At 83 years young, Madeleine Gough is in superb health. She lives by herself, carries a full schedule, and mentally, she’s at the top of her game. How is she able to maintain this lifestyle at her advanced age? No one ever told her she couldn’t. “I was always taught that I could do anything I wanted,” says Gough. “So, I did.”
In between managing all of the John Hancock offices west of the Mississippi, practicing voice, and earning a doctorate in metaphysics, Gough found time to get married, develop long-term friendships, and volunteer for causes that are important to her. At age 58, when most people consider retirement, Gough changed careers and became a hypnotherapist. Since then she has maintained a full-time practice seeing clients in her home office five days a week.
Gough’s combination of pursuits, interests, and activities would tire out the average 30-year-old, but they’re evidence that a large part of aging (and the limitations that come with it) is in our heads. Indeed, most of the biological decay we call aging is the body’s natural response to the convenience-driven, fast-food lifestyle of the 21st century.
“Seventy percent of aging is voluntary,” says Chris Crowley, co-author of Younger Next Year (2005, Workman Publishing). “Some things you’re stuck with—your basic maximum heart rate goes down a little each year, your skin and hair get drier, your libido goes down—but 70 percent of aging you can manage by how you live your life.” Things like how much you exercise, what you eat, how you stimulate your brain and how involved you are with other people, are the fundamental signals that run every cell in your body and brain. In fact, experts claim your “real age” is how old you are biologically based on how well you’ve maintained your body—not your age according to the calendar.
Eat for Life
Think of your body like an engine, a machine. The higher-octane fuel you put into it, the better it’s going to run. So consider what your internal machinery might look like two hours after you eat a double-double with fries and a chocolate milkshake: Painfully slow blood flow, hardened arteries, sludge-like movement. It’s not pretty!
Instead of dieting, which most people fail at anyway, just quit eating the obvious culprits and start loading up on fruits and vegetables. Sure, it’s easier said than done, but it is possible. “People who have four cups of fruits and vegetables a day can demonstrably lower their blood pressure and reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease,” says Ralph Felder, M.D., Ph.D., author of the Bonus Years Diet (2007, Putnam).
Felder’s book focuses on seven foods (red wine, dark chocolate, fruits, vegetables, garlic, fish, and nuts) that work both individually and synergistically to reduce the risk of heart disease. Eat these foods regularly, he claims, and you can add an average of six years to your life.
“The dark chocolate and fruits and vegetables lower your blood pressure. Garlic and nuts lower LDL cholesterol. Fish helps protect against cardiac arrhythmias, blood clotting, and inflammation,” says Felder. “Together these foods help protect the endothelium (the Teflon-like coating around your blood vessels) and reduce the risk of heart disease.”
And while eating heart-healthy foods won’t make you look like Paris Hilton, it will reverse the aging process internally. “With enough money, you can always look good on the outside,” says Felder. “Reversing the aging process internally is much more difficult.”
Get Moving
Research shows that most women gain one to two pounds every year after 30. Unfortunately, that’s not the only figure change that sets in as we age. Muscles get flabby (remember Aunt Edna’s wings?), balance and coordination get shaky, and jeans become increasingly snug. The good news: you can stave off—and even reverse—some of these changes if you work out and build resistance.
“If you exercise hard six days a week, plus a few other things, you can be functionally the same person at 50 almost until you die,” claims Crowley. “Hard exercise sends different messages to your body—messages that override the default to decay.”
Think of muscle like a ham steak with intramuscular marbling. The more you reduce that marbling, the better blood can circulate throughout your body and to your organs, where it’s needed most. What’s more, when your heart rate jumps to 60 percent, your blood chemistry changes, becoming anti-inflammatory instead of inflammatory, which helps prevent everything from heart disease and stroke to cancer and diabetes.
Just don’t forget to strength train. “Every year after 40, we lose an average of 0.3 to 0.5 percent of our bone mass,” says Crowley. Using your muscles to lift weights, perform squats, or do sit-ups stresses the bones in a controlled manner, preventing demineralization. And when your belly and back muscles are strong, you’re more likely to maintain your balance on an uneven sidewalk, to say nothing of the effects on your posture (and propensity to shrink as you get older).
Mind Games
Perhaps the best way to walk tall into your senior years is to fill yourself with positive energy and emotions. In fact, a growing body of research shows that putting a positive spin on any situation floods the body with feel-good chemicals that actually boost your immune system. Of course, negative energy has an equal and opposite effect, wreaking havoc on your health and taking years off your life.
“Nothing ages a person faster than a negative attitude,” says Donna Fremon-Powell, a certified guided imagery therapist in La Habra, California. “Anger, jealousy, hate, resentment, all of these emotions, produce a chemical that’s very similar to arsenic. Simply put, your negative emotions are poisonous.”
Fremon-Powell isn’t suggesting you ignore difficulties and walk through life with your head in the clouds. Rather, pay attention to where you direct your energy. Instead of focusing on traffic, your growing debt and your never-ending to-do list, take a deep breath and when you exhale release the stress or upset by blowing it out. Then imagine yourself in a beautiful, soothing place or with someone you love. A routine part of Fremon-Powell’s guided imagery practice involves having clients imagine themselves in a calming place that brings them joy and pleasure.
