Aging: What It Is & How We View It

From the moment we're born we start growing older and it doesn't take long for many of us to have an opinion on aging. Today we talk about different types of aging and what we can do to change our perceptions of it.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

My name is Sean White and I am a certified health coach specializing in lifestyle medicine.

Today I would like to talk to you about the concept of aging.

What is aging?

Aging is the process of growing old.

That's what we do from the time that we were born.

We grow older.

But I did say that age was a concept and the reason why I'm saying it that way is because we're going to be going over a couple of different types of aging today.

So I'm going to get you to think a little bit more about it in the different capacities that it is.

Aging is a very interesting topic.

Just this past weekend I was speaking with my mother-in-law who is turning 80 next year and so that's kind of what got the ball rolling on this topic.

We were discussing you know what we can do to celebrate that mile marker but then we also started talking about how she felt,

Health issues,

The concept of mortality,

Having more years behind you than in front of you.

And so I started thinking how interesting of a topic aging is and I have some stats here and it says 60% of 20 year olds want to be older but by the age of 26,

70% would prefer to be younger and from then on most people view the recent past with the rosiest spectacles.

And I think that's true and when we're children we want to grow up faster.

You know we want to be older and then as we get older we kind of wish we were younger again.

You know in our 30s our 20s were great in our 40s 30s weren't that bad and so on and so forth.

But let's talk about a few different types of aging and the first one I'm going to talk about is chronological aging because that's the one that we most predominantly think of.

As we're getting older we just mean chronologically we're getting older.

This means how much time has passed between the time that you were born and now.

I am 51 years and roughly two months or I will be in a few days of the time of this recording.

Chronological age a lot of times we'll go well it's just a number.

Well is that true?

So let's discuss that.

Is chronological age just a number?

Is being 50 just a mindset?

Well it can be and we'll get more into that.

But the difference with chronological age is as you get older and as you hit certain age brackets it starts to become a primary risk factor for certain chronic diseases,

Mortality,

Any impairments to bodily functions such as hearing and memory.

As we get older certain things just are more prone to happen.

As you get older your eyesight has more of an ability to to you know wean on you.

It did for me actually fairly early on probably more when I was 35.

But these are things that can happen with chronological age.

But it's not it's not a definitive right.

It's we have a certain life expectancy as we grow older but it's not written in stone.

Some people live much longer than other people.

So that chronological age it's it's kind of a little bit of a benchmark on where you are in your life.

But that being said something that I find more important is psychological aging.

Now this is something that's a little bit more subjective right.

You may be 40 years old but don't feel 40 years old.

You might feel 30 years old.

You might feel 60 years old.

This is all psychological though.

This is how you're feeling based around the different types of aging that we're going to be talking about today.

So the interesting thing about psychological aging is if you feel younger than your years it also seems to come with a lower risk of depression and greater mental well-being as we age.

We just feel better about ourselves because we do feel younger.

It also means better physical health including your risk of dementia and less of a chance that you'll be hospitalized for illness.

And I believe that to be true if you are if you feel much older than you are you might not be as active.

You might I don't want to say kind of give up on doing certain things that you would normally enjoy doing but that's a possibility as well.

Feeling between 8 and 13 years older than your actual age can result in an 18 to 25 percent or greater risk of death over the study of periods that were were done on this and a greater disease burden.

So if you feel 10 years older than you are that has the potential of shortening your lifespan and shortening the quality of life.

Really it's not the easiest thing in the world.

Sometimes we can have health issues that are going on and that could be the cause of the psychological aging.

It can also be who you're around.

If you have children,

Watching your children grow up is a definitive mile marker that you are getting older.

When your child is getting ready to go to college you're like oh my god how old does that make me?

So that can be a bit of a problem but a lot of times it can also be what is known as biological aging.

This is aging that occurs as you gradually accumulate damage to various cells and tissues in the body.

This happens as we as we get past probably our mid-teens or so that's it's kind of along the lines time-wise when the body stops growing.

Not to say that you can't do damage before this point but I would say after that that's that's where we start to kind of like plateau and then you know potentially start declining and as we get older if we don't take care of ourselves we can start doing more damage to our body.

This is when we end up with like arthritis needing to get knee surgery or hip surgery.

We might start having more aches and pains and this becomes the biological aging and this can make you feel much older than you are or conversely it can make you feel younger.

I have a friend who's in her late 20s that has poor knees and when you're that young and you have kind of medical conditions like that yeah it's gonna make you feel older and your biological age can totally affect your psychological age.

It has nothing to do with the chronological aging that we were talking about.

You can be 30 years old and feel like your body's a wreck and therefore you know feel like you're 50.

This is why taking care of ourselves earlier on it can really really help out and we'll talk about that in a little bit.

The last type of aging the fourth one that we're going to mention today is something called functional age.

This is an individual's age as determined by measures of functional capability indexed by age norm standards.

Functional age is distinct from chronological age and represent a combination of physiological psychological and social age.

What does all that mean?

That sounds fancy.

What does all that mean?

That just means that we place certain preconceived ideas on people based on what their age is.

If you see someone over the age of 65 going to lift a heavy box you might feel compelled to go help them immediately because they're old and they shouldn't be lifting heavy things.

That 65 year old might be in better shape than you are.

You might throw out your back doing it where they can lift it without a problem.

Or you might see an elderly woman and you know oh I need to give up my seat on the bus.

They might be running you know biathlons twice a year you know and and don't need your you know empathy misplaced.

