My new blog is finally ready. I’ve expanded the focus because I think that many of the issues in aging—such as the matter of good physical health—are vital throughout our adult lives.  And if we maintain healthy habits in our 30s and 40s and 50s, we are so much more likely to be healthy in our 50s and 60s and 70s and so on. 

Yet many negative ideas (or outright myths) lead us to think that as we grow older, we will become sicker. That’s just one example. There are plenty of others. I’ve changed the name of my blog to reflect this focus.

I’d love to have you check it out at www.agemyths.com and to consider subscribing. I’d also appreciate comments or suggestions. Woody Allen once said, I love feedback; I just don’t want to step in any. That’s amusing to be sure, but—after nearly 10 years in Toastmasters where members improve by repeated cycles of give-speech-get-feedback—I recognize how essential feedback from others is in helping me do a better job.

Click here to go to www.agemyths.com.

There can be change without progress, but not progress without change.– Anonymous

I am excited about big changes in the works. Very shortly, I will phase out Sixtyplus Place and move to a new blog.

I’ve learned so much in the few months since I started blogging. I’ve learned from the experience of writing posts and reading comments as well as reading posts on other blogs and leaving comments. I’ve learned from a terrific course called A-List Blogging Bootcamp, offered by Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch, and from the talented, energetic, and very supportive bloggers also taking the course.

The more I learned, the more I realized that to make progress, I had to make changes.  My still-young blog needed a makeover. I would change the name, expand the focus and give it a face-lift. (Don’t believe in them for people, but that’s a subject for another post.) I’ve been working on my new blog and should have it ready in a few days. When it is, I’ll put up a notice here with a link. 

I appreciate so much the support I’ve gotten on all sorts of questions and technical matters from my blogging buddies and from others who’ve read and commented on Sixtyplus Place. I hope that you’ll check out the new one.

The Right Stuff is a term popularized by author Tom Wolf in his rollicking, uproarious, roller-coaster-ride of a book by the same name:  a book about America’s seven original astronauts. They were men who had what it took to climb into a massive rocket loaded with explosive fuel and blast off into space. They had the Right Stuff. 

In that spirit I will present awards from time to time to people with the Right Stuff. People who take on a challenge and triumph over obstacles. Or who suddenly, unexpectedly find themselves in a challenging situation and rise to the occasion quietly and competently. Those who demonstrate what a single person can accomplish if she or he has the Right Stuff. 

And the second Right Stuff Award goes to Annie Glenn.

Annie has been married to John Glenn, one of the seven original astronauts since 1943. If you read The Right Stuff or saw the excellent movie of the same name, you probably remember the scene where Annie Glenn refused to speak on camera to then-Vice-President Lyndon Johnson.

Annie stuttered badly, and it made it very difficult, even impossible, to do simple, every-day things like:

• Taking a taxicab and telling the driver where she wanted to go
• Going to the store and asking a clerk where to find a particular item, and
• Making a telephone call, even calling 911 in an emergency

Annie tried various therapies over the years, but they didn’t help. Finally, Annie and John heard about a new therapy for stuttering while watching the Today show. John encouraged Annie to try it.

The new treatment completely changed her life! Annie became able to engage in conversations and speak on the phone. She also began working with the American Speech and Hearing Association to inspire other people to get help for their disabilities. The Association now gives an annual award, the “Annie,” in her name.

In this video, John and Annie Glenn talk about how her life changed as a result of the therapy.  (Warning: it may bring tears to your eyes.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHCjVctuQ7g

Photo by kamshots

By Madeleine Kolb

What do we really know about aging, and is what we know really true?  Unfortunately, most of what we know is a confusing mix of fact and fiction, of myth and reality. 

Some of the common myths are dispelled in the book “Successful Aging” by John W. Rowe, M.D. and Robert L. Kahn, Ph.D., published in 1989. The book discusses results of extensive studies of aging funded by the John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation. An earlier post dealt with Three Common Myths of Aging. This one discusses another myth. 

Myth 4.  The horse is out of the barn

This is the idea that after years of bad health habits—like smoking, drinking too much, eating too much, and being physically inactive—the damage is done. That horse is out of the barn, and it ain’t never comin’ back! 

