Want To Max Out Your Longevity and Do It In Good Health? Good Luck – You’re On Your Own!

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Let me whip this dead horse again.

Our healthcare system isn’t.

It’s a disease-care system. And there’s little chance it will ever do much more than dispense medical advice and fix the downstream problems without bothering to look upstream.

Or, as I’ve said before, it’s a system well trained in mopping up the water but untrained, and uninterested, in turning off the spigot.

If you learn how to turn off the spigot, then you don’t show up ’cause you don’t need fixing. The whole system falters and takes the pharmaceutical industry with it.

I hear what you’re thinking – TV without drug commercials? If only!!

But, I’m 55 and I want to make it to 100!!

Doable.

But, you’re on your own!

The knowledge is out there for those of advancing numbers to live better and longer. Just don’t go looking for it in our hallowed health/disease-care system.

Let me show you how bad it is.

I’m turning again to Dr. Ken Dychtwald of the Age Wave organization for help. Here’s what he revealed about our so-called medical excellence in the U.S.A. in a presentation last month. (See the full presentation here). 

  • 126 medical schools in the U.S. – only 16 with full departments of geriatric medicine. 
  • 85% of graduating physicians will have graduated without taking one course in geriatric medicine.
  • In the U.S. – 55,509 pediatricians; 4,278 geriatricians.
  • Lowest paid physicians: geriatricians. Highest paid: cosmetic surgery.
  • Medicare: not user-friendly, incomprehensible.
  • Federal spending per person per day:
    • Defense: $5.75
    • Medicare: $5.27
    • Medical research: $0.29

Another qualified source, Dr. Robert Lustig, a retired pediatric endocrinologist and author of “Metabolical” points out that the average physician receives 7.9 hours of nutrition training across four years of medical school. 

Has your primary care physician ever informed you that the number one cause of early death in the U.S. is – wait for it – DIET!! He/she knows it – but is not paid to tell it.

So, let’s call it what it is – a serious disconnect – and move on.

Move on to what?

To being the CEO of your health.

Sound daunting? Time-consuming? Not so much, relative to the value.

The idea of 35 trillion cells somehow working together to keep each of us vertical sounds pretty complex – and it is. Beyond comprehension actually.

But the care and feeding of that miracle aren’t all that complicated so being the CEO of your 24 x 7 x 365 immune system doesn’t require heroics.

But it does demand a mission, a discipline, and a process.

But, wait, isn’t that behind any success?

A Starter Kit

Here’s a starter kit to get you on your road to CEO.

Reading (in this order): (NOTE: these are paid links. If you buy the book through the link, I earn a small commission – about enough for half a cup of Starbucks lousy coffee).

On-Line

  • The Longevity Advantage (interviews with, and articles leading names in research on longevity – developed and managed by my friend Scott Fulton)
  • AgeWave – Dr. Ken Dychtwalds’s site offers research, articles, and videos on aging and health and wellness.

I’m reminded of a statement by neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez. In his book “The Mindbody Self: How Longevity is Culturally Learned and the Causes of Health Are Inherited” makes an important point when he says:

“We inherit millennia of wisdom on how to achieve optimal health. Rather than mechanical products of our genes, we are the coauthors of their expression. With few exceptions, illnesses are only genetic propensities, not inevitable disruptions waiting their time to unfold.”

In other words, we start life with a birthright of good health with those 35 trillion cells somehow kludged together into this amazing 24×7 immune system that works its butt off to keep us healthy. That’s our inheritance.

Through our culturally-influenced lifestyles, we choose to screw that up. Through our ignorance and inaction, we actually teach ourselves how to be sick.

Except, that is, for those who have donned the CEO hat.

Let your thoughts be known with a comment below. We value your input.

More people now want to live to 100 or beyond. What’s up with that? Three thoughts from a future centenarian.

Nausea was a common reaction.

Derisive laughter and/or a cocked eyebrow were givens every time.

That’s what happened when I began to trumpet 5+ years ago, as I approached 75, that I was planning to live to 112 1/2.

Even my explanation for the unusual number didn’t allay the negative reactions to the prospect of living that long.

I set the target at 112 1/2 because I felt I would need another third of my life to get some things done that didn’t happen in the first two-thirds, which, by the way, were substantial.

Nearly everybody I shared my nutty goal with was repulsed by the idea.

