Last week I wrote about what I’m doing to stay young. Well, actually, it’s too late for that so I’m working not to age so fast.
As I read the suggestions for interrupting the Grim Reaper on his rounds, I actually found that I was already doing some things right— like reading, socializing and exposing my ankles. I may soon be 20 again!
I got so interested in the topic that I started looking for other suggestions for anti-aging and measuring my progress toward youth.
One article I read explained that grip strength is a predictor of how long one will live and how healthy one will be. The weakest grippers suffered twice the disabilities and died earlier than those with a grip of steel.
I’ve met many people whose handshake felt like a dead fish at the end of a limp pole. The article says that they should make funeral plans.
My own grip of steel has been developed by many years of grappling with dead-fish handshakes and by forcing lids off those jars of extra crunchy peanut butter and grape jelly for a PB&J snack.
The article adds that digging in the garden is another great way to develop that hand strength. Just last week I had my annual Day in the Yard. Okay, it was only half a day, but I jerked up a bunch of dead plants, which I could feel adding years to my life.
Some of this article’s suggestions for feeling younger and aging more slowly were just simple everyday activities that most of us already do.
For example, people who take notes on a lecture in longhand have better developed brains and can remember concepts longer than those who type their notes or dictate them into their phones.
If that’s true, I should live to be 110 with a perfect memory. I spent years in college writing pages and pages of notes in longhand, and I was fortunate to teach English for most of my career in the pre-computer age. So all my lesson plans and essay corrections were in longhand. I’ve been practicing that brain-hand connection for a long time!
Though I confess to typing this on my office computer, at home I am a big believer in good quality paper, fountain pens and the handwritten letter or thank you note as opposed to the slap-dash text that says, “thnx, CU.” Wow! Is that my young and healthy brain I feel getting stronger up there?
Another everyday activity that’s easy to add to your routine is to choose more colorful things to wear. One wardrobe stylist says that older people tend to wear darker colors that make them look less approachable, thus cutting down on their opportunities to do the socializing that’s crucial to maintaining mental acuity.
She suggests brighter shades of clothing which make us appear more “open and fun.” That’s why I’m wearing purple jeans and a purple and blue sweater today. You can’t say I’m not fun!
I’m dressing for long life. You have to wear sunglasses to enter my closet. All my old lady’s elastic-waist pants and high-neck tops are chartreuse or red. I may not appear open and fun, but you certainly won’t miss me when I walk into a room, so maybe you’ll want to stop and socialize with me—at least to ask me where I got the clown outfit—thus making us both younger!
In addition, you should speak more quietly. Raising your voice, experts say, may lead to polyps on your vocal cords that make you sound old and hoarse. “Instead of yelling,” says the article, “move closer.”
That’s fine, I guess, if everyone you talk to is under 40. What we seniors find, however, is that we have to yell hoarsely because most of our contemporaries can’t hear. If you don’t yell, you won’t be heard. Sometimes even if you raise the decibels, you’re met with a blank stare as your “listener” tries to figure out why your wrinkled lips are moving.
Another daily activity that helps your brain is meditation. Isn’t that what I’m doing when I’m eating a cinnamon roll and staring out the window? I’ll count it as brain work anyway.
Meditating with a cinnamon roll in my mouth leads to the next great ani-aging activity— developing a larger posterior!
Yes, researchers have found that fat on the lower body secretes fewer inflammatory substances than abdominal fat does, and cinnamon rolls go immediately to my posterior. So now I’m safe from killer inflammation with little effort on my part.
But the most exciting anti-aging tactic I found was shopping. In one study, women who shopped daily had a 23 percent reduced risk of early death. At the rate I already shop, I may never die! Unless my husband kills me for overdrawing my account, that is.
But with just a little effort, those of us who wear bright green granny panties, stuff ourselves with cinnamon rolls and shop ‘til we drop will be here for 50 more years, waving bye-bye to those limp-gripping, texting, flat-rumped youngsters half our age.
And we’ll have a lot more fun while we last!
