What if you could choose your aging experience? Research is providing exciting evidence that we hold the key to aging well and living longer. There is nothing to go out and buy, because it’s all in your mind. It comes down to what you believe. Your beliefs have a great deal to do with how you age. They can contribute to …
I just completed a training course to become certified as a lay leader of an evidence-based Living Well program called the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP). This program was developed by the School of Medicine at Stanford University to provide people living with chronic conditions tools and strategies to improve their quality of life. The Centers for Disease Control conducted a …
There are stereotypes about all kinds of groups: racial stereotypes, gender stereotypes, sexual orientation stereotypes, and more. But when it comes to aging, those stereotypes can affect all of us. Stereotypes in general are largely negative and not based on fact. This leads to misconceptions. In the case of aging stereotypes, they can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. That’s why they are …
You have a choice. It doesn’t matter where you are right now or what you’re going through, you can recreate the direction of your life. Those words come from a book I wrote years ago called The Power of Choice. Back then, I was trying to help people free themselves from the expectations of others and the rut they had grown …
It’s that time of year. Students everywhere getting ready to go back to school. What about you? Whether it’s that degree you always wanted to or some courses you’d really like to take, going back to school over 50 can be very rewarding. In my 50s, I returned to school to get a PhD, and in my 60s I went back …
You’ve heard about the fountain of youth. Legend has it that when Ponce de León left Spain in the early 1500s he was in search of it. Fast-forward to today and a quick perusal of store shelves or magazine ads shows that the search continues. Why the obsession with youth? It has to do with how we view aging—most of us …
Vital. Healthy. Engaged. If you are interested in these qualities as much as I am, you need to know that they can be yours. It’s largely a matter of changing your mind and not getting stuck on numbers. Ellen Langer, the Harvard researcher who wrote the book Counterclockwise, has completed numerous studies that show that our attitude, beliefs, expectations, and viewpoint …
Last week I wrote about weight gain not simply being a part of aging, but how it could have a lot to do with our emotions and the accumulation of pains over the years. Now I want to present another alternative explanation to the idea that our bodies are expanding. Maybe we aren’t gaining weight after all. I tried on some …
They say that gaining weight is just a part of getting older. But I’m not convinced. There has to be more to it. I think it may have something to do with an accumulation of pains and regrets over the years, and if emotions can contribute to added pounds, they could be important to dropping unwanted weight. It’s worth a look. …
How to you feel when you look in the mirror? Are you disgusted by some of the changes you see? Or do you get a sense of pride and gratitude? The way we feel about ourselves as we get older has a major effect on the way we age. More than you may have suspected. So watch those thoughts while gazing. …
