Category Archives: Health and Wellness

Health Habits for Women to Practice as We Age

5 Replies

I was born with good health and have been blessed to have medical insurance and routine dental care throughout my life. Dad modeled daily exercise, Mom pushed us kids outside to play (likely because she craved peace and quiet), and both parents ensured we had bicycles and insisted we use them.

I thank them to this day that I still love to ride my bikes.

The habits I have built and the health I have sustained have served me well into my 60s. But it isn’t the decades-long practices — the balanced diet, the use of movement for both physical and emotional wellbeing — that are consuming me these days.

I am thinking instead about the physical changes that come with age, the need to work on bone density and balance, to guard my skin against the sun, to manage unexplained flareups in my hips, hands and feet. “Aging is not for the faint of heart,” my father used to say. (Actually, he said aging is not for “sissies,” but that word feels wrong today.)

So, at a time of life that requires equal doses of courage and self-confidence — and a commitment to spend more time on daily health habits — here are the practices I am working to develop.

Quick tips icons created by Freepik – Flaticon

ProTip #1: Hug your muscles to your bones.

I would hear this instruction in yoga classes, but I never quite grasped it till I was diagnosed with osteoporosis in November 2022, a blow that tossed me into old age without warning. Indeed, the bone-thinning disease that tends to strike women after menopause elicits sobering statistics:

  • Half of all women over 50 will break a bone because of osteoporosis, a “silent disease” that often is diagnosed only after a hip, wrist or other bone has broken.
  • Of the 10 million Americans who live with osteoporosis, 80% are women.
  • Caucasian and Asian American women are four times more likely to experience thinning bones than African American women and Latinas.

You can take medication for osteoporosis, and deal with the risks and side effects, but women can fight back in natural ways as well: eating more protein, taking Vitamin D3 supplements, lifting weights. In addition, I recommend a 12-pose yoga series designed by Dr. Loren Fishman and brought to light by New York Times writer Jane Brody in 2015.

Among the “side effects” of this prescription for osteoporosis, said Fishman, a physiatrist, in Brody’s “Personal Health” column, are “better posture, improved balance, enhanced coordination, greater range of motion, higher strength, reduced levels of anxiety and better gait.”

Kendra Fitzgerald’s version of the 12 poses on YouTube.

My sister found varieties of the 12 poses on YouTube, and after experimenting with several, I landed on the 20- and 29-minute versions by Kendra Fitzgerald. I’ve also strengthened my practice by taking “yoga for bone density” classes from certified instructors who have taught me the power of engaging muscles deeply while holding each pose (and who claim that the practice can improve your T-score).

Try it: Plant your feet on the floor. Root down through your heels and send that energy up your legs. Engage your thighs, your glutes, your abdominal muscles. Pull your shoulders down your back and radiate strength up your spine. Stand tall, sending your head toward the ceiling and pressing your fingertips toward the floor. Feel your strength as you hug your muscles to the bones.

ProTip #2: Employ your smartphone’s flashlight.

Twenty-five percent of older people — 65 and up, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — fall at least once every year. And women are at greater risk. A weakened lower body, vision problems, a Vitamin D deficiency, impractical footwear, and home hazards such as throw rugs and lack of railings in bathrooms and on stairways are among the causes.

Flaticon.com

If you fall once, according to the CDC, you are twice as likely to fall again. Traumatic brain injury, broken bones and an increased fear of falling may result. People who feel uneasy on their feet are less likely to move around outdoors or to exercise at all — and, therefore, are more likely to become weak and isolated.

One solution? I turn on my iPhone flashlight both indoors and out, a tip from a young man who uses his phone’s flashlight when he’s crossing a street at dusk with his wife and children. I tried it walking home after dark when I still worked full time less than a mile from my home, scanning the sidewalk for uneven surfaces and tilting the light toward fast-moving vehicles as I approached a crosswalk. Now I use the flashlight when I get up before sunrise during a long Minnesota winter. It helps me navigate around houseplants, resting dogs and rocking chairs — as well as up and down the stairs — without waking my late-sleeping husband.

ProTip #3: Wear a funny hat.

