Tag: Senior Wellness

At age 80, I am searching for ways to “put more life back into my life”, a way of eliminating the boredom and malaise that emanates from this “quarantine” that we are enduring, and to find a way to re-generate the excitement, energy and enthusiasm that is a part of my life, as we come out from under it.

To that end, I found myself reading a fascinating book called The Doorstep Mile: Live More Adventurously Every Day by Alastair Humphreys, a British Adventurer. I recommend that you read it and maybe even implement some of the ideas and concepts you will discover within the pages. (Note: I am not an affiliate and do not make a commission or receive compensation if you choose to buy the book).

The chapter reproduced below (with permission) stood out as reiterating some of the principles I have written about in these Energy Bites. I think you will find it interesting.

From the book:

THE THREE STAGES
OF FLABBINESS

There are three stages of flabbiness in life, I realised years ago. The unsettling epiphany led to me deciding to walk from one coast of southern India to the other, through Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

Each stage of flabbiness is more restricting and stifling than the one before it. They creep insidiously over me like vines until it takes one hell of a struggle to escape their clutches. If ever I feel the saggy symptoms of flabbiness snuffling up on my life, then I know it is time to make some changes or hit the road. Only once I acknowledge the problems am I able to take the first small step towards fixing them and getting back on track.

The first stage of flabbiness, and the easiest to fix, is physical flabbiness. It begins when busy schedules, dark winter days and eating too much win the devil’s footrace against the part of me that knows that exercise isn’t a waste of time but actually makes me more efficient, alert and happy. Despite knowing this, at times I am still sufficiently idle to let my standards slip and my fitness slide away.

Fitness is like chasing a shoal of fish: difficult to get hold of, so easy to lose. If I don’t go running for a few days, I feel cooped up and ratty. Leave it a few more, and the habit is broken. I know I need to run. But I can’t be bothered. Flabbiness has begun to set in, slowly, invasively, like cataracts. Before I know it, I am easing out my belt buckle and blaming my sloth on the effects of age.

The second stage is mental flabbiness. Give up exercising, stop forcing myself out the front door for a run, and inevitably my mind starts to sag too. I used to feel alert and inquisitive. I used to read lots of books. But one evening I come home tired. Flopping down onto the sofa, I reach for the television remote instead. I realise how pleasant life can be if I stop thinking about it.

It is much simpler to exist than to live. I’ve got a dishwasher and a coffee percolator and I can drink at home with the TV on. I flick round and round the channels until I have frittered away enough of my life that it’s time to go to bed. If I don’t snap out of this quickly, then I’ll soon be on a slippery slope towards the third, terminal, stage of flabbiness: moral flabbiness!

Each day brings me closer to my death. No matter how aware I am of this, it is sometimes difficult to believe my days are numbered. I burn carelessly through weeks, even months, unable to restart living fully.

I don’t know when I will die, so putting important things off to an indeterminate date in an un-guaranteed future is pretty daft. There are so many places I still want to see, so many interesting people to meet, so much to do. And there is so little time. Before I know it I’ll be dead, and what a bloody waste that will be if I’ve just been arsing around.

By the time I have succumbed to the debilitating onslaught of the first two stages of flabbiness, I am already well on the primrose path to moral flabbiness. Not only have I conceded my physical health and settled for candy floss in place of a brain, but I have also accepted that this is good enough for my life.

This is ridiculous because I know that I am happiest when I have a sense of purpose. Instead, I have become comfortably numb. I have decided that scrolling through social media with a Chinese takeaway is sufficient return for the privilege of being born – healthy and intelligent enough – in one of the wealthiest, most free countries on the planet.

I have a passport to explore the world. I will always be able to find some sort of work. I will never starve to death. It’s hard really for me to come up with any decent excuses.

The choice is all mine.

Life is too brief and too magnificent to tiptoe through half-heartedly, rather than galloping at with whooping excitement and ambition. And so I explode with outrage just in time. I need to get back into the wild. It is time to live deeply once again. It is time to sort my life out. This can be done in two ways. I either jump in the nearest cold river for a bracing swim, or I make a plan, set a start date and, come what may, begin.

FROM: Humphreys, Alastair. The Doorstep Mile: Live More Adventurously Every Day (pp. 132-135). Kindle Edition, PC.

At the end of the chapter, Humphreys asks you to evaluate your own symptoms of each stage of flabbiness that are an early warning of a deeper malaise. Perhaps you have found yourself in one, or all three of these stages of flabbiness as we slowly emerge from the cocoon of quarantine.

Thank you for reading.

For the past week and a half, my wife, my grandson and I got away from the house and drove through the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee. I learned that I’m not as young as I once was as pointed out through these eleven lessons and ten tips.

1. Dehydration is easy. It doesn’t take long to become dehydrated. Dehydration causes fatigue and lack of focus. It can be more dangerous as you get older. Tip: Drink more water.

2. Injuries can come from a sudden movement when you are older. I learned this first hand. I was taking a picture from Blowing Rock, NC using my wife’s phone and I dropped it. I barely managed to catch it but I did — at the cost of a damaged shoulder. The sudden movement re-injured previous shoulder problems. it happened suddenly, quickly and painfully. Still hurts. Tip: Beware of sudden movements.

3. It’s not as easy to exercise on trips. We stayed in a couple of different cabins on the trip with moderate floor space. The furniture takes up nearly all the space and there is both very little room and very little time to do a lot of different movements. But I managed to get in some exercise using stretch bands and the floor. Stretch bands are easy to travel with and provide good exercise. Tip: Take stretch bands on your next trip and use them. They don’t cost much and don’t take up much room in your travel bag.

4.  It’s very easy to become grouchy. Dehydration is one factor. Another is just being an old curmudgeon. Aging and becoming a curmudgeon can go together for those who don’t smile, don’t move around much, and let our energy deplete. Tip: Smile a lot and move more.

5. It takes longer to recover from exertion. Yes, when you are in your sixties or up, and you spend the day standing or walking, you get tired very quickly and you recover much more slowly than your younger brethren. I guess that portends the future. Tip: Exercise and real food helps. So does lot’s of sleep.

6. Tourist walking is not the same as exercise walking. While you can get a lot of exercise while walking as a tourist, it’s slower, more time consuming and a lot less exercise. Plus there is a lot of just standing around which is hard on the hips and back. Tip: Move around a lot.

7. Keeping up with a 15 year old grandson is challenging for an 80 year old. Tip: Stay fit. Keeping up with the kids is easier.

8. The latest rides are much scarier than they used to be. Lots of loops and turns at 70 miles per hour facing straight down, then straight up. No tip here.

9. Teenaged grandkids would rather play with their X-Box than spend a lot of time in an amusement park. They are also looking at their phones all the time, even in a great Theme Park. Fortunately, my grandson thoroughly enjoyed the scary rides. But getting back to the cabin, the X-Box goes on first. Tip: I guess we have to deal with it and watch out for kids with their heads down.

10. Last week we were in Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN. What a well designed Theme Park. But where’s Dolly. She’s close to my age. Tip: Don’t look for Dolly. Enjoy the one you’re with.

11. People are a lot larger in the South. In fact, many are huge. I’ve seen a surprisingly large number of VERY large people over the past week or so. It must be the fried foods and sweet tea they serve in the South. Most of them move VERY slowly — seniors, middle aged, and young kids. As the French say, Americans are the “balloon people.”  Tip: Eat less and move more, particularly if you live in the South.

I learned these 11 lessons during this trip which ended this past weekend. Another lesson is that the Smokies are beautiful mountains with a lot to see and do — but, it’s good to be home.

Thank you for reading.