I found it to be an effective tool to drive a stake into a lagging dinner conversation with my age cohort – conversations that more times than not evolve into “organ recitals” enumerating myriad aches, pains, surgeries, pending surgeries, and who is the latest to have developed Alzheimer’s.

My announcement wasn’t, and isn’t, an attempt at any form of sensationalism or “hey, look at me.” I set the target with the acquired awareness that there is no biological reason that anyone shouldn’t live to 100 or beyond.

Why not me?

After all, Madame Jean Calment of Arles, France set the benchmark for us and reinforced the possibility by living to 122 years and 164 days. Just because we can’t seem to get past 65% of that full-life potential, on average, doesn’t mean 100 or beyond isn’t a reasonable goal.

I wasn’t surprised then when a 2009 Pew Research Study revealed that only 8% of Americans expressed a desire to live to 100. A decade later, Dr. Ken Dychtwald reported in his book “What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age”  that only 22% of Americans say yes to the idea, with the number dropping to only 17% for those over 65.

But what did surprise me was when a short time later, another Dychtwald report – which  I referenced last week – points out something different entirely.

That report determined that, on average, 61% of retirees said they want to live to 100.

Why the reversal?

Is this faulty research and reporting or have attitudes toward aging shifted suddenly.

Let’s cut some slack for Pew Research and Dychtwald’s AgeWave organization. They’ve been doing extensive research in this field for decades.

So, what’s behind a shift in attitude away from nausea to welcoming.

I welcome your thoughts on what may be behind this. As you collect them, let me offer up three that come to my mind:

  1. The pandemic and its aftermath have turned on some lights. A sudden face-to-face encounter with the fragility and uncertainty of our mortality has cast a different light on the fleeting nature of time and the importance of finding a higher purpose and deepening relationships as we age. Maybe the helter-skelter scrambling lifestyle hell-bent on accumulation and built on shallow relationships and stressful, health-sapping work stress isn’t resonating so well. Maybe we are seeing some abandonment of all that in favor of wanting to make more out of what remains.
  2. The Betty White syndrome. Poor Betty tripped and fell right at the finish line, but weren’t we all rooting for her to make it? She and the growing number of healthy centenarians being publicized have begun to change attitudes toward hitting 100, demonstrating that getting to 100 doesn’t have to be about dementia, drool, and Depends or wheelchairs and walkers.
  3. Wisdom is taking hold. Perhaps we’re beginning to subscribe to the notion that it’s never too late to start and always too early to quit. Even though we may have screwed up our front nine with marginal lifestyle habits, we’re committing to a back nine/second half built on healthy, life-extending habits with the awareness that the body has amazing recuperative powers and is inclined to pay back in kind when provided with what it needs to function optimally.

A caution.

Don’t forsake today.

Even though I put 112 1/2 out in front of me, I’m increasingly aware of the essential nature of carpe diem and the dangers of living outside of today, be it in the past or the future.

Today is all we have.

Share your thoughts on this, please. Leave a comment below or email me at gary@makeagingwork.com. If you haven’t, join our email list and receive articles like this each week at www.makeagingwork.com. There’s an archive of over 200 articles there for your browsing pleasure.

Retirement: Blessing or a curse? The jury has returned. But it’s still hung.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Imagine it’s your first-time meeting with a certified financial planner, a financial services veteran with a string of acronyms after his/her name.

Imagine the conversation going like this:

“Welcome, so glad to meet you. I’ve been looking forward to having this conversation with you. It’s a great day for me when I can help another couple hop on the trail of false expectations and backward logic. So, let’s talk about your retirement goals.”

OK, that conversation won’t happen. He/she didn’t get that plush office and wall full of certification plaques by telling the whole story.

But, maybe it should happen because that type of conversation would come closer to reality than most of the conversations that go on in those financial planner offices.

Retirement Kool-Aid

We’ve been buying into retirement as a blessing ever since clever insurance salespeople determined that the idea of escaping from work into a world of freedom and relaxation with a healthy allowance for fun is a pretty easy sell. Especially when you can package it up with the government’s authorization of instruments like IRAs and 401ks as pensions fade away.

So, we’ve been drinking the full-stop retirement Kool-Aid for about five decades – to the point that the concept has become a pseudo-entitlement that is virtually unassailable.

I’ve shortened and put the dagger into the heart of more than one lagging dinner conversation amongst my age cohort by suggesting that retirement is an unnatural and illogical act with many hidden downsides.

