The forgiveness and flexibility of my youth has officially gone bye-bye.
So I’ve begun to ask myself what the energetic 80-year-olds that swim at the Naval Academy with me are doing differently than the lifeless elderly folks at the senior center I occasionally visit. And, yes, I’ll occasionally pretend to be Barbara Walters and ask nosy questions about what they are doing right (or wrong, but I don’t quite word it like that).
1. They like to laugh.
Yep, nearly all of them have a marvelous sense of humor. And this is consistent with a Norwegian study that suggests folks who can laugh at life’s ups and downs live longer. For example, the study, which was presented at a meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society and reported by USA Today, followed a subgroup of 2,015 cancer patients for seven years, and found that the people who could laugh more easily and had a healthy sense of humor were 70 percent less likely to die than the poker-faced guys.
2. They are involved.
Yep. Each and every one of them was engaged in some type of project: babysitting their grandkids, participating in some writers’ group, working on a literacy campaign, or playing a part in the local theatre group. All the vibrant folks had some passion or life mission that got them up in the morning and gave them reason to wake up another day.
3. They watch what they eat and they exercise.
I was so hoping that this would not be the case, because I am aware that maintaining your weight gets more difficult with every year you hike down from that peak. Metabolisms slow and appetites grow, because energy starts disappearing like coal, and you can’t burn off the calories that used to crank up your metabolic rate. And will power? Well, it’s where the energy is … gone. Many studies have found that exercise keeps the mind in shape as well.
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