Two age spots on the left side of my face came from years of commuting, a dermatologist told me, when the sun would shine hard through the driver’s door window. And to think I used to revel in the warmth.

Sunglasses icons created by juicy_fish – Flaticon

A lover of stylish sunglasses, I also used to wonder why so many men wear baseball or bill caps. Now I get it. A bill cap keeps the sun out of your eyes and off your face. Even better are the hats that have a drawstring at the throat and a circular brim that shields the back of your neck as well.

In addition to applying sunscreen throughout the year — another dictate from the dermatologist and one of five skin-protection recommendations from the CDC — I cut my hair short so it looks halfway decent after a sunhat or bike helmet flattens it throughout the spring and summer. I bought my sunhat at REI. But instead of disparaging them as “old lady” hats, I wish I’d started wearing one when my skin was as dewy and wrinkle-free as the young models on this Sungrubbies site.

ProTip #4: Love your feet.

Time seems to speed up as we age, an aphorism cited so often that psychologists are studying whether it is perception or reality. Growing older is like a time machine that swirls you around in busyness for decades until it dumps you in your 60s, with more wrinkles, less ambition, a craving for sleep — and feet that, overnight, start to cramp and crack.

Baby feet icons created by Eucalyp – Flaticon

I was introduced to foot massage in a mat Pilates class after my osteoporosis diagnosis, where the teacher has us spend the first 5 minutes of every session rubbing lotion methodically on and between our toes, down the instep, up the outer edge, around the ball of the foot, over the heel. My feet tingle with pleasure, just as they do after I wince and roll barefoot over a spikey red plastic “peanut massage ball” that the Pilates teacher recommended.

“As you age, the muscle tissue in your feet can thin, and your nerves may not work effectively. This can lead to loss of feeling in your feet, [called] neuropathy,” says an article on footcare for seniors, which also instructs women — hooray! — to “avoid shoes that have high heels or pointy toes.”

The next steps? To stride toward the sunlight and shadows of old age, until the next physical and mental challenges present themselves.

The Big O has new meaning as women age

4 Replies

Since being diagnosed in November, days before Thanksgiving, I have taken a chalky white pill with a full glass of water every Thursday morning, on an empty stomach. Then I have stood or sat upright for an hour before enjoying my customary coffee with microwaved milk, so the medicine can be absorbed and won’t irritate the esophagus (my “food pipe”).

Initially, I was angry:

  • At a healthcare system that didn’t warn me years ago that bone density could be an issue for a woman who is white, thin, of northern European heritage, with a small frame and a mother who took Fosomax herself for years.
  • At a nurse practitioner who had seen me before my 65th birthday in July and never mentioned it was time for another bone density scan. I discovered that on my own while clicking through MyChart months later to verify an appointment and saw a notice that my scan was “overdue.”
  • At a culture that pressured women to be model thin when I was young. Twiggy was a skinny, 16-year-old kid when the media started marketing her as the ideal body type for women. Even Gloria Steinem, for all her intellect and accomplishments, became the face of the 1970s-era women’s movement in part because she, too, was thin and pretty.

“I have to focus more on being strong than being thin,” I wrote on Facebook shortly after my diagnosis of thinning bones. Enough crowing about keeping a closet full of clothes from my 40s and 50s “because they still fit.” Or celebrating that I weigh less than I did when I got pregnant with my older son, who was born in 1990. Or preferencing cardio exercise, which gives me an emotional lift, over the tougher, more monotonous work of lifting weights.

One of my sisters was nurturing and supportive, texting or calling to offer tips about the benefits of Pilates or which calcium-rich foods to eat. (Who knew that ice cream, eggnog and fortified frozen waffles would make the list, alongside kale and broccoli?)

My oldest sister, the pragmatic one, issued a simple challenge: What are you going to do about it?

Name it, claim it

The word itself scares me. Osteoporosis conjures up images of an old, wizened woman whose upper back has curved into a question mark. My reluctance to name the disease, to say the word aloud, is both a symbol and a symptom of my denial. Just as I resisted the label alcoholic when I recognized in my early 40s that I needed to quit drinking, I now reference my “bone density issue.”

