2025 May 20 Stay as young as you fell

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Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me today to talk about aging amazingly. If you like what you hear tonight, please tell your friends, send me a message, and please subscribe.

Tonight we're going to be talking about how many of us aren't just aging gracefully, but aging amazingly—with lower rates of dementia, shorter recovery times, and doing well both mentally and physically—much longer than used to be predicted. So what's going on with that?

There was a story in the weekend review section of the Wall Street Journal this past Saturday, May 17th. As soon as I saw the headline, I knew I had to share it with you. The headline: Americans in their eighties and nineties are redefining old age. And, of course, they have the requisite picture of people doing amazing things at amazing ages.

When you read the story, there's a lot of interesting science going on behind it. We've been seeing hints of this all around—in statistics, in science, noting that, despite the general decline in the general population's health, it seems that many more baby boomers are living far longer than expected.

Some of the underlying causes are pretty predictable. The people they highlighted were all staying physically active, trying to eat well, staying socially engaged. They had hobbies, did volunteer work, or held jobs that required active participation. 

And very importantly, they had good attitudes and focused on the positives, which helped when the occasional health calamity would pass through their lives. It's worth noting that if you delve a little deeper into these superficial reasons, the result is a bit more than the sum of the individual parts.

As one of the researchers noted, older Americans tend to report higher levels of emotional wellbeing and lower levels of negative emotions. This surprised the researchers because, as one of them mentioned, they had never really looked at attitudes before.

There are some fantastic statistics that came out of this. One of them I didn’t realize: one in six people in the U.S. are now 65 or older—that’s about 18% of the population. And it’s expected that if nothing changes by 2034, there will be more people over 65 than there are young people under 18.

There are a lot of interesting implications with that. What it really means is that people tend to live longer. That’s how the curve looks when that happens—people live longer. And the population, even if it’s not growing dramatically because lifespan is increasing, is still shifting.

As expected, there are a number of chronic ailments and conditions that arise as people age—things like arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease. But interestingly, even though some of the people in the interviews had these conditions, they tended not to be the focus of their lives.

They were still generally pretty active. Plus, more people are becoming aware of how food has a big influence on your health—and hence, your enjoyment of life. So they're really starting to adjust their diets. And with all the GLP drugs, that’s made a major change. It’s had a statistically significant effect on people’s eating habits.

A lot of junk food companies are now trying to move into other areas—buying up health food brands. Or they’re launching special GLP-friendly diets and pre-made foods, because people just aren’t eating as much trash as they were before.

The article also noted the gap between lifespan—the number of years you're alive—and health span—the number of years you live in good health. Right now, in the U.S., that gap is about 12.4 years. And while that's higher than in most other countries, one has to be careful with aggregate statistics like this.

If a country has very poor healthcare overall, then lifespan and health span may be very close—but that’s often because most people pass away shortly after getting sick. So you have to be careful interpreting stats like that. And it also depends on how they define good health.

Depending on the definition, it might actually be better if the health span is longer, even with a chronic condition—because that could mean you're still living comfortably. Just because a statistical measure says you're out of good health, if you're still enjoying life, then I would say you still have a good, positive lifespan.

Also, many of the studies done so far focus solely on what I call medical health. For example, if you have high blood pressure. They did nothing at all to try and quantify people’s quality of life. So while there have been a lot of studies on health (that's where all these Alzheimer's predictions came from) along with the so-called gray tsunami predictions and concerns about needing more caregivers—they were all based on not actually asking people how they were living.

So, judging from those raw results, you couldn’t tell. One of the examples they gave was that, statistically, you couldn't distinguish whether someone was living in a nursing home or was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The only thing they knew was that the person was 68 and had high blood pressure—and that alone put them into the category of living in poor health. But they knew nothing else.

So, for what we're talking about, those studies are pretty much useless.

The good news is they’re now doing a lot of new studies to actually fill in those gaps, and one of the things they’re finding is that a lot of the outcomes related to how happily people live as they age are strongly tied to their general attitude toward life.

It was pointed out that in America, the concept of old wasn’t even really formalized until the advent of Social Security in 1935, because that defined a retirement age. Prior to that, there wasn’t this sudden shift—people just got older, and that was that. There was no line in the sand where you went from being young to being old.

This ties in with everything we’ve discussed about ageism and the hugely negative effects that ageism and negative feedback have—especially when they’re based solely on something like your age. It's just one of so many different criteria, and age itself really shouldn't have a major impact on either your self-attitude or how you’re perceived by others.

Yes, the basics are important. It’s critical that you remain physically active. Depending on your overall health, that can mean simply getting in some comfortable walking or doing some light exercise. There are people who do moderate physical conditioning on a regular basis. The health benefits of being physically active are huge.

Not only does your body love you for it, so do your emotions, your brain, and all those subtle little muscle memory things and subconscious tasks—like maintaining your balance or being able to do light housework—even walking on uneven surfaces. All these things improve if you stay even a little bit active. So that’s one of the core things that almost everybody in the article did.

The next thing is super important, too. Maintaining social relationships and avoiding isolation. This has a huge positive impact on people—especially when some of those interactions are in person.

I can say from personal experience, sometimes I have to go work in an office, and I have a day full of Teams calls, but I’m locked in this little room in my home office. If I don’t actually get out and meet some people, it feels like I might as well have spent the day alone. Computer-based, interactive calls—yes, they’re nice. They’re a lot better than nothing. But if that’s the only kind of interaction you have in your life, your brain isn’t fooled.