Reality: 

1.  It’s (almost) never too late to give up your bad habits 

There’s no question that it’s better to maintain healthy habits throughout your whole life. But much research shows that it’s almost never too late to change old bad habits, and it’s almost never too late to benefit from new good habits. 

Smoking, for example, increases the risk of lung cancer and other lung diseases, coronary heart disease, stroke, and other illnesses. If a person stops smoking, however, here’s what happens:

• Within 5 years, he’s not much more likely to have heart disease than a person who has never smoked. And this is true regardless of age, the number of years he smoked, or how heavy his smoking habit. 
• The risk of lung concer also falls, although much more slowly. “It takes at least fifteen years after quitting for a smoker’s risk of lung cancer to become as low as that of a lifetime nonsmoker.”

2.  Maybe your age isn’t the problem

Over the years, bad habits may affect your overall health and level of fitness far more than age itself. In fact, according to Rowe and Kahn:

[Reductions in physical performance] are often the cumulative result of lifestyle–what we do with our bodies and what we take into them–rather than the result of aging itself.  Years of cigarette smoking, excessive use of alcohol, too little exercise and too much food, especially fats and sugars, do physical damage that is often wrongly attributed to age.

One example concerns a condition called the Metabolic Syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that together increase the risk of a heart attack. The factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol and triglycerides, and “the pot-bellied obesity so common in middle-aged and elderly people (especially men).” 

It turns out that–for people with the Metabolic Syndrome–the increased risk of heart disease is related to weight, not age. When weight drops and stays down, so do the risk factors for heart disease.  

Another example is the change in systolic blood pressure with age. (Systolic blood pressure is the first number, as in 140/80.) In the United States and other prosperous countries, systolic blood pressure generally increases with age. This increase is so common, say the authors, that it is often taken for granted, and considered the inevitable result of “normal” aging.

“But,” they say, ”in developed countries, not all older people show increases in blood pressure, and…in less-advantaged countries—where people eat less meat, more grains and vegetables, and keep physically active—blood pressure tends not to rise with age.”

This is good news. If you have good health habits, keep doing what you’ve been doing, as my doctor says to me. And even if you have some bad health habits, you can change and become  healthier and more active as you grow old.  It’s up to you.

Imagine this

“You’re spending a summer afternoon at a music concert in the park. As the concert ends and people begin leaving, you notice a slight numbness in one arm but dismiss it as nothing to be alarmed about. Yet, while moving with the crowd to the distant parking areas, you feel the numbness spreading down to your hand and up one side of your face. Feeling disoriented, you decide to sit against a tree for a moment to rest. 

“Soon you realize that something is dramatically wrong. Sitting down has not helped; in fact, the control and coordination of your muscles has worsened to the point that you are starting to have difficulty moving your mouth and tongue to speak.You try to get up but can’t. A terrifying thought slashes to mind: “Oh, God, I’m having a stroke! 

Groups of people are passing by, and most are paying you no attention. The few who notice the odd way you are slumped against the tree or the strange look on your face check the social evidence around them and, seeing that no one else is reacting with concern, walk on past, convinced that nothing is wrong.” 

This hypothetical scenario was described in the classic book Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.

How do people decide what to do in a particular situation?

Dr. Cialdini was discussing the fact that one way people figure out what is correct in a particular situation is to observe what other people are doing. “Usually,” he says, “ when a lot of people are doing something,  it is the right thing to do.”  

But, sometimes, taking your cues from other people does not work so well. The reason is that we are most likely to rely on the actions of other people to decide what to do when we are unsure of ourselves, when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, and when uncertainty reigns. 

That makes sense, and yet that’s problematic because when a situation is uncertain and we’re unsure what to do and we look to other people to see what they’re doing, those other people are doing exactly the same thing. Everyone is uncertain, and everyone is looking to see what everyone else is doing. 

The Kitty Genovese case

This all sounds interesting but rather academic and abstract. Why does it matter? To answer that, we need to go back to an infamous and deeply disturbing incident you may have read about or studied in a psychology class. On a night in May, 1964, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked and stabbed to death on the street in New York City. (The area of the crime is shown in the photo above.)

