Preparing OURSELVES for healthy aging!

A typically excellent blog from a senior home health care company wrote a surprisingly DUH! blog posting on how children can prepare their PARENTS for healthy aging.

Excuse me - if the family is at the point where children are having that much influence over their parents, that ship has sailed.  As my dear old Mama would say, all they're doing is closing the barn door after the horse has run out.

I'm not saying the points don't make a lot of sense - they do:

• Lift weights.

• Be socially active, developing friendships across the age spectrum.

• Get in regular daily exercise, be active throughout the day - even when it is a bother.

• Develop interests that engage our full attention, spark the brain, are fun.

My bone to pick starts with the fact it's such a piddly list.  No mention of encouraging them to meditate,to add daily breath work exercises to their daily work-out program, check out tai chi, to get outdoors for at least 20 minutes every day, to turn off cable news stations! 

Second, and far more important, the article targets the wrong audience.  The optimum time to prepare for healthy aging is LONG before we hit even our fifties, let alone our sixties & seventies!  The children need to prepare THEMSELVES for a healthy older age.  Because now, more than ever before, a lot of younger folks are not doing the things listed, from taking the time to being socially active & developing interests, getting regular exercises & lifting weights.  

Adult children can be a huge influence on their parents' health habits.  A client who resisted taking a chair yoga class at her senior residence started after her sons talked to her about trying it out - and she loves it.  A friend who wanted to continue getting down on the floor to play with her grandkids long after she hit 60 is doing just that - in her 80s - because her children encouraged her to take up yoga twenty years before!  It can happen, it's just not the norm.

Good article about beginning steps to preparing ourselves for a healthy aging, but should target the kids, not Mom & Dad!  Not saying those things aren't important for the getting-up-there & ancient, but to make a serious difference in how well we age, they should already be part of our day before we start Medicare.  

Going back over the article, noticed the core question was about being unsure where to start in getting parents back to better health.  That's a far cry from preparing them for healthy aging.  "How do we help Mom & Dad get fitter, healthier?" is not close to "How do we help Ma & Pa have a healthy aging experience?"   

Am surprised the author doesn't say the first, most important thing for anyone, especially a physician, to suggest - talk to their doctor!  No older person should start an exercise or weights program without first discussing with their personal doc.  

Yes, we should do all we can to encourage our older family & friends to take actions - absolutely the ones listed in the article, if they are physically able - to keep their bodies, minds & emotions supple.  Am pleased to report that Mom started doing daily breath work - three sets of three exercises throughout her day - at my suggestion.  The caveat is that daily sets of exercises & a walk outdoors were part of Mom's regular routine for decades & decades.  All she had to do was add breath work to an existing program of exercise & daily walking - she didn't start from scratch.   

Again, good ideas, but the suggestion to develop healthy life patterns should be directed at the children as much - more - than the parents.  As someone who never developed a regular exercise program, never put much value in daily walks, rarely took the time be be outside - all things that John does every day - no one knows better than I how tough it is to change my habits at 64 for the healthier!

Pardon me, but it seems a bit of a no-brainer that youngers should encourage oldsters & ancients to develop healthy habits.  If they have limitations, discuss with their doctor ways they can modify exercises so they can stay active.  In her last few years, Mom was able to get out & about like she had.  In place of the sets of exercises she'd done since her early 20s & the walk that was always part of her day, she did feet & leg raising exercises as she sat in the big chair that Brenda always described as being in the Stickley style, she did those three sets of three breath work exercises. When she couldn't do what had been part of her life for almost seventy years, she adapted & kept on moving.

BUT - most important of all, start preparing YOURSELF to enjoy a healthy, active older old ancient life!