It knows you’re not actually talking to someone in the way you would in the real 3D world, in real life. So, interaction is super important—genuine, in-person interaction with other people.

Just hearing voices isn’t the same as actually interfacing with people. It doesn’t need to be frequent. It’s great if it is, but even if it’s not, just knowing that on Saturday you’re going to the garden club—that grounds your week. It gives you something to focus on and to look forward to.

Having some regular, real interaction is a big plus in helping you age gracefully. It’s also really important to remember that your activities—any of your activities—don’t have to be age appropriate. One of the people they highlighted had a big 90th birthday party, and she had nearly 200 family and friends show up to celebrate. And boy, did she celebrate! Among other things, by being part of a big commemorative line dance. At 90 years old!

It was pretty funny—they had another picture of the same woman with her son, who looked like he was in his sixties, just judging from the photo. It made me laugh because it reminded me of my mother. She used to laugh that her oldest son (my brother) was on Social Security while she was still alive.

That family interaction—both the woman in the article and my mother—had the same kind of approach. They stayed active, they challenged themselves, they were involved with their families, they volunteered, they had friends. Sure, they had medical issues, but they dealt with them—and they tried not to let those issues become the focus of their lives.

That’s really important. Keep a positive attitude.

Finally, it seems that Alzheimer’s is becoming less debilitating. Some think it’s due to better control of high blood pressure, because there’s a big link between high blood pressure and developing dementia from Alzheimer’s. There may be other reasons as well, but in the study, a lot of the people who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s were still cognitively quite sharp. They weren’t showing significant signs of dementia at all.

One of the things that helped with that was that most of the people in the study were mentally active. They were doing things like reading, learning new languages, studying—anything that really challenged the brain.

So I guess the moral of the story is—the next time you’re tempted to say you’re really feeling your age, be careful which older adult you’re using as your role model. Because if you’re looking at the folks highlighted in this article on proactive aging, you might be line dancing, getting a PhD, doing calisthenics, writing a new book, walking with friends, volunteering, learning a new language, or entering a Scrabble competition.

All of these people were doing things to stay involved in life. And even though aging has its challenges, the biggest challenge to avoid is viewing it as something entirely negative. There are many positives that come with aging.

If you look for them, you’ll find them. Sure, many of the limitations are reductions in what we could do when we were younger. Maybe you used to walk ten miles a night, and now it’s only a mile or two. Or maybe you used to lift 200 pounds, and now you struggle with 80. 

Yes, it can be a challenge, but there are also many positive changes in attitude, knowledge, and perspective that come with aging well. It’s never too late to start making positive changes to your own lifestyle.

There are some really extreme cases. If you want to stop smoking and eating Twinkies in your sixties—go for it. You’ll thank yourself in your seventies. I’ve seen people make big changes like that, and it made a huge difference in their lives and how they felt.

If you want to finally learn Japanese after all these years, in an online group—go for it. There’s really almost nothing stopping you if you can get access to a computer or smartphone. In fact, there are often more opportunities for low-cost activities as you age, and people tend to be a little more accepting of diverse groups as you get older.

Look for the good, keep track of your gratitude, try to keep things positive, and think about all the opportunities that still lie before you.

That’s it for the evening. Remember, I’ll be hosting a free webinar called Smart Goals for Life soon. It’ll be an interactive session where we expand on everything we discussed a couple of weeks ago in the SMART Goals segment. We’ll provide some practical worksheets and exercises to help you apply those concepts to your own goals.

Whether you’re considering retirement, changing careers, or going through any other life transition, this webinar will give you the concrete tools you need to achieve the goals that truly matter to you. We’ll work through some real examples together, and you’ll leave with a personalized action plan—one that you’ve helped create for yourself to meet your own needs.

If there’s anything in particular you’d like to cover, please drop me a note and we can certainly include it. Stay tuned for the specific dates and signup links.

Even if you can’t attend live, go ahead and register for the webinar. There will be a replay, and you’ll also receive all the materials we go through during the session. Plus, there will be a raffle for a new product—so lots of exciting stuff coming up.

Your homework for tonight is to think of some positive things you’ve been considering doing, but just haven’t gotten around to starting yet. It could be something recent, or something you’ve thought about your whole life. Try to come up with a list of at least two or three different things. Extra points if you pick one idea and talk to a friend—or even a stranger—about how you’re going to try something new, no matter your age.

So that’s it. Please remember the many wars and hardships going on around the world. There's a lot happening—both here and elsewhere. UKR7.com connects you to various support efforts for Ukraine. As you know, the war there just drags on and on—it's not a good situation, and they can certainly use our help.

If that’s not your main focus right now, WCK.org—World Central Kitchen—is another great organization. They work in disaster zones all over the world. Whenever a hurricane, tornado, or other disaster hits, they’re there getting food to people and helping set up basic necessities.

There are also many local organizations where, no matter where you live, people can always use help. Whether it’s through money or time, if you can volunteer, that’s always appreciated. And if you can’t do any of those things—remember, just smile at somebody. It can make their day.

As always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along. Please subscribe, hit that like button. If not, please drop me a comment as to what you’d like to hear.

Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dream of, because that’s the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.