CHANGE YOUR MINDSET AND LIVE LONGER
Combatting Internalized Ageism, Intergenerational Friendships FTW, Protein-rich Foods To Build Muscle, And Another Mini Substack Meet-Up!
Hiya Friends,
Hope you enjoyed some time off this past weekend. I’ve been busy juggling a couple of projects and obsessing over my new trail camera. My brother sent me this outdoor spy cam for my birthday and I strapped it to a tree in the yard. Fingers crossed that it captures some cute critters sipping from the fountain instead of just awkward pictures of me fiddling with the settings like this ⬇︎.
ADD SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS TO YOUR LIFE!
Here’s a fun fact that the anti-aging poster boy, Bryan Johnson will never grasp. According to a 2022 study, folks with a more sanguine attitude about getting older, manage to live seven and a half years longer than their peers. That’s good news for us pro-aging types, though we’re definitely in the minority. If you take a look around, internalized ageism abounds. Negative perceptions and fears of aging often stem from self-denigrating older adults. I know this to be true because I hear a lot of anti-aging sentiment from friends, acquaintances, and strangers.
Not too long ago, I unsubscribed to a Substack that I’d previously enjoyed because the writer’s anti-aging diatribes frustrated and upset me. This writer—a woman in her seventies and a self-proclaimed feminist—wrote a piece about choosing to get plastic surgery because she no longer wanted to look like “an old rag.” Now I’m not here to judge anyone who gets plastic surgery. Do what makes you happy, I say, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. What angered me about this writer’s post was the suggestion that a woman of a certain age with some well-earned lines or wrinkles resembles “an old rag.” Later, this same writer shared a magazine cover photo of an esteemed 85-year-old female author, and went on at length about how terrible this author looked in said photo. Allegedly, the point of the post was to criticize the photographer and the editor who chose the photo, but how did this writer not understand that her takedown of the author’s chin represents ageist and misogynistic views of women? Why draw attention to a photo when she could’ve used her platform to celebrate this author’s incredible literary contribution?
The thing is, we’re all in this fight together. If we want the world to stop dismissing and insulting us as we get older, we must be kinder to ourselves and each other. Our expiration dates are unknown. Until our hearts stop pumping, we’re free to guzzle life’s elixir and enjoy ourselves. Rather than beat ourselves up for surviving another year, we should be thrilled we made it this far.
Okay. That’s the end of my soapbox. I’ll let the gorgeous Andie MacDowell take it from here. ICYMI, a video of the actress recently went viral in which she recounts the time a journalist asked her, “How does it feel to be losing your beauty?” MacDowell was in her 40s at the time! Click here to listen to her reaction.
On an up note, I read several great pro-aging pieces this week that I’m sharing below.
FOLLOW YOUR PASSION
My friend, Martine (subscribe to her excellent stack “Do Yoga in Paris” for tips on wellness, yoga, and great writing) forwarded me an essay in the New York Times called, My Mother Got on a Bike. It Changed Her Life. In it, the author quotes the same study I posted above and elaborates on some of the findings.
We increase our risk of cardiac events and speed up cognitive decline, studies show, if we believe getting older is a time of suffering and diminution. More important, the opposite is also true: Those of us who view later life as a time of growth and vitality are more likely to stay healthy and to keep senility at bay. We may also end up living a whopping seven and a half years longer. In one instance, Dr. Levy looked at data from a longitudinal study and came to this astonishing conclusion: Mind-set was the most significant factor determining individuals’ longevity.
She goes on to recount the many ways in which cycling gave her mother a new lease on life and resulted in a healthy mindset.
Turns out, my mother’s cycling habit meant that she was checking many of the boxes — health, novelty, community and purpose — needed to age well. (For others, this might come in the form of a language class, a book club, a commitment to mastering a plank.) Yet when my mother went biking, there was something more: She was embracing attributes like exhilaration, exploration, awe, a little bit of recklessness. This provided the final pillar for healthy and fulfilling aging: Dr. Levy’s positive mind-set.
Read more here (gift link).
INTERGENERATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS HELP COMBAT AGEISM
I’ve written about the benefits of intergenerational friendships before and I’m so happy to see the topic getting more ink and support. In a NYT article titled, “Old and Young, Talking Again,” I discovered that many national organizations have launched programs to foster intergenerational communication. At Miami University, the initiative called Opening Minds Through Art, pairs younger folks with older folks. This semester, 70 pairs are taking part and report that these relationships have enriched their lives in ways they had never anticipated.
On Fridays at 10 a.m., Richard Bement and Zach Ahmed sign on to their weekly video chat. The program that brought them together provides online discussion prompts and suggests arts-related activities, but the two largely ignore all that.
“We just started talking about things that were important to us,” said Mr. Ahmed, 19, a pre-med student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Since the pair met more than a year ago, conversation topics have included: Pink Floyd, in a long exploration led by Mr. Bement, 76, a retired sales manager in Milford Township, Ohio; their religious faiths (the senior conversation partner is Episcopalian; the younger is Muslim); their families; changing gender norms; and poetry, including Mr. Ahmed’s own efforts.
