Attention Upper Valley: The internet says we can live more than seven extra years if we think positively about aging. I’m all in, I think.
I came across this claim on a website that likely uses AI to trick humans into clicking on virtual stuff. But it wasn’t entirely a waste. My online search dug up an old news release from Yale University that backed it up.
Take note, grumpy persons: “Thinking positively about getting older extends one’s life by seven-and-one-half years, which is more than the longevity gained from low blood pressure or low cholesterol or by maintaining a healthy weight, abstaining from smoking and exercising regularly, a study by a Yale researcher has found.”
And you don’t have to walk 10,000 steps, eat sardines or play pickleball.
The Yalies surveyed 660 men and women in a small Ohio town regarding attitudes about aging. Some, the sour pickles among us, agreed with statements such as this, “As you grow older, you are less useful.” Ouch.
The others thought of the so-called golden years as fairly sunny. As in, old folks are wiser. I prefer that, even if it isn’t entirely true for me. I am still baffled by many things, but I guess wisdom slips in through the cracks. If nothing else, you learn from mistakes, and my mistakes bucket is pretty full after 73 years.
I suspect there’s a lot more to all of this. It’s easier to feel optimistic if you are healthy, more or less, and have good relationships. Money helps, too. A TIAA Institute report said women in the top 1% of wealth live 10 years longer than those at the bottom. Rich men get a 15-year dividend.
Lacking big wealth, I’m going to have to rely on whatever good cheer I can muster — and humor. What young people don’t know about seniors is that despite everything, many think this aging scheme is pretty funny (until it isn’t). We don’t get the last laugh, but we can get in some good chuckles along the way.
Just recently I saw an internet meme about phone texting codes for those over 70. These aren’t mine, but they amused me.
ATD – At the doctor
LMDO – Laughing my dentures out
TTYL – Talk to you louder
ROFLACGU – Rolling on the floor laughing and can’t get up
You might think things look dour at the local senior center, but there is a quiet cabal of weisenheimers there. Those bingo and mahjong players are cracking up about something or other, often themselves. Age releases you from the responsibilities and restrictions that come with being rising, striving, oh-so-important.
It also provides material. Gas, for one thing. No need to go into the details.
Recalling names becomes a game of chance. When two seniors meet and both can’t recall the other’s name, it can get awkward. Men are especially prone to this, since we are more interested in sports and weather than personal details, such as: Who are you?
Getting out of bed in the morning is an adventure. I can go to sleep feeling fine and wake up with a sore knee. It might last for a day or two, then vanish. “I don’t know what that’s about,” I told a mature friend. “It’s a warning,” he told me with a grin, and that sounded right.
Until I was 70, I hardly knew any doctors. Now I’ve met quite a few. So far we haven’t re-enacted the old joke from comedian George Burns and others.
“How am I doing, Doc? Level with me.”
“Well, don’t buy green bananas.”
Medicare sends hilarious (to me) summations of payments to Dartmouth Health. DH charged something like $50,000 for radiation treatments for prostate cancer (so far, all good). Medicare paid about five grand and I chipped in a couple hundred bucks.
Where did the other $45,000 go? Fantasy economics, I guess.
But you never know. Any test could bring a new diagnosis. We are all little yellow ducks in the shooting gallery of life.
Older readers — the Upper Valley has its share — might remember editor and writer Norman Cousins from the 1970s, who turned to an intensive course of humor when he came down with painful and debilitating arthritis.
Doctors didn’t offer much hope, so he tried hours and hours of Marx Brothers films, “Candid Camera” reruns and other offerings from the “laff riot’’ genre. He improved so much he got a best-selling book about it.
Alas, losses add up as the years go by: parents, siblings, old friends, old enemies. You leave a job and five years later nobody remembers you. Your knees can hardly handle the chicken dance.
Still, you get to choose. Live long and don’t be crabby.
The writer lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.’
