosophy. That is how you blow fresh oxygen onto hope and put it on fire. You see, at the end of the day, you and your dreams are what makes it all worthwhile.
If you want to obtain a free E-book on Health & Happiness for the Older Adult, please go to www.northboundspry.com