This post will start a series of articles about Making the Most of Your Second Fifty Years. The series will cover in detail multiple actions one can take that are critical to living a long, healthy, happy, and accomplished 2nd fifty years.
Each of these chapters will ask you to answer questions in A PLANNING GUIDE EXERCISE designed to provide self-assessment data you will be able to use in the final chapter to create a Mission Statement and Action Plan designed to help you and/or others you might be helping to move forward in a successful, data supported manner.
Current Life Expectancy in the USA
-According to data compiled by the Social Security Administration: A man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 84.3.
-A woman turning age 65 today can expect to live on average, until 86.6.
-And those are just averaging. About one out of every four who are 65-years old today will live past age 90, and one out of 10 will live past age 95.
Where not otherwise indicated, the scientific data included in this article comes from the book The Brain Training Revolution by Paul Bendheim, M.D. I am not affiliated in any way with Dr. Bendheim and believe that his is a major resource for anybody looking to live a long, healthy, and productive life. I encourage you to consider purchasing that foundational resource.
Let’s start our discussion about EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES by talking about information Dr. Bendheim shares about how individuals can lessen the stress that is a major de-motivator and killer of individuals of all ages.
-There is stress that enhances memory and other body functions. Two examples are the enjoyable stress of modest physical exercise and healthy emotions.
-Memory deficits and a brain that ages before its time are results of chronic stress. Stress proneness is a personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to suffer psychological distress in response to unpleasant or negative emotional events in life. Dr. Robert Wilson at the Rush Center & Institute for Healthy Aging found in a study of eight hundred 75-year-olds that those who had high stress proneness had twice the risk of developing Alzheimer’s than those with low stress proneness or hardiness personalities.
Managing Stress in Your Life: A Quick-Start Guide
1. Listen to your body. Frequent nervous-stomach sensations, recurrent tension headaches, muscle tension and soreness and chronic fatigue can all be physical manifestations or symptoms of stress.
2. Recognize if you are in a stressful situation or that your life has too much chronic stress. Admit you feel stressed beyond your comfort zone.
3. Finally, and this is usually the most difficult step, adjust your attitude.
4. NOTE – much of the content in this program is designed to create a positive attitude and lessen your stress.
Pillars of Stress Management
1. Keep at it. Believe in your chosen stress management technique and be disciplined.
2. Pay attention and stay focused. Focus intently on what you are doing, and this will help reduce your feeling of stress.
3. Repeat it; practice makes perfect. Most successful stress relief techniques are repetitious. The so-called zone of mental calmness and focus can be achieved by repeating either mental or physical activity. Try repetitive and focused breathing or visualizing a pleasant image such as a still lake lined with majestic trees, or a stanza of a song that brings relaxation, or a like or two of poetry.
4. Combining mental and physical components. Many stress-reduction techniques combine a positive mental effort with a physical component. Deep, slow breathing combined with a mental focus on the repetitive cycle of deep inhaling and slow exhaling is a stress-busting technique used around the world.
Activities for Stress Relief
Building a regular stress-relief program into your daily routine is a kind of preventive maintenance for your hippocampus and overall mental state. Stressed out at home or at work? Simply walking out the door of your home or office and paying attention to nature is a potent way to de-stress. Can’t get outdoors? Walk up and down several flights of stairs in your office building or go to your bedroom, close the door, and walk in place for 10 minutes while shadowboxing with your arms.
STRESS-BUSTING PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES:
Yoga or Pilates_____
Tennis_____
Bicycling_____
Rowing_____
Golf – walk rather than ride a cart; even hitting a bucket of balls at the driving range is a powerful outlet for stress _____
Dancing_____
Tai chi_____
Swimming pool exercise_____
Bowling_____
Ping-Pong_____
Practicing fly casting_____
Gardening_____
Pool or billiards_____
Gym or exercise activities: treadmill, stationary bicycle, spinning, rowing, jumping rope_____
Weight training, stretching, and toning exercises, and other forms of non-aerobic activity_____
A PLANNING GUIDE EXERCISE: Put a check mark next to those physical activities that you do regularly. After you have done that go back over the list and circle any activities that you could see yourself adding to your stress reduction routine. Also add additional ideas to the list that were mentioned in the Pillars of Stress Management section above or that you personally know would be helpful.
All of the information I have pulled together about how to have a positive impact on yourself and others is in my Amazon #1 International Bestseller “Have a Positive Impact During Uncertain Times” – available on Amazon.
It was also the recipient of the 5 Star Rating from “Readers’ Favorite’s Book Review and Award Contest” that includes this comment from the book reviewer Tammy Ruggles: “If you want to make a difference in the world, but don’t know where to start, or want to make a difference in your own life, but don’t know how, this book was written for you.”
100% of the revenue from my books goes to the causes I support: lessening instances of sexual assault and bullying (my novel Dawn of Hope), deaths from tobacco products (my novel Dawn of the Tobacco Wars), and supporting our democracy (Have a Positive Impact During Uncertain Times).