What to do about the scary stuff that makes middle-aged spines shiver posted by Donna Sapolin

Forget things that go bump in the night, global warming, Congressional paralysis, creepie crawlies and assault weapons. There are five other worries that make the hearts of middle-aged folks leap into their throats on a regular basis. The good news is it’s totally within our power to chase these evils away — or, at least, diminish their hold on us.

1. Declining memory Sporadic forgetfulness, slower reaction times and other glitches in cognitive processes can result from an aging brain. Some symptoms may point to dementia and Alzheimer’s; others shouldn’t trouble you.

On the bright side, the latest research tells us there are many things we can do to take advantage of the brain’s natural plasticity to reverse the aging process, sharpen our abilities and ward off debilitating brain disease. Examples:

Preserve mental health and acuity by engaging with the arts, particularly dance.
Eat less saturated fat from animal products, which cause the brain to produce beta-amyloid, a protein that contributes to Alzheimer’s. Instead we can consume brain-protecting foods like Vitamin E-rich nuts (about 1.5 ounces or 8 milligrams a day will do), vegetables, beans and a small amount of fruits and whole grains.
Exercise! Walking briskly just three times a week for an hour has been shown to boost the connectivity within brain circuits.
Get a good night’s sleep. A recent study, published in the journal Science, proves that during sleep the brain cleans out the toxic cellular waste products it creates during the day, thereby preventing their build-up. Remain curious, challenge yourself to learn new things and explore things you’re passionate about. By deepening knowledge and skills, we help our brains to thrive.

2. Increased loneliness and isolation Society is now afflicted with a growing isolation epidemic. More adults 50 and older are not only living longer, they’re living apart from family members, divorcing, and becoming separated or widowed. In addition, they begin interacting with fewer people, a fact of midlife.

But people who describe themselves as lonely are at far greater risk of developing dementia and other health problems. It’s vital that we seek out ways to engage with others. Here are some ways to do that:

Make new friends, both young and old. Sign up for classes, get active in social media platforms, hit the gym and join networking groups. Above, all, open your mind and heart to the possibility of fresh connections.
When retiring, think about living close to your friends and family members instead of moving far away, as so many people do.
Rehab your relationship dynamics by following Dr. Terri Orbuch’s (aka “the love doctor”) expert advice on Next Avenue. Overhauling unhealthy habits and participating in therapy sessions may be among life’s more difficult missions, but they can help you secure peace of mind and critical emotional nourishment.
Consider a communal living arrangement — the options are numerous and include co-housing, NORCs (Naturally Occuring Retirement Communities) and living with one or more roommates.
Mentor others. We can derive great satisfaction from passing on our knowledge and, in the process, forge enriching bonds.

(MORE: 9 Most Common Regrets of the Living and Dying — and What to Do About Them)

3. Big debts, little savings The 50+ crowd is facing a perfect storm: the prospect of living on a fixed income at the exact time that government entitlement benefits are at risk of being curtailed and health care needs and costs are soaring.

Many are counting on their ability to continue to work well into older age, yet they will need to sustain good health and secure employment despite the known difficulties of landing a job after the age of 55. Suggestions:

Analyze how much money you will need to retire and still be able to afford the lifestyle you expect. A good online calculator, like the Ballpark E$timate from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, can help.
Work on reducing debts, especially credit card bills, which carry high interest rates.
Prioritize saving. Evaluate all aspects of your lifestyle to see what you can cut back and then apply the ax. This may even mean downsizing your home. You should also contribute as much as possible to 401(k) accounts, reallocate your investments to reduce related fees and build a health care emergency fund.
Hire an astute financial adviser to help you devise a smart plan, which may include delaying Social Security benefits.
To find a job, implement these well-proven strategies: shorten your resumé and incorporate keywords into it, spend more time networking and less time using broad-based job boards and develop a strong, positive online presence.

4. Greater physical frailty and risk of illness The majority of us are carrying extra pounds; many have high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol; and our knees, feet or back may be aching.

There’s no question that the aging process itself leads to increased frailty, but lifestyle behaviors magnify and accelerate health problems. Changing just a few of our habits can go a long way toward enhancing vitality and longevity. Here’s how:

Opt for a Mediterranean diet that emphasizes olive oil, fish, legumes, fruits, vegetables and unrefined grains — and vastly reduce your consumption of sugar and salt.
Try intermittent fasting, which provides enormous health benefits: Eat a Mediterranean diet (about 2,200 to 2,400 calories a day for men; 1,600 to 1,800 per day for women) five days a week and consume only a quarter of your usual calorie intake the other two (non-consecutive) days.
Sit less. Recent studies have shown that sitting more than three hours a day can cut life expectancy by two years even if you exercise regularly during the week. Get up at least a couple of times every hour when working at the computer or watching television and move around. Also, stand up while talking on the phone.
Instead of skipping your workout session because of aches and pains, learn how to adjust common exercises to accommodate your infirmities. To make exercise a priority, schedule your sessions in your calendar and find a workout buddy, which will help keep you motivated.
Reduce stress by practicing meditation, allowing yourself to focus on one task at a time, using relaxation apps and choosing to be happy.