Osteoporosis is for old people; osteoporosis, like forgetfulness and a thickening middle, is for my late mother. Thinning bones don’t afflict people who are fit and who exercise as much as I do.

Or so I thought. Physically active throughout my life — a seasoned cyclist, a walker who averages 16,000 steps a day, a former aerobics instructor who still loves to take yoga classes — I was stunned that thinning bones could be a problem. When the nurse practitioner handed me a printout from Mayo Clinic at my follow-up appointment, I noted that none of the “lifestyle choices” that increase risk of osteoporosis apply to me:

  1. Sedentary lifestyle. I have a hard time sitting still. “You’re in fifth gear or asleep,” my husband likes to say.
  2. Excessive alcohol consumption. I haven’t had a drink since January 10, 2010.
  3. Tobacco use. I never could inhale.

“This is not your fault,” the nurse practitioner assured me after I told her I was scared. But the diagnosis, especially on the cusp of snow and ice season in Minnesota, felt like a slippery slide into old age — like “being suddenly Old and Fragile,” as one friend aptly put it.

How would I walk my dogs every morning when falling could more easily break my bones? Would I have to abandon biking come spring, a sport I have loved since I was 5, because a tumble could sideline me forever? Exercise and movement are my sanity, my way of coping with stress, my increasingly tenuous hold on independence, my illusion that I will be forever young.

As the shock has worn off, I have moved gradually toward acceptance, and into action. Do something now, or you’ll pay later. That much is clear.

Bone up

Watching my weight was something I could control in a world that (still) tries to control women’s bodies. Now, I apply that discipline to self-care for my bones.

One lesson I’ve learned already is to take charge of my own healthcare. In a system still exhausted and under-resourced from COVID, no doctor is going to walk me through this. Doing my own research and seeking support from friends and family members, including my weight-lifting sons, have pulled me out of the muck of fear and self-pity.

  • Thursday is Fosomax day, with a weekly reminder on my calendar. The hour of being upright and foregoing any nourishment but water is peaceful and productive quiet time.
  • I lift free weights two to three times a week and am relishing growing stronger.
  • I have started taking a Pilates Fusion class designed for people with arthritis and osteoporosis, with special emphasis on strengthening back, glute and abdominal muscles.
  • I no longer skip my daily calcium and Vitamin D3 supplements.

That my diagnosis came on the cusp of a major life change — a step away from a full-time career, and all the status and identity and financial security that brought me — has made osteoporosis seem both an indignity and oddly well timed, a gentle push into the next phase of life and a firm reminder to accept reality and deal with it.

“Everyone hopes to reach old age, but when it comes, most of us complain about it,” the Roman philosopher Cicero said. Had I not been searching the website for tips on healthy bones, I never would have stumbled upon “Lessons on Successful Aging,” derived from Cicero’s 2,000-year-old essay “On Old Age.”

Among the lessons relative to women at this later stage of life:

  1. A good old age begins in youth. I can wish that I had started lifting weights at a younger age, but I cannot change the habits or negligence of the past. All I can do is develop new patterns now.
  2. We can be active in old age, with limitations. Winter biking will never be a sport I’ll pursue, just as jogging outdoors in winter now seems foolhardy.
  3. Youth and old age differ. Longing for what was keeps us stuck in the past and blocks us from embracing the benefits of aging.

Osteoporosis, the Big O for older women, is my necessary reminder that good health is neither a given nor guaranteed.

Try this Antidote for Aging: Leave the Car at Home

3 Replies

I gave up my membership at CorePower Yoga in September, in anticipation of becoming eligible for Medicare. After nine years, I said a reluctant goodbye to the Colorado-based chain that brought fast-paced, fitness yoga to the masses, at least those of us who could afford it.

Now, my Blue Cross Blue Shield Advantage plan, which supplements the hospitalization and basic clinical coverage in Medicare Parts A and B, offers free membership at certain health clubs. The youth-oriented CorePower is not among them, and so I took another step down the path leading directly to old age and signed up at the YMCA a walkable distance from my house and Lifetime Fitness, a bus ride away.

