De Claire Joan - Enlightened aging building resilience for a long, active life

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Larson, Eric B., author. | DeClaire, Joan, author.

Title: Enlightened aging : building resilience for a long, active life / Eric B. Larson, MD and Joan DeClaire.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017001674 (print) | LCCN 2017018963 (ebook) | ISBN 9781442274372 (electronic) | ISBN 9781442274365 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Aging. | AgingPhysiological aspects. | Older peopleHealth and hygiene.

Classification: LCC QP86 (ebook) | LCC QP86 .L365 2017 (print) | DDC 612.6/7dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017001674

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

H. Gilbert Welch, MD

When I first met Eric Larson, he was a lot older than me. He was a professor of medicine at the University of Washington. I had just finished my residency at the University of Utah and had been hired on as his research assistant. Thats a big gap.

Nearly thirty years have passed since then. Now Eric is a hell of a lot older than me. Hes in his seventies; Im still thirty. As you might imagine, confabulation is one of my cognitive issues; I cant remember the others.

Maybe thats why Eric wanted me to read Enlightened Agingparticularly the chapter on acceptance.

Aging has been a constant of human experience over the millennia. Whats changed is the number of people recommending things that you should do about it. Or, more precisely, things you should purchase for it. The messaging is everywhere: take a medicine, buy some supplements, apply a cream or magnetic field, make appointments to see any number of traditional or alternative health care providers, get tested for x, y, and z. In fact, get tested for anything you can be tested for.

But, as you will see, the path to healthy aging is not centered on the consumption of health care services. The path is instead centered on developing the ability to adapt to changing circumstancesthe ability to bounce back from an illness, injury, loss, or any other setback. In a word, resilience. Dont be fooled by the ads. You dont procure resilience; you build it.

Thats what this book is about.

It begins with what Eric calls proactivity. You might think this is a call to avoid inactivity, but that comes later. Instead, its a call to avoid passivityparticularly when it comes to health care decision making. Get engaged. Get informed. Recognize the strong forces promoting more health care. And recognize that more health care is not necessarily better for you. Develop a little healthy skepticism about health information and make decisions that are right for you. You need to take charge.

The book ends with how to fill three reservoirs: your mental, physical, and social reserves. Think of this as filling a savings accountor filling the woodshed for the impending winter. You want to have a little excess capacity; having reserves is critical to adapting to the changing circumstances that accompany aging. So keep learning new things, keep moving, and keep connecting with others. It doesnt have to be complicated. An engaging conversation during a brisk walk (preferably on uneven surfaces) with a close friend can do the trick.

In between, Eric explores the importance of acceptance. This is the chapter I most needed to read. (Eric, born in 1946, is on the leading edge of the baby-boom generation. Im near the end of it.) You dont need to dwell on aging, but dont deny it either. Thats a recipe for disappointment, discouragement, and unhappiness. Eric accepts hes not going to climb Mount Rainer again, but he has discovered other ways to meet his love for challenging outdoor activities. Ive never climbed Rainer (or anything close to the nine thousand feet of vertical gain). But I love the outdoors too and see the value of moderating my view of what constitutes challenging physical activity.

Acceptance of aging calls for more broad-based moderation: how many tasks we expect to do in a day, how many people we need to see, how much to cram into our schedules. In short, moderating our expectations. Ironically, this may be central to our happiness (and, in turn, our health). How we feel about experiences has something to do with what we expected in the first place. While there is certainly a case for having high expectations (particularly for the young), I believe there is also a case for lowering expectations. The reason is simple: high expectations are hard to meet, and lowering expectations makes successes more possible. Of course, theres a balance: challenge yourself, but make sure the challenge is adjusted for age. Avoid the attendant downsides of high expectationsdisappointment, discouragement, and unhappiness.

One more thing to accept: There are no guarantees in life (except death). You can be proactive, have your reserves overflowing, and still experience an event you cant bounce back from. In other words, good people doing all the right things nevertheless may experience bad events. This book is not about guarantees; its about how to stack the odds in your favor.