Try a sauna? More fun as you age?
Today’s Google Alerts were fun!
Here’s one person’s take on the benefits of sauna use.
And a Psychology Today article on how much fun getting older can be. Your editor would say the author might be overoptimistic on some of the 12 ways we benefit from being older, but you decide!
The Village model in the press! and your lazy editor
We get daily alerts from Google on the topics Healthy Aging and Aging in Place. Lo and behold in yesterday’s updates there was this gem from the Washingtonian: More Older People Are Opting to Age in Their Homes. Here’s How…
And there’s a description of the Village model with examples, which they have plenty of, because DC has something like 12 Villages just in the confines of the city, not even counting the nearby VA and MD ‘burbs where Villages also thrive.
Your lazy editor has been working on a grant proposal and finishing off the OLLI course. The latter ended yesterday with a lot of enthusiasm from the attendees. Their numbers were somewhat diminished as we had to postpone from last Tuesday after yours truly was unwittingly exposed to COVID the previous week, but luckily never developed symptoms and never tested positive. But the conversations, questions, connections made even over a little 3 week course were rewarding.
And yes, we are recruiting for Cville Village planning committee members; it’s getting exciting now as we think about structure and function while doing this grant proposal, in light of the feedback from the course.
Thoughts on aging right
We got a link to this HuffPost essay. Granted, this writer’s experience might be a bit extreme, but much of what she writes sounded oh-so-familiar to us.
As with other life transitions, aging IS an adventure. We’re all of us on a journey to a place we’ve never been before. We have to learn to live with the conditions in which we find ourselves, for instance suddenly single, as with the writer, or coping with physical ailments. This has some parallels with the experience of new parenthood. As much as you might have read about how to look after a new human, there’s nothing like actually doing it to achieve some real understanding.
And we all, but especially we who are farther down the path, also need to stay engaged with the world, with nature (to the extent comfortable), with ideas, with people. Particularly people who are, as they say in Australia, ‘good value’. Someone whose worldview is similar to or at least overlaps your own, who is a good listener, whom you can count on.
With these we can hope to find that sense of well-being to which the writer refers, a kind of reward for taking the journey.
Aging in place just a dream?
In order to age in place, you need – yes, THE PLACE. Housing affordability being what it is, having the place is just a dream for some.
Read about it in this issue of Harvard magazine.
Yes, we’ve been busy with the OLLI course – which had a great 2nd session yesterday and wraps up, hopefully, next week, if your editor does not come down with covid after an exposure last night.
OLLI session 1 review
We got almost all 18 registrants there and just as we’d hoped, they talked! They shared their feelings and fears. They responded to a lot of what we said. We think we were well received, we got some positive comments, and also some good questions that will take some research between now and the next session.
Whoot!
Tomorrow: the OLLI course begins!
We’ve been working hard on putting together a course on aging in place and the Village model that will be fun and thought-provoking. We have 18 people registered for the course. The first session is tomorrow afternoon. Will report back afterwards!
Meanwhile here’s a quick read from the New York Times on aging exuberantly! We must find that book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning or how not to leave your survivors a —-load of stuff to clear out after you die. Our spouse is actually the one who needs to read it…
No party hat, please.
One Washington Post contributor of a certain age – 80s – riffs on some of the indignities of old age.
Enjoy!
A gentle reminder: COVID isn’t over.
Paula Span does it again in today’s New Old Age column, pointedly telling us that it’s our age group who are dying from COVID at the highest rates now. Bafflingly, fewer than half of us have received the bivalent booster, nearly 6 months since it became available.
We recently took a trip to Tucson, AZ, involving 3 flights in each direction, a lot of airport time, and opportunities to see how people in another part of the country are behaving. We can report that most people – whether on planes, in airports, or in shops – are acting like it’s 2019. Few masks are ever in evidence.
So, a plea: Show that you care about all of us. Please get bivalent-boosted if you haven’t. Please wear a mask whenever feasible in public spaces.
Google alerts: we should eat less to slow aging!
Today’s alert email is chockers with links to articles like this:
A calorie-restricted diet may slow aging in healthy adults, research finds
Calorie restriction slows pace of aging in healthy adults
How Eating Fewer Calories May Help Slow Down the Aging Process
Reducing Calories Could Slow the Aging Process
…and more. In fact 8 of the 10 headlines of articles related to our search term “healthy aging” are about the very same study. This is all it takes for us to run to the refrigerator in search of a snack. We are relieved to read further that the study population were aged 21 to 50. This says that the slowing-aging ship has long ago sailed for us. Whew! We can relax! But younger adults might want to pay attention.
CvilleVillage 