healthy aging – Page 2 – My Karma Wheel

January 18, 2014February 27, 2018

Great Article All Parents Should Read

Is it possible? Can you really love your kids TOO much?

Here is a terrific article from The Huffington Post that gives some fabulous free advice to “cockpit parents.” What’s a “cockpit parent”? A step above the helicopter hovering so prevalent in the Baby Boomer generation, these parents are unintentionally controlling their child’s life to such a point that the child really HAS no life of their own.

I see this all the time, even in my own extended family (and I’m sure a lot of you do, too).

I’ll ask a college kid “What’s your major?” and the mother or father will jump in: “He’s an English major.”

I’ll ask the kid “What do you want to do when you graduate?” and before the college student can answer, I get a 10 minute dissertation from the parents about all the “child’s” plans.

Ask the child about their hobbies, and be prepared for a 30 minute diatribe from Mom or Dad.

Sheesh! Give the poor kids a break–so many of them today are totally and completely smothered and handicapped by their parents. There are even statistics cited in this piece from American Express market research to demonstrate it.

I call it “Failure to Fledge” syndrome, and it’s all around you.

Kids are living with their parents even AFTER obtaining an all-expenses-paid college education (and sometimes even multiple advanced degrees) and yet still find themselves dependent on their parents’ bank accounts for even the most basic needs. I even know a couple who regularly fund their married, unemployed, adult daughter’s “Savings Account” (yes, she’s 27 and still lives at home for free, too). Some of these live-at-home-with-mom-and-dad’s are even married with children of their own.

Long term, the price these childlike adults actually pay in personal self-respect is terribly sad.

It’s a type of personal paralysis that’s very painful to watch and leaves an adult child wracked with self-doubt (though often successfully camouflaged with an appearance of utmost confidence).

They have all the credentials, but no career. No motivation. No aspirations. No desire. No ambition. No self-direction.

Here are a few warning signs to look for in your own parenting (if your child is over 18, of course).

Have you ever:

Filled out an application for your child?
Written their resume?
Called in favors from professional friends, requesting internships, etc.?
Listed yourself as a reference on your child’s resume? [Please, tell me you didn’t!]
Provided groceries, laundry services, etc. free of charge?
“Straightened out” a cell phone or other bill or interceded in a phone call to customer service?

If you think there’s the slightest possibility you might be handicapping your children while trying to help them (in other words, are you out of the denial phase yet?), please do yourself a favor and read this insightful article by Christine Hassler at the Huffington Post: “Cockpit Parents: How They’re Flying 20-Somethings Into the Ground.”

I strongly urge you to take some time to read through some of the readers’ comments at the end of the article so you can see how some of these “kids” (and their competitors in the real-world marketplace) feel about the situation.

Here’s a bit of sage advice from the conclusion of the piece:

“Get your own life. This is a tough one for many parents who pride themselves on being friends with their children. Please don’t be their friend on Facebook and comment on all their photos. Give them some space, and find your own as well. Invest in yourself, spend time with friends and start doing the things you put off because you were investing so much time into making your child what you think he or she could be. Let them be who they are, and discover who you are.”

Words of Wisdom, if you’re ready to receive them yet.

Do you love your children enough to let them go?

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P.S. If you’re one of the kids on the receiving end of this parenting “style,” Christine Hassler has written a five-star rated book, 20 Something Manifesto: Quarter-Lifers Speak Out About Who They Are, What They Want, and How to Get It, available at Amazon.

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Update from ABC News: 60% Parents Providing Financial Support to Their Adult Children
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(this article was originally published elsewhere, 3/18/2011)

January 14, 2014

Blogger Addresses Disease Called Perfection

A friend forwarded me a link to a stunningly honest blog post at Dan and Noah’s Single Dad Laughing blog. The post is about the disease called Perfectionism, and it’s a wonderful piece of brave and thoughtful writing. The kind of brutally honest piece you’ll never read in a commercial magazine.

Check it out here.

You owe it to yourself. Then give yourself permission to be less than perfect today. Have a great week!

January 12, 2014

Surprise! Calorie Restriction Study Results Shock Researchers: IT DOESN’T MATTER

Researchers, some of whom were restricting calories in their own diets to reap the expected results of this study, were SHOCKED to find that severe calorie restriction doesn’t actually lengthen life span as anticipated.