They will agree, however, that their financial planner (if they have been smart enough to have one) has not revealed some of the hidden downsides of full-stop retirement, such as:

  • 5-16% increase in difficulties associated with mobility and daily activities.
  • 5-6% increase in illness conditions.
  • 6-9% decline in mental health.

Or, that:

  • 20% of Americans 65 and older suffer from moderate to high levels of depression.
  • Men over 65 take their own lives at double the overall suicide rates and men age 75 and older have the highest suicide rate of any age group.

Nor will they share the backward logic of the full-stop retirement concept:

  • Retirement didn’t exist anywhere on the planet 150 years ago, doesn’t occur in nature, doesn’t exist in cultures with the highest average lifespans, and is built around a concept that, by definition, means to “go backward.”
  • A lifestyle built on leisure leads to decay and goes against our basic biology/physiology.
  • Work has been determined to be a key component of healthy longevity.

Despite all this, a surprising percentage of boomers and early GenXers continue to buy the 20th- century linear-life model of 20 years of learn, 40 years of earn, and 20 years of retire/relax.

An important missing part in these conversations is that it is very difficult to save enough in those 40 years to support 20 years of doing nothing, not to mention that the stress and bad lifestyle habits that occur during that “bust the hump” period don’t bode well for that final 20 being a healthy period.

The average retirement savings by age, according to 2019-2020 Federal Reserve SCF data isn’t very pretty:

  • 18-24: $4,745.25
  • 25-29: $9,408.51
  • 30-34: $21,731.92
  • 35-39: $48,710.27
  • 40-44: $101,899.22
  • 45-49: $148,950.14
  • 50-54: $146,068.38
  • 55-59: $223,493.56
  • 60-64: $221,451.67
  • 65-69: $206,819.35

Fewer people are going to get to the numbers the financial planner’s charts and graphs say is necessary to sustain a healthy retirement.

And, speaking of health – – –

It’s an unfortunate fact that, in the U.S., the average time spent in ill health for our elderly is the highest for all developed countries at 12.5 years, a really big chunk of that coveted 20. Do you suppose part of that comes from the stress of trying to meet false expectations?

The retirement planning disconnect

Dr. Ken Dychtwald and his Age Wave organization teamed in 2019 to explore people’s hopes, dreams, and concerns in retirement. Together with The Harris Poll, they conducted a groundbreaking study of more than 9,000 people across North America to understand more deeply what it means to live well in retirement.

The report, entitled “Longevity and the New Journey of Retirement” is a very comprehensive report that is a worthy read.

There are numerous takeaways from the report. I want to emphasize one in particular: the attitude toward preparedness for retirement and the lack therein.

The chart from the report pretty well says it all:

Financial planners are not equipped or interested in addressing three of these four gaps.

Blessing or a curse?

So the jury that is this report tells us that retirement is a curse for over 30% of retirees and a near-curse for another 20%.

We can do better with this third-third of our lives by recognizing the four pillars above and planning ahead for them.

“Suicide By Lifestyle.” Can We Get Any Better At This Art Form in America? Yes- Here Are Five Suggestions.

Image: Flotsam/Shutterstock.com

Suicide by lifestyle.

Now there’s a term that seems appropriate for today’s America considering our lifespan is receding and our healthspan tends to be pretty stinky relative to its potential.

I couldn’t ignore the phrase when I came across it in a new book I’ve just started – “The Body: A Guide for Occupants” by Bill Bryson. (Paid link).

I wish I had coined it. But, alas I’m left with having to steal it.

You’ve probably heard of  Bryson. He’s been around a while and is renowned for the extent of the research behind his writing and his incredibly creative style and ability to make huge complex topics easy and fun to read.

 

It takes a while –

If you’ve been following my diatribes for a while, you will understand why the phrase got my attention. Here’s how Bryson used it:

“And how do we celebrate the glory of our existence? Well, for most of us by eating maximally and exercising minimally. Think of all the junk you throw down your throat and how much of your life is spent sprawled in a near-vegetable state in front of a glowing screen. Yet in some kind and miraculous way our bodies look after us, extract nutrients from the miscellaneous foodstuffs we push into our faces, and somehow hold us together, generally at a pretty high level, for decades. Suicide by lifestyle takes ages. Even when you do nearly everything wrong, your body maintains and preserves you.”