According to initial newspaper reports, the attack lasted for about 35 minutes. During this time Miss Genovese repeatedly cried out for help, and–although more than 30 people heard her and some of them could see her from their windows–no one called the police. 

Subsequent reports indicated that at least one person had called the police and that relatively few people could see Miss Genovese from their windows. Nonetheless,  people reading about the murder were horrified. Why did so many decent people hear her desperate cries for help and yet fail to act?  The follow-up investigation suggested that they failed to respond because of “apathy.”  

How do people decide what to do in an emergency?

Two psychology professors, though, came to a different conclusion. Bibb Latane′ and John Darley suggested that no one had helped Miss Genovese because there were so many observers. A bystander to an emergency, they said, would be unlikely to help when there were a number of other bystanders present. Their reasoning was that:

1. With several potential helpers around, the personal responsibility of each individual is reduced. If everyone is thinking that someone else will help or may have already helped, no one helps. 
2. Very often it’s not obvious whether an emergency is an emergency. Is the man lying in the alley, for example, a heart-attack victim or a drunk sleeping one off? What’s going on? 

Latane′and Darley, their students, and other investigators did a great many studies of simulated emergencies. The results bore out the hypothesis of  the two psychologists: 

When people are uncertain whether what they’re seeing is a true emergency, they look to see what everyone else is doing. Everyone else is doing the same thing, and so the bystanders are far less likely to assist the victim. In fact, the more bystanders there are who witness an emergency, the less likely any of them is to help the victim.

Strategy for saving your own life

To Dr. Cialdini , these studies suggest a strategy that a person in an emergency can use to enormously increase his chances of being helped by others, that is, to increase his odds of saving his own life. 

In the Oh-God-I’m-Having-A-Stroke scenario, clearly, time is of the essence. If you lose your ability to speak or to move before someone helps you, your chances for assistance and for recovery would decrease dramatically. 

Therefore, he says, you must clearly call out that you need assistance. You must not allow bystanders to see this as a non-emergency. And forget about being embarrassed. What does momentary embarrassment matter when you are facing possible death or lifelong paralysis? 

Specifically, Dr. Cialdini recommends picking out one person in the crowd, calling out to him, and telling him exactly what you need, like this:

[staring, speaking, and pointing directly at one person in the crowd]  

“You, sir, in  the blue jacket, I need help.  Call an ambulance.” 

By doing this, you dispel any uncertainty that might prevent or delay getting help. You put the man in the blue jacket in the role of “rescuer.” And you tell him exactly what he needs to do.

It really works: Dr. Cialdini’s Personal Experience

Amazingly, Dr. Cialdini had a personal experience which he describes in his book which allowed him to test this approach. 

“I was involved in a rather serious automobile collision. Both I and the other driver were plainly hurt:  He was slumped, unconscious, over his steering wheel while I managed to stagger, bloody, from behind mine. The accident had occurred in full view of several individuals stopped in their cars at the traffic light. As I knelt in the road beside my door, trying to clear my head, the light changed and the waiting cars began to roll slowly through the intersection; their drivers gawked but did not stop. 

“I remember thinking, “Oh no, it’s happening just like the research says. They’re all passing by!” I consider it fortunate that, as a social psychologist, I knew enough about the bystander studies to have that particular thought. By thinking of my predicament in terms of the research findings, I knew exactly what to do. Pulling myself up so I could be seen clearly, I pointed at the driver of one car:  “Call the police.” To a second and a third driver, pointing directly each time: “Pull over, we need help.” 

The responses of these people were instantaneous. They summoned a police car and an ambulance immediately, they used their handkerchiefs to blot the blood from my face, they put a jacket under my head, they volunteered to serve as witnesses to the accident, one even offered to ride with me to the hospital. 

“Not only was this help rapid and solicitous, it was infectious. After drivers entering the intersection from direction saw, cars stopping for me, they stopped and began tending to the other victim. The principle of social proof was working for us now….”

The Lesson Learned

I was so struck with this information and Dr. Cialdini’s strategy and his personal experience that I immediately told my BF about it and then began writing this post. I think it’s the sort of information which is essential to have even though you hope that you never need to use it. Like learning how to do CPR or perform the Heimlich maneuver when someone is choking.