So there's a lot of times we can look at someone's age and think that they can or cannot do something and this isn't just the examples I gave were for more senior people but it can be for younger people as well.

You can look at somebody in their early 20s and believe that they're not mature enough to take on a certain position or role because they don't have the years the life experience to handle something.

Is that true?

Maybe,

Maybe not.

This is this is something that we're putting on people.

So what does all this mean?

Because now we have we have four different types of aging.

We have chronological,

We have psychological,

We have biological,

We have functional.

And what is what does all this mean?

Well in the end I'm gonna bring it around to acting your age right?

So what is acting your age really mean?

You know to behave in a way that's suitable for somebody as old as you are.

But it generally means don't act younger than you are.

You know with children we always tell them to to grow up.

We tell children to grow up.

We always want people to either act their age or older.

But that kind of depends on the social norms that we're putting on people.

If you're 30 years old acting your age what does that mean?

Does it mean you shouldn't act like a 24 year old?

What does acting like a 24 year old mean?

There's certain social constructs that we've created that defines how a person of a certain age,

You know,

Acts or behaves.

And that we call age appropriateness.

Right?

And that can be a few different things.

If we think about the content we take in at a certain age,

Whether it be what kind of music do you listen to?

What kind of books do you read?

What kind of television do you watch?

You know,

That one I always found a little bit more interesting because there's a lot of people my own age who no longer seek out listening to new music.

Right?

They listen to the music of their teenage years and they haven't progressed past that.

Whereas you might be somebody who enjoys current musical trends and want to go out and see live music of that nature and people like,

Oh why are you going to that?

That's not really your age bracket.

But what difference does that make?

So content can be a big thing.

Clothing is always a big one.

You know,

Wearing age-appropriate clothing.

I have lived in jeans and t-shirts since I was a child and I'm not really sure I will ever see myself giving that up.

I may wear nicer jeans and t-shirts now and more button-down shirts as well.

But you know,

Clothing can be a big thing.

Behavior.

How you act.

What you do.

I would use the example because I like to skateboard.

I longboard.

I'm not great at it but I do it and it could be the type of thing where it's like,

Well you know,

You should be careful doing that because you know,

You're getting older and I don't think anybody would say to Tony Hawk he should stop skateboarding because he's gotten older.

The last one on the age appropriateness is dating and that one is a really tricky one as well because I believe a lot of times you like being around somebody that has that same energy level as yourself and sometimes that might be someone who is older than you are or younger than you are.

You're not always necessarily going to find somebody that you're compatible with that's exactly in the same age bracket as you are.

So that can be a tough one and all these are in some ways also subjective.

This is us placing social norms on on different behaviors that may not,

You know,

Really apply to certain individuals.

So with that,

How do we change our perspective of getting older then or what we think of people who are older?

I mentioned earlier investing in our health at a younger age or if we're not younger now,

You know,

We can start doing this now.

If we start investing in our health across all lifestyle medicine spokes,

It's going to be more beneficial for us and if you're not familiar with what lifestyle spokes are,

It's diet and nutrition,

Being active,

Reducing stress,

Sleep management,

Positive social connections,

And substance intakes and not just,

You know,

Drugs and alcohol but making sure that we're not taking in a lot of harmful chemicals in general.

The sooner we start doing this and start taking care of our health,

The better opportunity we have to lead longer and healthier lives.

We all want to lead longer lives but we don't want to do so if it,

You know,

Means that we're going to be unhealthy and wheelchair-bound or just have lots of health issues and ending up in the hospital a lot.

So looking at our health now is paramount to that.

Exercising is definitely a major part of that as well,

Just in regards to keeping our body strong,

Keeping our muscles strong.

We focus a lot on on food,

Obviously,

But as we get older there are certain things that,

You know,

Break down in the body.

We need to make sure that we keep our muscles strong so they can support us.

I kind of touched a little bit on it when I got into this topic but recognizing our own stereotypes of quote-unquote old people,

Right?

What do you view as someone who's old?

When I was 20,

The concept of being 50 was alien to me.

That was just old and decrepit.

Well,

I'm now in my 50s and I feel like I'm in better shape now than I was in my 20s.

So now looking at what 80 looks like,

I don't even view that as old and decrepit,

Right?

It's now I'm like,

Okay,

Well how can I achieve that and still be really healthy and active?

And that goes back to a lot of what we said,

Investing in our health and keeping a positive outlook.

That's part of the psychological,

Is keeping a positive outlook.

If you come upon every milestone,

Birthday,

As a negative thing,

Oh my god,

I'm turning 40,

My life is over.

Well,

You're gonna believe that.

If you keep telling yourself negative things about yourself and reinforcing it,

Then you're gonna believe it.

And then that's gonna have the different effects.

Having that psychological negative effect can definitely move on to negative biological effects on aging.

And even that functional,

Like thinking you can't do something because you are of a certain age.

I can never do that.

I'm 60.

Well,

Sometimes that's true,

But other times it's just,

It's the stories we tell ourselves.

So that is a lot to take in,

I know.

So I wanted to speak with you all today about this topic.

I hope you found it informative and educational and it's given you some food for thought and hopefully moves you in a positive direction.

I want to thank you all for listening and being with me today.

If you enjoyed this,

If you'd like to hear more,

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There's only one way to find out.

So I want to thank you all once again.

And until I speak with you,

Be well,

Be safe,

And be kind to everybody.

Reviews

Very informative. Thank you 🙏🦋