By Kay Van Norman
Building
financial security and maintaining health are consistently listed as top aging
concerns for adults over 55. Most of us know creating a financial portfolio
(make a plan, balance assets, make regular deposits) is important to ensure
lifelong financial security. But what about your vitality? Do you have a
plan? Have you considered what “assets” you need to support lifelong vitality?
Using the
familiar structure of a financial portfolio, the Vitality
Portfolio® strategy encourages you to create a practical roadmap for
lifelong health:
Make a
Vitality Plan
Balance
Vitality Assets (function, core and wellness)
Make Regular
Deposits
vitality
Making a Plan
How long do
you expect to live? I ask this question during keynote speeches and
people always seem to have a number in their head. In future blog posts (Aging
– It’s a Family Affair) we’ll explore how people come up with it, but for now
consider your number -- and more important, consider what you want to be able
to do through your 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and 100’s! Making a vitality plan
helps you set, track, and reach your goals.
Functional Assets
Strength,
mobility and endurance are “mission critical” assets for maintaining
independence; yet optimizing function through physical activity is the most
underused healthy aging strategy available today! It’s easy to disregard
functional changes that happen gradually, so here’s some food for thought.
Statistics
don’t motivate action unless they’re personally relevant. For example: Strength
declines approximately 1-1 ½% per year after about age 30. That doesn’t sound
like a lot until you do the math. If you’re not regularly challenging
your strength – you’re losing it – on average about 60% by age 70 and 75% by
age 80. Imagine going about your daily life carrying a backpack filled with
your body weight (i.e. ½ the strength requires double the effort). Consider how
difficult daily tasks would become and how many activities you would have to
give up.
Physical
frailty IS common and predictable with age, but it’s NOT due to age or
inevitable! Studies show even 90+ year olds can prevent and reverse loss of
muscle mass and strength with resistance training.
Take charge!
If you get fatigued while walking – walk more! If you’re having trouble rising
from a chair, do it more; every time you sit down, stand up and sit down 3 more
times. See how many knee lifts you can do during TV commercial breaks or commit
to standing up and sitting down 5-10 times during each commercial break.
To maintain
the gift of mobility gently stretch and move your muscles and joints through
every range of motion. Embrace cardiovascular exercise to help your heart,
lungs, and blood vessels deliver oxygenated blood throughout the body.
Endurance activities bathe your brain in oxygenated blood so are also closely
linked to brain health! Get out and move briskly every day; walk, swim, dance,
or even do seated exercises that elevate your heart rate – toe touches, heel
presses, knee lifts, low kicks, marching in place all with arm swings.
Age is not a
diagnosis so confront functional challenges with physical therapy intervention.
Consciously invest in lifelong functional independence.
Core Assets: Ageless Thinking and
Resilience
Attitudes
and expectations directly impact aging. Engage Ageless Thinking by consciously
rejecting negative expectations of aging. Activate Resilience by embracing
adaptive strategies to overcome challenges - regardless of age.
Thirty years
ago people with disabilities were often institutionalized with no expectations
or opportunities; and outcomes were bleak. The disability movement changed
attitudes and expectations and literally transformed lives. Now young people
with profound disabilities are given resources, tools, and encouragement to
overcome and live fully in spite of challenges, and they accomplish astonishing
things!
Unfortunately,
attitudes haven’t changed much for adults who face physical or cognitive
disabilities later in life. They most often receive resources, tools, and
support to cope with disabilities. There’s a profound difference in
mindset between coping and overcoming – resulting in profoundly different
outcomes. If you’re facing a challenge take age out of the equation, embrace
adaptive strategies, and insist on pursuing the fullest recovery possible.
Wellness Assets
Visualize
the six dimensions of health: physical, social, emotional, intellectual,
spiritual, and vocational as spokes on a wagon wheel. Consider how many
deposits you regularly make into each dimension (spoke) and then draw your
Wellness Wheel. Are some “spokes” large (carrying most of the load) while others
barely exist? Are you missing an entire “spoke”? It takes conscious
effort to balance wellness assets across the body, mind, and spirit.
Don’t leave your vitality to chance! Make a plan,
balance your assets, and make regular deposits into lifelong vitality.
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