The Right Stuff is a term popularized by author Tom Wolf in his rollicking, uproarious, roller-coaster-ride of a book by the same name:  a book about America’s seven original astronauts.  They were men who had what it took to climb into a massive rocket loaded with explosive fuel and blast off into space. They had the Right Stuff. 

In that spirit I will present awards from time to time to people with the Right Stuff. People who take on a challenge and triumph over obstacles. Or who suddenly, unexpectedly find themselves in a challenging situation and rise to the occasion quietly and competently. Those who demonstrate what a single person can accomplish if she or he has the Right Stuff. 

And the first Right Stuff Award goes to Maury Marler of Renton, Washington

Maury first earned a pilot certificate in 1941, but he “flew for only a year before giving up flying to serve as a navigator in the Army Air Corps” See http://www.aopa.org/training/articles/2009/090528golden.html?WT.mc_id=&wtmcid;&WT.mc_sect=gan

According to Maury, when he moved to a retirement community near the Renton Municipal Airport and heard the small airplanes taking off and landing, “I just got an uncontrollable urge to start flying again.”

Then 90 years old, Maury was turned down by one flight school, but that didn’t stop him. He soon found an encouraging instructor, passed his medical, and began taking lessons.  It’s been over a year now, and 

Marler said he flies now with a greater appreciation of the experience than when he was young. ‘Sure, it was a thrill then, it was a lot of fun then,’ he said. But now every time he experiences the thrill of controlling the airplane and flying  above the earth, he thanks his creator for the opportunity, he said. Even if he never qualifies for a pilot certificate, he says, he intends to keep flying with an instructor because he enjoys it so much.

Photo courtesy of meagain

 By Madeleine Kolb

The first time my friend Jen invited my BF and me to have Thanksgiving dinner with her and her BF, I didn’t hesitate.  “Sure,” I said, “that would be great. What would you like me to bring?” Jen was seldom at a loss for words, but she seemed hesitant, apologetic. 

After quite a long pause, she said, “Well, uhh, I know, uhh, you have diabetes, but, uhh—do you think—could you, uhh, maybe bring desert?” She looked relieved. She’d done it.  She’d told me how I could help. 

“Glad to,” I said. “And how about cranberry sauce? I’ll make some of that too.” I brought my absolutely fabulous sour-cream apple pie —made with Splenda instead of sugar and no-fat yogurt instead of sour cream—and cranberry sauce made with Splenda. 

This was a win-win solution. Jen and her BF got help from me with Thanksgiving dinner. I got to help my friend, while preparing a desert that even my BF and I could eat without worrying too much about sky-rocketing blood-glucose levels.  And of course, all four of us got to eat a fabulous meal, drink a little holiday wine, and enjoy each other’s company.  

So what was the problem? Mainly, it was that Jen wasn’t comfortable asking me to help, even when I asked her how I could help.  (Part of this, of course, was her uncertainty about what desert, if any, a person with Type 2 diabetes could eat.)  

Jen is not alone.  I recognize myself in her behavior. Just days ago, I was preparing an agenda for a meeting (which is part of a larger project I’m working on with Mark). I had thought of asking him to make a short presentation, but I didn’t get to it as early as I’d planned. So I convinced myself that it was too late to ask for his help. I’d just have to do the presentation myself.   

And then Mark called me to ask if there was anything he could do to help. I spilled out my sorry story about how I’d meant to ask him, but it got too late.  He listened and then said calmly, “Madeleine, earlier is always better, but if you need help, just ask. Sure, I can do it.”

I’ve had many such experiences, and here’s what I’ve learned from them: 

People love to help other people

I enjoy helping others, especially when I can do something special–maybe sharing  a partcular skill or ability. It makes me feel good to experience real appreciation from another person. I’ve heard others express the same thought.

People like it when other people offer to help them

When I take on a big project or something new and challenging, I just love to hear the words “What can I do to help?” How thoughtful, considerate, and generous to offer your time and energy.

Asking for and offering help creates a supportive atmosphere, builds cohesiveness, and facilitates learning

It can be intimidating to take on something new or significant. Perhaps so intimidating that you carefully avoid finding yourself in such a situation. But knowing that people are willing–even eager–to help enables you to take on the challenge, to learn from it, and to succceed.

