Live to Share - Proactive Anti-Aging

 

 

 

We all want to find a sense of meaning and a sense of purpose in life. At a certain age you realize that purpose and meaning can be as simple as just sharing a word of wisdom.  And perhaps that is the whole meaning and purpose of life- simply to share what you have gained for the betterment of someone else.

If you think about it everything we do is a process of sharing. Life is about exchange. The challenge is in discerning the exchange that best fosters a healthy and prosperous life. This of course only comes with time and experience and both of these bring with them aging.

I now find myself in a position of mentoring young adults. I’m the older and wiser woman who can calmly still their fears and help them to see a broader perspective on life. I’m living now to share.

I admire and compliment the beautiful young women that come to my yoga and cycle classes. Many years ago I would have been intimidated and competitive. Today I see them as beautiful and I remind them to enjoy every moment of being young, energetic and physically near perfection. All too soon age creeps up on you and you find yourself advising, guiding and encouraging. Not long ago I was a young woman questioning, anguishing and confused.  That’s the nature of youth. However, experience provided me with some of life’s greatest lessons. So now I live to share because life without sharing seems pretty meaningless and without purpose.

Aging can be painful and depressing or it can be an enjoyable time to share and smile as you watch passively the wonders of youthful struggle with all the nonsense that you  now realize as you mature is meaningless.  It’s all about living so you can share. That’s proactive anti-aging!

Doctor Lynn

My Brain is full and it doesn’t want to work anymore!

 

 

 

 

My brain feels like it just ate a big Thanksgiving meal. It feels tired and would really like a nice long nap. What is filling my brain these days is trying to keep up with technology and the world of working. Some days I just feel like as the song goes by Status Quo, “ I ain’t gonna work no more.”

It’s not the work that gets to me, but the constant needing to be online and learning new skills. But really it’s not the skills and the learning, but the fact that I just don’t want to compete in the working world any more. I know what it is like to hustle and run to make a buck and try and get ahead. The truth is we never really get ahead. Sure may-be we have made our money and hopefully have a nice retirement, but as soon as you get to retirement they extend the average lifespan  and we wonder if the money we have will last into our really, really old age?!

I find myself slipping behind. And I don’t really care. However, I find myself now becoming a mentor to lots of younger people. They ask for my advice and look to me to encourage them. Today I am meeting with a young woman who is developing an app program. She wants me to give her some input, as if I know anything?! Actually she wants to show me what she has developed and our meeting is a deadline for her to have it ready to show me.   I’m only too happy to help. However, I also want to ask her how to make something go viral. She tells me she knows how to do this and I am curious as to how it happens.

So even though my brain is full it still is curious. It wants to understand, but not to go through all the processing and agonizing of implementation. Because in life it is not what you know or even who you know that counts. It’s how you execute an idea that makes for success. You can have all the knowledge and all the money, but if you don’t have the competitive edge…well it’s not going to happen.

Competitive drive creates stress and stress advances the aging process. I have decided to take a proactive approach to aging. Ideas are a dime a dozen. They come and they go, but to make it all happen takes time, energy and focused hard work. I’ve got the time and I’ve got the money, but I think I’ll put  my feet up, mentor the kids and  do what I like because “I ain’t gonna work no more!”

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com

Proactive Anti-Aging – Move it or lose it

 

 

 

 

How long does it take to restore muscle strength once you lose it from inactivity?

We all know we should keep active and that exercise is one of the best ways to keep the body strong, flexible and mobile. But with aging come arthritis, aches and pains and a general slowing down of activity. Running a million miles an hour, jumping off cliffs and the endless pursuit of entertainment gives way to a gentle walk, a little yoga, escalators rather than stairs and home on the couch rather than dancing all night at a club.

Exercise science tells us that one of the easiest and most natural ways to slow down the aging process is to keep exercising. But sometimes due to injuries and sickness we need to stop moving and that is when we begin to lose it. But did you know that the younger you are the faster you lose strength and mobility and the faster your body ages when it stops getting regular exercise?

Ever wondered how long it takes to lose muscles strength after taking time off from exercising? Researchers in Denmark undertook a study using a young group of men (23 years of age) and older men (68 years of age). They immobilized one of each of the subject’s legs for two weeks. Then the men took part in a three to four times a week for six weeks bicycle endurance program.

During the two week period the younger subjects lost up to a third of their leg strength which is the equivalent of aging by forty to fifty years! The older group lost a fourth of their leg strength. Researchers are not sure why the older group fared better, but I might surmise that with age immobilization is met with a little less resistance and a greater appreciation for the mobility of the body. Even though the older group fared better, this still goes to show that if you are inactive for just two weeks you lose a tremendous amount of strength and mobility.