“There’s this fallacy that these two generations can’t communicate,” said Mr. Bement. “I don’t find that to be true.”
Initially, Mr. Ahmed did think of the program, suggested to him by a sociology professor as a way to earn additional college credit, as a kind of favor.
“I signed up expecting to gain nothing for myself,” he said. “The idea of elderly people as they age is rather depressing. They lose a lot of people in their lives.”
But as conversations with Mr. Bement unfolded, Mr. Ahmed realized that the program was helping him too. “Things I’ve read about in history books, he has lived through,” Mr. Ahmed said of Mr. Bement. “It changes the stereotypic, stigmatized view of elderly people. They have stories and experiences and more life than I’ve had.”
Once again, the aforementioned study by Dr. Levy is referenced, hammering home the importance of possessing a positive attitude when it comes to aging.
Repeatedly, studies demonstrating the impact of older people’s negative attitudes about aging, many led by the Yale psychologist Dr. Becca Levy, have found associations between negative attitudes about aging and the risks of cardiovascular events like strokes and heart attacks, and psychiatric illnesses including depression and anxiety.
People with positive feelings about age, on the other hand, do better on memory and hearing tests, have better physical function and recover more quickly from periods of disability. And they live longer.
Ageist attitudes form early in childhood, but they can be changed, Dr. Levy has found. Intergenerational programs are one way to counter them.
Read on here (gift link.)
I hear ya, experts, and I’m on board!
EATING YOUR WAY TO BETTER MUSCLE MASS
Chances are, if you’re over 30-years-old, you’re “under muscled.” At least that’s one of the takeaways from a recent story on NPR.
Muscle mass peaks in our 30s and then starts a long, slow decline. Muscle-loss, also called sarcopenia, affects more than 45% of older Americans, especially women.
Loss of strength increases the risk of falling, the top cause of death from injury in older adults. The Office on Women's Health recently launched a sarcopenia awareness campaign to elevate the issue.
Most young adults tend to consume the recommended amounts of protein. But, later in life, a study from 2019 found about 30% of men in their 50s and 60s fall short, and nearly half of women aged 50 and older do.
To combat this issue, experts recommend resistance training and eating more protein. As a vegetarian, consuming enough protein is a real struggle for me. I eat a lot of tofu and chickpeas, but I know I could and should do better.
The recommended intake is a minimum of 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. That's about 0.36 grams of protein multiplied by your weight in pounds. That means a person who weighs 150 pounds should consume at least 54 grams of protein a day.
But many experts say more is optimal. As we age, protein needs to increase. And if you are exercising a lot – which is the way to build new muscle — you may benefit from even more.
In this NPR piece, the author offers tips to up your daily protein intake like sprinkling nuts and seeds into your dishes and swapping rice for farro, which has 6 grams of protein per 1/4 cup serving. I plan to start tossing some pumpkin seeds into my salads and I may even add a scoop of farro. Can’t hurt, might help, right?
For more helpful suggestions, read more here.
MY MINI SUBSTACK MEET-UPS
Some of you might recall that in December, I had my first mini Substack meet-up with fellow Substacker/friend
Last week, I had blast meeting up IRL with fellow Substacker/friend,
who writes the very delightful newsletter, The Spark. Nancy and I bonded here on Substack over our love of jazz standards, British mysteries, and quitting our jives jobs for chump change to follow our dreams. Be sure to subscribe to Nancy’s Substack for tons of creative inspiration, fantastic writing, and guffaws. You’ll want to check out her podcast too, Follow Your Curiosity to hear interviews with a slew of fascinating guests. We forgot to snap a photo, so I drew a little sketch of us to keep up my daily drawing practice from the #30DayDrawingHabit.
That’s a wrap for today. If you enjoyed any of my musings, hit the ❤️ button or leave a note in the comment section. I always love hearing from you. xo Hilary
I have long thought that women don't do themselves any favours trying to do the impossible by staying young forever. As you say, each to their own, and if people want cosmetic surgery it's their choice, but until we understand that we are as important age 81 as we were age 21, we are doomed to have nothing but negative feelings about the aging process. The trick - and it is not easy - is to reject shallow rules that society foists on us and get on with our lives, relishing every day. I have found there to be a lot of advantages to getting older, and we don't tend to think of them as much as the disadvantages.
I had to look up farro - a new one on me. Recently I have started eating Greek yoghurt, nuts and fruit so I'm delighted to see that it will help with muscle mass. Delicious.
I'm off to investigate the other substacks you recommended - they look great 😃
Another treat - thank you Hilary!
LOVE the drawing BTW. I still struggle with not hating on myself as I age. But I’m getting better. Hanging with younger people has actually helped me minimize the self deprecating comments about being older. Thanks for the reminders!