“One of the easiest ways to create feelings of peace, gratitude, and wellness is by using your imagination,” claims Fremon-Powell. “Stress promotes aging and cell death, so it’s important for people to know how to calm themselves. Spending even two minutes a day imagining yourself walking in a beautiful meadow or standing under a warm waterfall enhances the body’s natural healing abilities.” And when you imagine your favorite place, you can paint the scene any way you like.
Let’s Talk About Sex
With dwindling hormones, given a choice between sex and vacuuming, for most seniors, the carpet wins. But if you can effectively sidestep your vacuum, sex can boost your immune system, reduce stress, and keep you trim and healthy to boot. And studies show that for men, ejaculating more than five times a week can reduce the risk of prostate cancer.
“Your sexuality is part of your general health—if you don’t use it, you will lose it,” claims sex educator and internationally best-selling author Lou Paget. As the author of the best-selling book How to be a Great Lover (1999, Broadway), Paget helps people of all ages use their sexuality for optimal health. Her argument: We take care of our health with food, vitamins, even unnecessary medications, but touch is a huge part of what it means to be human. Our tissues need to be stimulated to promote blood flow and lubrication.
Your body changes as you age—hormone levels dip, lubrication dries up, and sensation falls flat. And more often than not, outside influences (like medication or a stagnant marriage) also interfere with our sex drives. “Part of great sex, and great aging, is being willing to experiment, try new things and continue learning about yourself and those around you,” says Paget. “There are many things people can do in a partnership—whether it’s with toys or just new ways of being together.”
Think of your sexuality as an appetite—much like your appetite for food. “There’s comfort food and there’s comfort sex,” says Paget. “But you don’t want to always feed your body the same thing.” Your taste buds in your mouth dictate what will take care of that appetite and the nerve endings in your skin and body will tell you how to take care of your sexual appetite. Sometimes—especially as you get older—you’re just not hungry, and that’s okay, too.
Social Hour
Far more important than an active sex life is building and maintaining social networks. “We’re hard-wired to be connected,” says Crowley. “Every advanced structure in our brain depends on interaction with other people.” And yet society is making it increasingly easy to live in isolation—a sure-fire way to age fast. Crowley’s solution: Default to yes. When someone invites you to do something or asks for help, say yes.
That’s one strategy Gough has down pat. Even at her seemingly advanced age, Gough is constantly out in the world, making new friends, trying new things and re-discovering herself. So whether she’s being asked to manage offices all over the country, sing on stage in front of a packed theater, or help someone overcome their self-esteem issues, Gough’s response is usually yes.
“This world is a school and every person you encounter offers an opportunity to learn a new lesson,” she claims. “If you look at life on Earth that way, aging brings enlightenment—and the wrinkles just make you look more astute.”
What’s Your Real Age?
The secret to a long, healthy, age-defying life: Live right! According to Michael Rozien, MD and Mehmet Oz, MD, founders of Real Age, your “real age” is determined by your lifestyle—not your birthday. The two longevity experts developed a system that applies statistical methods to more than 125 different health factors. Using these health factors, they came up with a series of questions (things like how much your weight fluctuates, how much you exercise and whether you smoke). Answer the questions honestly, and not only will you know your real age, but you’ll also have a good idea how to bring it down a few notches.
Visit www.realage.com for details.
Top 10 Hit List for Anti-Aging
Want to ski the double blacks and climb the Rockies when you’re 75? Do these 10 things and your odds of garnering a long, healthy life increase exponentially.
1. Eat Whole Foods Chemicals, preservatives, artificial ingredients. Who needs them? Ditch boxed, packaged and convenience foods in favor of whole foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish.
2. Apply What You Learned in High School Physics A body in motion stays in motion. Keep yours moving if you want to extend your life.
3. Do Some Heavy Lifting Strength training not only keeps you from hunching over as you get older, but it also helps prevent osteoporosis.
4. Touch and Be Touched Research shows that babies who aren’t touched don’t thrive. Adults suffer from the same effect. No significant other? Book a massage.
5. Default to Yes Longevity experts agree that maintaining social networks is critical as we age. The more activities, groups, and classes you’re involved with, the better (and longer) your life!
6. Help Others Volunteering for causes that are important to you—or even just allowing a friend to bend your ear—can give you a mental boost and promote feelings of gratitude.
7. Live in the Moment Experts claim that focusing on the here and now, and taking life one day at a time, helps you stay present, grounded, and calm.
8. Take a Mental Retreat Spending just a few moments imagining a peaceful scene floods your body with feel-good chemicals that reduce stress, boost immunity and promote healing.
9. Breathe Monitoring and focusing on the breath is a healing mechanism that has been used for centuries. Take a deep breath in, sip in as much air as you can, and slowly sigh it out.
10. Think Positive Our thoughts create our lives. Enough said.
This article appears in November 2008.