To quote Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Oops.”

The study, begun in 1987, involved rhesus monkeys.

You can read more here at the NY Times while I celebrate with another dunk of my biscotti. Cheers!

(originally published elsewhere, 9/1/2012)

January 5, 2014

Is Ikaria the Anti-Aging Island?

One of my abiding interests is health enhancement.

In my personal experience, the key to good health is a successful combination of very tiny improvements to DAILY HABITS: mental habits, eating habits, exercise habits, and spiritual habits.

So I was particularly interested by this FASCINATING story from the New York Times about Ikaria, an island in the Aegean Sea, that has the world’s highest concentration of long-lived people.

It contains an engaging story about a native Ikarian who lived in the US and returned to his homeland after being diagnosed with lung cancer. But only a New York Times writer can tell that story as it needs to be told, so I’ll let you read it yourself.

Here are just a couple of quick quotes from the piece:

Over the span of the next three days, I met some of Leriadis’s patients. In the area known as Raches, I met 20 people over 90 and one who claimed to be 104. I spoke to a 95-year-old man who still played the violin and a 98-year-old woman who ran a small hotel and played poker for money on the weekend.

So, how do the natives themselves explain their unusual longevity?

Ask the very old on Ikaria how they managed to live past 90, and they’ll usually talk about the clean air and the wine. Or, as one 101-year-old woman put it to me with a shrug, “We just forget to die.”

In Samos, they care about money. Here, we don’t. For the many religious and cultural holidays, people pool their money and buy food and wine. If there is money left over, they give it to the poor. It’s not a ‘me’ place. It’s an ‘us’ place.”

You really owe it to yourself to set aside a relaxed ten minutes to read this great story:
The Island Where People Forget to Die by Dan Buettner.

January 2, 2014

Surprising News: Yoga Can HURT You

It’s the time of the year everyone gets re-inspired to get back in shape. If you’re into Yoga, Pilates, or Fusion Workouts, you owe it to yourself to read this article in the New York Times (How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body).

The article details quite a few instances of serious injuries (strokes, cerebral hemorrhages, cartilage and muscle tears, spinal stenosis, etc.) that are much more common than I ever realized.

Yoga aficionados, you owe it to yourselves to learn what poses are particularly risky. Here’s the link again.

You’d never think that by working to insure your health, you could risk it completely. Stay healthy, stay informed!

January 1, 2014

Serotonin from Niacin?

Serotonin is the neurotransmitter in the brain that helps you to relax and aids in restful, deep-REM sleep so essential to keeping your brain in good working order for massive coding check projects : ) .

If you’re not a nerd who engages in massive coding check projects, serotonin still helps you feel relaxed, confident, and calmly happy.

The amino acid L-Tryptophan (and its cheaper precursor, 5-HTP) do this quite well.

But there may be an even cheaper alternative: Vitamin B3 (niacin). IF you can handle the heat of its well known side effect, skin flushing.

Niacin has been shown to effectively lower cholesterol levels, but it seems to have the terrific additional benefit of raising serotonin levels in the brain.

Dr. Abram Hoffer did some well-known studies showing niacin’s amazing benefits for schizophrenic patients. Looks like it is highly beneficial for the rest of us–

What In the World is an Omentum and Why Should I Care?

Check out this link to a piece that Dr. Oz presented several years ago.

You actually HAVE an omentum and you really NEED to know what it is and what it does. HINT: if you let it get out of control, the omentum will actually function as an endocrine gland and completely sabotage your attempts at weight loss. . .

So visit the link and empower yourself!

Dead Link; SORRY–will update ASAP….

December 25, 2013

English Majors, Cover Your Eyes. Math Wins Again. Longevity Determinable by a FORMULA.

OK. If you’re an English Major, just go back to reading The Waste Land while we talk about some dorky math formulas that accurately predict lifespans for everything from algae to plants, elephants, sharks, and tigers.

Did you know that your cells have a pulse, just like your heart? And that, no matter what animal or vegetable you may be, you’re alotted approximately one and one half billion pulses in your lifetime, and no more?