(MORE: 30 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Die)

5. Death Every day, we get a step closer to “the end.” Although we are living longer than ever, by this point many of us have witnessed the passing of one or more loved ones and the final stage is all the more real and perhaps also scarier to us. To reduce your fear of death:

Take serious inventory: Think about how you would like to spend the second half of your life, what you would like to accomplish and what regrets you would like to resolve. Dr. Lissa Rankin advises that you be “unapologetically you.”
Connect with the most vibrant part of yourself — the child-like spirit that is endlessly curious, appreciates adventure and learning and dives readily into new things. Allow your dreams and passions to ignite you.
Practice forgiveness, which is about remembering and telling your story, confronting and absorbing it fully, refusing to give in to anger and revenge and holding on to your humanity.
Stop fighting your enemies. Anger and hostility and the underlying aspects of ourselves that fuel these emotions hold us captive. They are our worst enemies. We can transform our experiences with adversaries into deep learning experiences by recognizing that they are, in fact, our teachers.
Mend rifts with adult children and parents. Give up the need to be “right” and work on yourself (perhaps with the help of a professional counselor) to avoid repeating the same offenses. This will help you shape a new, healthier dynamic.

Remember, some of the fiends that haunt us are of our own making. But even if they aren’t, we can take action to bust the boogeymen.

Posted April 17, 2013

As our roles shift in older age, so does our sense of community, and feelings of isolation often accompany elder life. When I spoke about this to Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen Master, he said that in spite of the information age and advances in technology, which allow us to communicate with each other so rapidly, “one human being can’t be with another human being [through technology]. A father can’t be with a son, a mother with a daughter, a father with a daughter, a friend with a friend.” It’s harder and harder for human beings to be together, even though they can transmit information to more and more people all the time.

Although relationships change in all stages of life, it often seems harder to find new connections to replace the ones we lose as we age. This effort to stave off loneliness and to replace missing connections can sometimes take extreme forms, as in a case I read about in which a Japanese man hired a surrogate couple with a baby to visit his elderly parents because he didn’t have time. The old people spent the day pretending that these strangers were their actual family, talking about their “grandchild’s” health, how much the baby had grown, and so on. Before the surrogate couple left, kisses were exchanged and promises to visit again soon, and they were paid by the son an equivalent of $1,150 for their time and thespian abilities.

“Now and Then” photographed by Betina La Plante

Caring for someone else is one way to combat loneliness. In response to this need, some older people have taken it upon themselves to be of service. Laura Huxley created Project Caress, a public space located in a shopping center where mothers and fathers can leave their babies while they shop. With a registered child-car professional in attendance, older people volunteer to come in to hold and cuddle the babies. The babies and the elders alike benefit from the contact. Although we may yearn to be quieter as we age, human beings have an inborn need for social contact that must be honored if we are not to suffer, and part of our conscious-aging curriculum must include finding ways to satisfy this yearning. We long to reassure ourselves that other hearts exist; to affirm our own existence through the presence of others. An older couple I know – he’s a psychiatrist, she’s a meditation teacher – have a big, beautiful home, where they raised a large family. After the children moved away and started families of their own, my friends were left rattling around in their big house, until one day they said, “This is a waste! Here we are in this wonderful house – why don’t we fix up the basement and move down there, and give one of our kids and his family the upper floor?” Their son and his family really benefitted by having the house, and my friends enjoyed the cross-generational companionship.

Through a strange set of circumstances, another friend of mine found herself  starting a family she never intended to have. At the age of 69, she became the sole caregiver for a six-year old child. Here was a woman traveling the world to give seminars, writing books, being an intellectual, who suddenly had her life “interrupted” by a child she could not turn away. For the first few years, she bemoaned her fate, but slowly this changed, and she and the child are doing fine. She even admits that her life is better for this unexpected change of plan.

Even though, as Thich Nhat Hanh reminded us, we can not be together through technology, cyberspace can afford us a different way of maintaining connection in older age. No longer bounded by geography, we can meet in the brave new world of the Internet and spend time as companions in virtual reality. A woman speaking on National Public Radio recently reported how she’d used her computer and her internet contacts with people all around the country to get through her depression and loneliness after the death of her husband. A year later, she’s become the one who is counseling and supporting other recent widows in a chat group on the web. A friend of mine who is approaching seventy is teaching her still older next-door neighbor, a shut-in, how to surf the internet. My friend, who loves gardens, shares (among other things) a spirited international internet chat group on gardening. I foresee that computers will play an increasingly important role in engaging elders like me in educational and social participation, relieving us of the hassle of moving our arthritis-ridden, aging bodies around so much.

These sort of creative solutions to how we want to live as we get older are often more available than we think. Unfortunately, many of us are too caught up in the cult of independence to see these possibilities; either we don’t wish to be a burden on others, or we don’t wish to be burdened by others. Either way, we find ourselves more isolated than we need to be. In speaking with hundreds of elderly people, I’ve noticed a distant pattern of loneliness among those vaunting their own independence. We become Eleanor Rigbys, waiting at the windows of life. The “achievement” of living on one’s own is diminished by the sense of being ignored or left behind. This diminishment can become a barrier standing between our egos and the rest of the world, increasingly solid and hard to cross. Whether through shame over our own aging, or through fear of dependency, we should be vigilant about this tendency to isolate ourselves as we get older. To offset it, we might seek out community centers and other meeting places where peers congregate, or consider alternative living arrangements such as assisted-living centers, spiritual communities, and multiple-age communities set up specifically for bringing people of all generations together.

– Excerpt from Still Here by Ram Dass