What is the best form of exercise to restore muscle strength?

At the end of the six week period the researchers found that cycling was not enough to restore muscle strength and mobilization.

The researchers concluded that if you want to restore muscle strength you need to include weight training. They also concluded that it will take you three times the amount of time to restore muscle strength than it did to lose it.

 So as the saying goes “if you don’t use it you’ll lose it!”

Doctor Lynn

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Never throw Away Your Bell Bottoms

Bell bottoms are making a comeback. I’m not sure if this is making me feel old or young again? I save everything so for me it’s not about buying a new pair of bells, but about reaching into the darkest recesses of my closet and pulling out the dozen pair of bells I still own. With delight I carefully unfold each pair realizing that I don’t need to spend any money to be in style… the hippie look has always been in style for me.

As I try on my bells I flash back (no pun intended) to my youthful carefree days as a young hippie. Oh the beads, the fringe and the bells! Of course this was met with so much resistance from our parents; just as the earlier phase of the Beatles, miniskirts and Go Go boots.

My first pair of bell bottom pants was bought at the Navy Exchange which was the only place to get bell bottoms. I bought a pair of sailor denim bells, took them home and altered them to fit my feminine frame. Soon after that Head Shops began to pop up with all the beads, fringe and bell bottoms a girl could want. (Anyone remember head shops? They sold more than bells!) At last I found my hippie niche! Woodstock here I come! Bells, beads, sandals and more I danced in the mud, hugged perfect strangers and never regretted that weekend at Woodstock.

However, before long bell bottoms went main stream and that ended the hippie era. Or may-be it was just time to grow up and get responsible?

Now once again the bells are coming back to main stream and I must admit I love it. When I wear my bells I feel young again. I feel a sense of rebellion, curiosity, peace and love. And with all this new found sense of youth I realize that old hippies never die. They just go dormant for a while.   In the eighties we all disguised ourselves as mainstream because it was easier to conform than keep pushing to the edge.  Responsibility for children, mortgages and retirement planning gave precedence over love and peace. Maturity teaches you that life is not the idealistic fantasy of the young, but a long process of learning to conform, compromise, negotiate and get involved rather than drop out.

So I raised a family, paid my taxes, voted and lived as a law abiding citizen. But now the bells are coming out and I feel that anti-establishment, free loving, and rebellious young hippie emerging from the back of my closet. But she has aged. Her hair has flecks of grey and her body is wrinkling and crinkling into a senior citizen. She’s not about to go and sit in a pile of mud dancing and screaming to the beat of the Who. But she will always love rock and roll, incense and brownies.   

I look at myself in the mirror all dressed out in my bells and I can’t believe how fast the years have passed. Here I am a Grandmother with a wild history of free love, anti-war rebellion and well you know all that “stuff” we hippies did…

Never throw away your bell bottoms. They’re a symbol of youth. As long as you have them they will remind you that deep inside of you there still is that young hippie with all the idealistic notions of a better world through peace and love. And you know what? With all the experience and all the wisdom I’ve gained over the last several decades I still believe that the world would be a better place if the hippies in bell bottoms ran the world. Peace would reign, love would be everywhere, we would eat healthy and we would be more concerned with the betterment of humanity than accumulating a bunch of stuff that only gets thrown away when you die. The more you own, what you own, owns you!

Idealism, they say, is reserved for the young. This unrealistic pursuit of ideal standards fueled by emotions and hormones is vested in naiveté.  Equality is what we all want. But equality is an elusive creature. It’s easy to be rebellious and idealistic when you have nothing to lose. However, when your parents threaten to cut off your support line conformity most always rules.

 Unfortunately materialism always usurps ideology. Money, politics and greed are mightily powerful force against a band of hippie. Conformity brought with it the era of the yuppies and the frantic rush to get rich. Brief cases, suspenders and wingtips replaced backpacks, beads and sandals. Then the yuppie era went bust and we all wondered what the hell went wrong. It’s just a recession and recessions happen over and over again.  We learned a valuable lesson; things go up and things go down. We learned to ride out the roller coaster ride of the capitalistic market until one day without warning the bell bottoms came back.  

This sliding back of time causes one to pause and reflect. Wisdom teaches you that life without music, love and peace is not really worth living. So don’t throw away your bell bottoms. They symbolize a sense of youthful freedom and that sense of youthful freedom will always keep you young at heart.  

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com