The tiny hummingbird pulses fast; its life is short. The majestic elephant’s cells pulse more slowly; its life is considerably longer.

And a physicist has developed a formula that explains this phenomenon.

Read this fascinating NPR piece by Robert Krulwich (from January 2013), which discusses the work of physicist Geoffrey West, and you’ll probably learn much more than you ever knew before about the very nature of being alive:

Nature Has a Formula That Tells Us When It’s Time to Die

December 24, 2013

Is Exercise Brain-Protective? Evidence Mounts as Apparent Correlation Between Cognition and Gait Emerges

Merry Christmas Eve to all!

As we’re gathering together with friends and relatives, it’s always interesting to see how much–or how little–we’ve all changed in a year’s time. Some are blossoming as others fade. Children grow like weeds, voices lower, voices richen, some fall silent.

As a child, I was always fascinated by the adults in my circle. I had an extremely elderly, matriarchal and imposing great-grandmother whose light faded noticeably from year to year, to the point that once I had graduated from bibs she was relegated to them. Although I was quite small, I remember seeing her fed at the table one year and in her sickbed the next and then she disappeared altogether.

Remembering her this year, I thought about how apparent the decline had been, how no one was surprised as she made her transition from ruler to ruled one.

And I wondered if any of us has the ability to see this decline in ourselves, so we can actually DO SOMETHING before it overtakes us.

In my opinion, yes we can. And it’s the same old answer: STAY PHYSICALLY ACTIVE.

Here is a terrific analysis of the issue from a July 2012 New York Times article by Pam Belluck: Footprints to Cognitive Decline and Alzheimer’s are Seen in Gait.

Pam Belluck (@PamBelluck) does a masterful job detailing some studies performed in Basel, Switzerland that yielded some surprisingly simple diagnostic tools that can help reveal impending cognitive decline. In my own opinion, I think this also reveals an opportunity to some to “reinforce their wiring.”

Read the article and you’ll see what I mean. Be sure to watch the attached short video clip that shows a woman walking, then walking while counting backward by two’s; a picture is worth a thousand words.

Enjoy the holidays (and especially that vital after-dinner walk)!

December 19, 2013February 27, 2018

Muscle vs. Fat OR Why Exercise Won’t Really Make You Thin

I’m an avid exerciser, but I’ve always worked out to benefit my BRAIN more than my body.

I can say I’ve reaped many physical benefits from exercise over the years [I’m told I look “young for my age” (gee, thanks, junior!)]; my weight is in an excellent, healthy range; my blood pressure is low; resting pulse is low; and my HDL cholesterol’s a terrific 77], but what I like best about exercising is the side benefit of those powerful, feel-good endorphins. When I exercise, I simply feel better. That’s enough to keep me on the treadmill with enthusiasm.

I have an easier time focusing on challenging mental tasks than a lot of people in my age group and I get a LOT done in a day. Every day’s a new adventure for me, and I approach each morning with enthusiasm and excitement. I credit my exercise regimen (and my great example of a husband) for this other great side benefit: happiness.

So, I thought I’d share an interesting article that dispels a common misunderstanding. Lots of people think that exercise automatically results in this equation: exercise=muscle gain=fat loss=weight loss.

The real world truth is a little more complex. Many (if not most) people actually gain weight when they start exercising because their appetite increases due to the physical demands of exercise.

Read this compelling article by John Cloud, published in Time Magazine —Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin.

Here’s a quick quote:

“…The muscle-fat relationship is often misunderstood. According to calculations published in the journal Obesity Research by a Columbia University team in 2001, a pound of muscle burns approximately six calories a day in a resting body, compared with the two calories that a pound of fat burns. Which means that after you work out hard enough to convert, say, 10 lb. of fat to muscle — a major achievement — you would be able to eat only an extra 40 calories per day, about the amount in a teaspoon of butter, before beginning to gain weight. Good luck with that. “

So, if you’re working out just to lose weight, you may be just spinning your wheels.

But if you work out to improve your cardiovascular system, improve your strength, improve your balance, solidify the brain/body connection, and to reap some feel-good endorphins for your brain, you’re on the right track!

You Go Girl (or Guy)!