By Madeleine Kolb 

Vegetables are good for us. Everyone says so:  Mom, the doctor, even the government. They’re jam-packed with nutrients, such as vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, folic acid, and potassium. And as if that were not enough, they have generous amounts of fiber (and we all know how important that is). 

There’s only one problem though:  Lots of people hate vegetables. When they see a pile of overcooked green beans on a plate, it brings back horrible memories of dreary lunches served up in the school cafeteria by hefty ladies wearing hair-nets. Sometimes, the vegetable du jour was peas from giant cans, stored in a government warehouse since the early days of the Reagan administration.

Not that it was any better at home. My mother—God bless her—was an excellent cook, and I’ve written rapturous odes to her pies, her home-made bread, and her coffee cake made with tart-cherries picked from trees in our back yard. I think it’s fair to say, though, that cooking vegetables was not her strong suit. And my mother was not alone.

It’s also fair to say that despite my own considerable culinary skills, cooking vegetables has not been my strong suit either.

But over the past 5 years or so, I’ve had an epiphany, namely, that there are no (well, almost no) bad vegetables, there are only people who cook vegetables badly. 

With decades of cooking experience behind me, I’ve finally learned how to select and cook vegetables so that those at the table don’t eat them out of some grim nutritional duty or simply to qualify for desert. I’ve learned at last that vegetables are not only good for us, they’re just plain good!

Much of my new-found fervor is due to the abundance of colorful and exotic vegetables at my local farmer’s market, open once a week from mid-May to mid-October. Of all the wonderful produce sold there by local farmers, these five vegetables have become great favorites:

Bok choy with its thick white stalks and rounded green leaves and a slightly peppery, crunchy taste

Kohlrabi—a round greenish bulb with stems and leaves which, according to one knowledgeable source, is best when it’s “no bigger than a baseball.”

Walla Walla onions—sweet onions grown in the Walla Walla Valley of  Washington and Oregon. The best onions ever. 

Lemon cucumbers—round cucumbers the size and shape of lemons

Jicama—a staple of Latin American food, not grown in Washington State (as far as I know) but available in supermarkets. It’s sweet and crunchy and terrific in salads like the Couscous and Black Bean salad which I brought to a neighborhood potluck on Labor Day. 

All of these are delicious either raw in salads or cooked. I love to stir-fry veggies in a wok, using different colors and textures. For the stir-fry in the photo, I used bok choy, kohlrabi (cut into matchstick shapes), yellow bell pepper, Walla Walla onion, a bit of left-over tomato, and carrots (the roundish slices which are purple outside  and orange inside).

They look good, they taste good, and they’re good for me.

By Madeleine Kolb

Today is Labor Day, which has been observed in the United States and Canada since 1894. It commemorates the accomplishments of working people, so, naturally, we celebrate by taking the day off from work. 

This may be because of our deep ambivalence about work. There is the money and the mostly pleasant and intelligent people we work with. But then there is the down side of work–some would even call it the dark side. 

Like the job I got at a tie factory after my freshman year at the University of Washington. I was a tie-packer, packing ties in boxes and packing those boxes into bigger boxes. That part was a piece of cake. 

The quality control aspect of the job was something else again. The ties were pressed by women standing on their feet all day, sweating as they leaned over ironing boards with hot, heavy irons. They put cardboard forms into the ties to get out any wrinkles, and they had to do this without ironing in any creases. 

I was 19 years old, and I took my responsibilities seriously. So the first time—the very first time—I found a crease in a tie, I went to the presser and showed it to her. She looked at the tie, then she looked at me. She gripped the iron very tightly but said nothing. She didn’t have to; I had a strong sense that she wanted nothing more than to lift that iron and smash it into my eager young face. 

Needless to say, I rapidly lost interest in the quality control aspects of the job. At the end of the summer, I asked my mother to call the tie factory and say that I was sorry I couldn’t work there anymore, because I’d come down with mononucleosis.  And back I went to the UW. 

For me, it’s been uphill ever since: challenging work, decent pay and benefits, and mostly pleasant and helpful co-workers. But I’ll never forget the silent, hostile look on that woman’s face as she clutched the hot iron not so far away from my face.