If he’s anything, Bryson is a realist.  He reminds us that 5 of 6 cigarette smokers won’t get lung cancer. Most prime heart attack candidates don’t have heart attacks. Every day, between one and five of our cells go rogue and become cancerous only to be captured and killed by our immune system. He states: “Cancer may be a common cause of death but it is not a common event in life.”

-but we’re getting better at shortening it!

Hey, we’re Americans and not inclined to settle for the status quo. So we are getting better and better each year at accelerating the suicide.

But, we could do even better.

Here are five simple tricks to supercharge this strange mission:

  1. Make sure that each meal comes encased in cardboard, plastic, or styrofoam, comes through the side window of your car, and has no fewer than five unpronounceable ingredients.
  2. Subscribe to Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Peacock, YouTube TV, Hulu, HBO Max, ESPN Plus, Starz, and do each one proud with your viewing time. (P.S. If you are over 65 and retired, the bar you need to clear is already set high – 49 hours a week on average. Be patient – it will take some effort but you can get there! A voice-activated remote is essential for this to happen.)
  3. Cancel your library card, give away any unread books, swim in the Fox News/CNN/MSNBC (cess)pool, and go all-in on #2.  Oh, sorry, did I forget to mention adding Facebook to this mix? Good to start your day there.
  4. Avoid athletic clubs, never take stairs, and continue to drive the 2 blocks to the mail kiosk. Sell the rusting upright bike/treadmill/Total Gym/weight bench in the basement and reinvest in (a) wider-screen TV; (b) yard maintenance service; (c) any of those in #2 that you’ve overlooked.
  5. Go underground. Avoid any heavy human interaction. Keep your circle of acquaintances small and closely aligned with your ideology and theology. Avoid thoughts outside either of those bubbles.

I don’t profess to have a corner on ideas in this area. If you have some other “accelerator” ideas, drop me a note. I’ll make sure you are properly accredited.

You’re Over 50. Heads Up – Your Intelligence Is Crystallizing. (if you’re lucky!)

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

Did you know that we go through two stages of intelligence across our lifespan?

I didn’t either until I came across a conversation between Chip Conley and Arthur Brooks.

As you may recall, I’m a big fan of Chip Conley, entrepreneur, author of “Wisdom at Work” and founder of the Modern Elder Academy. I’ve written about Chip before:

Be Part of the “Modern Elder” Movement

I’ve also been following Brooks, social scientist, musician, columnist for The Atlantic, and past president of the conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.

When I learned that Chip was interviewing Arthur, I figured there might be some magic.

And there was.

I’ve included a link to the 49-minute YouTube interview below that I hope you will find the time to watch. You’ll be glad you did. It has life-changing content.

Two intelligences; two success curves

Drawing from his new book “Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life”, Brooks notes that we experience two different forms of intelligence during our lifetime. 

Accompanying those different intelligences are two success curves if we choose to pursue them:

The first success curve is the Fluid Success Curve which Brooks describes as when our analytical capacity is highest, our entrepreneurial ability the keenest, our ability to answer questions the quickest. It grows fastest in our late 20s and is most likely highest in our early 30s. Then a decline starts in the late 30s, accelerates through our 40s, and is in the tank by our 50s.

It explains why most successful entrepreneurial startups happen at or around age 31.

Maybe you did something with your Fluid Success Curve – I’m afraid I slept through mine.

But there’s hope for those of us who missed or have moved beyond that curve because there is a bailout.

It’s called the Crystallized Success Curve and it picks up momentum in your 40s, gets really high in your 50s and 60s, and stays high in your 70s, 80s, and 90s, assuming the neurons and synaptic connections don’t go south.

Whew!

In Brooks’ words, when we have crystallized intelligence, we aren’t so good at coming up with new ideas but really good at taking other people’s ideas and bringing them together into a coherent whole, or telling stories that other people can’t see, or teaching, or figuring out what stuff means, or forming teams.

The biggest takeaway: most people don’t know that the Crystallized Success Curve exists.

If we modern elders figure it out, he says, “the world is our oyster.”

Why? Because that’s where the greatest, most satisfying, and joyful success exists –

– and you get to keep it for the rest of your life. 

That’s wisdom at work.

And that says we have the greatest, most exciting, most fruitful span of life ahead of us after 50.

Please take the time to view the video and leave us your thoughts.