Think Young, Be Young

“I am 84 yrs old, and still trying.”  That’s how Rhoda, a reader of this blog, began the comment she sent in last week.  “Still trying” hardly does justice to the active and engaged life this woman leads – not to mention her go-getter outlook.  She takes Pilates and yoga classes.  She weight trains and walks two or three miles several times a week.  She and her husband play nine holes of golf “every (non-raining) afternoon.”  She says she’s tried some of the fitness classes offered at the retirement community she calls home, but “they are too slow and easy for my taste.”

All I can say is:  You go, girl.

Well, that’s not all I can say.  I can also say:  This is what successful, high-level-wellness aging looks like.  Here is a model of counterclockwise behavior and attitude.  Yes, Rhoda is wonderfully active, but I would like to suggest that that’s not the secret to her success.  The secret is her refusal to buy into the negative stereotypes about aging.  The secret is her expectation of health.  The secret is her “I’m in control and I’m gonna make it happen” attitude.  She does not expect that getting older, that being 84, means frailty, fragility and dependence.  She does not expect to age poorly.  She expects to remain active.  And then she works to make that happen.

As many an interesting study (not to mention many a personally lived-in experience) will tell you:  Expectation often leads to outcome.

Here’s something to chew on:  The evidence linking a person’s expectations about growing older with what actually happens when that person grows older is…startling.  A Yale study concluded that the perceptions a person held about aging had more impact on how long (and well) he or she lived than the person’s blood pressure, cholesterol level or status as a smoker.  Regardless of age, gender, socio-economic status, loneliness or – get this – the actual state of their health, men and women with positive views about aging lived 7.5 years longer than those who bought into the negative stereotypes.

Another study found that older adults who perceived their health as poor were 6 times more likely to die (within the time frame of the study…we are all 100 percent likely to die) than those who thought they were in good health … regardless of their actual health status.  One plausible explanation:  If you think that illness and decrepitude are inevitable consequences of aging, you are less likely to do anything to prevent, counteract or treat them. You are less likely to believe you have any control over how, and how quickly, you age.

You are less likely to act like Rhoda.

Or like 83-year-old Bette Calman, the woman doing the headstand in the photograph.