Happy holiday to all.

Burke-Gilman Trail (Image by Bjorn)

By Madeleine Kolb

Type 2 diabetes is scary:  it’s a chronic, progressive disease. “Chronic” means that there’s no cure; it doesn’t go away (despite unreliable claims to the contrary you may see on the internet). “Progressive” means that—as the years go by—it gets worse and worse. 

Here’s what you have to look foreward to, if you don’t manage type 2 diabetes over the long haul:

• increased risk of a heart attack or  stroke,
• irreversible damage to your eyes, kidneys, and blood vessels, and
• blindness, kidney failure,  and amputation of all or part of your legs   

YOU:  Wait a minute.  Am I reading this right? A person can have this terrible disease and still be really healthy?  

ME:  Yes, but first you need to know that you have it. There’s  one thing worse than knowing that you have type 2 diabetes, and that’s having it and not knowing it. The reason is that if you don’t know your have the disease, you’re not  managing it to avoid long-term, progressive damage.

In fact, the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse estimated that in 2007, there were 23.6 million people with type 2 diabetes in the U.S., including 5.7 million people who didn’t know that they had it. This happens because a person may have no symptoms or have symptoms but avoid going to a doctor or attribute his symptoms to some other less serious condition. 

But I know that I have type 2 diabetes, and here’s what I’m doing to be really healthy anyway. 

1.  Getting regular check-ups

I see my doctor (or the physician’s assistant) three times a year and see an ophthalmologist once a year to check my retinas. So far my retinas are normal. 

2.  Exercising nearly every day

Usually I walk 2 to 3 miles at a moderate rate and track my exercise on the President’s Challenge website at www.presidentschallenge.org.  In August, for example, I exercised on 25 out of 31 days. It’s not a chore, because I love being out on the Burke-Gilman Trail with its spectacular views of Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains and the dazzling array of birds. 

 3.  Eating a healthful diet

I also love to cook and share a tasty, nutritious meal with my BF. Last night we had Coho salmon from Alaska, sourdough wheat bread, and stir-fried vegetables (a yummy mix of kohlrabi, bok choy, red bell pepper, sweet onion, and green beans). For desert we each had a 100-calorie CarbSmart fudge bar made with Splenda instead of sugar. 

My BF also has type 2 diabetes. He told me that when he got the diagnosis, one of his fears was that he’d have to “eat cardboard for the rest of my life.”  And when a nutritionist told him that he should eat more fish, he was dismayed. He hated fish or at least he thought he did,  until he took a job in Seattle and started eating Pacific salmon (and met me). 

4.  Measuring my blood glucose levels

When you have Type 2 diabetes, your body can’t control the levels of glucose (sugar) in your blood. So the glucose levels go too high (which causes progressive damage) or too low (which is generally easy and quick to treat by consuming something with sugar in it). 

Because of the type and amount of food I eat, my blood glucose levels don’t tend to go very high. So I don’t need to measure them very often. Sometimes, I take a reading before a meal and two hours afterward to see how I’m doing. 

But I always measure my blood glucose before I start to exercise. If the levels are a little low,  I’ll carry an energy bar with me or even eat it before I set out. 

5.  Taking my medications 

I also take my medications religously, using my nerdy plastic pill-case with the days of the week  on it. Every day I take a statin drug to control high-cholesterol (which I’ve had ever since I was in my thirties). 

Initially, my doctor also prescribed a drug to treat diabetes, but later it turned out that I no longer needed it because I was managing so well by diet and exercise alone.  I was very happy to hear that.

YOU:  OK, You convinced me. Sort of. I guess you can be really healthy, even if you have type 2 diabetes.  But I still hope I don’t get it. 

 ME:  I hope so too!  My life would be simpler if I didn’t have type 2 diabetes, but think of it this way:  The regular doctor’s appointments, eating healthy, and exercising regularly are things I should be doing anyway.  In fact, they’re things I was doing anyway.  They’re things everyone should be doing anyway (except for the extra doctor’s appointments).

So the only thing I do to be really healthy–that I wouldn’t be doing anyway–is measuring my blood glucose. And that’s become such a habit that I barely think of it.