Exciting, yes, but the busing and walking will benefit my aging mind and body more than any health club membership ever could.

Four reasons why:

  1. I will engage in active transportation — walking (with or without my dogs) or riding a bus or bike — far more often than I’ll get to BodyPump at the Y or the Gluteous MAXout class at Lifetime Fitness.
  2. I notice more about my community and the wider world when I get around in a way that de-prioritizes cars, which separate us from other people. Paying attention makes me aware of how the world has changed, keeping me current on social trends, and that’s good for older people.
  3. I am more likely to engage with others — greeting them on a sidewalk, chatting with them on a bike path — and social interaction sparks my aging brain.
  4. My imagination takes flight and my worries right-size when I am gazing out the window on a bus or train or moving freely outdoors. Speed no longer is the top priority.

Being a daily pedestrian, a regular transit rider and at least a two-season cyclist have become ingrained habits. Because I live in a city — in a neighborhood with sidewalks, bike paths and several bus routes an easy walk away — I can incorporate those practices more readily than someone who lives in a small town or a suburb. And yet a walk or a bike ride can happen almost anywhere.

Active transportation is an ideal way to exercise as we age, at a time of life when we’re more serene and less competitive. (At 65, my last timed run is a decade behind me, and I never bought a computer for my road bike.) I have been keeping a multimodal diary since July, jotting down why I was grateful on any given day to have made the counter-cultural choice to leave the car in the garage and move instead on my own power.

Communal transportation requires patience, flexibility and, at times, humility — having to explain, for example, that a late bus is beyond your control. But all three traits are invaluable to graceful aging.

Consider this:

  • If I hadn’t taken the bus to a volunteer shift at Planned Parenthood North Central States, I wouldn’t have gained 3,000 steps on a brisk and bracing day, warmed slightly by the sunshine, when I missed my bus and had to high tail it to a different route.
  • If I hadn’t walked to the bus stop for yoga on a Sunday morning in July, I wouldn’t have been able to greet a neighbor and introduce myself to another. I would have lost the chance to read an article in that morning’s Washington Post. Still, had I driven, I could have left home 30 minutes later. In a go-go society, that matters.
  • If I hadn’t bussed to a business meeting where I didn’t have the option of running late, I would not have recognized the luxury of having choices. I allowed myself five minutes to get to a bus stop three blocks away: Why did my dog choose this moment to escape from the back gate? But, of course, I could always use my car if I missed the bus. Privilege means having options — and less anxiety than the young man in the back of the bus shouting into his mobile phone about how he was short on rent because he spends too much money (“meals out, shin guards”) on his girlfriend’s kids.
  • If I hadn’t ridden my bike to meet a friend for coffee, I wouldn’t have discovered the private, pristine patio behind Cahoot’s Coffee Bar on a lovely autumn day. It was the safest place to park my new bike, and the barista kindly helped me get it back there.
  • If I had driven to a meeting where the bus did make me late, I would have missed the 12-minute walk to the bus stop and the reminder that I used to commute to work by foot — 17 minutes each way — and need to build that exercise into my new routine of at-home contract work.
  • If I hadn’t taken the Green Line train to a meeting in downtown St. Paul, I wouldn’t have figured out how to feel safe on a transit system wrestling with crime. I sat in the car closest to the conductor, looped one strap of my backpack around my arm, kept my smartphone out of sight and minded my own business.
  • If I hadn’t walked to a meeting at a favorite coffee shop just far enough away to contemplate driving, I wouldn’t have snagged the metal plant stand shaped like a tricycle from a neighborhood antique store just moments before they closed.

We can’t lecture or guilt people into driving less, even though we know it helps cut greenhouse gas emissions. Sure, we can cite climate change as an existential threat, but Americans know that — we’ve been whipsawed all summer by news of drought here, torrential rains there — and still, our self-defeating practices don’t change.

I used to work for a man who left his climate-controlled house in the suburbs, got into his climate-controlled vehicle in his attached garage, drove freeways to the campus where we both were employed and parked in a climate-controlled garage beneath the student center. Once upstairs, he walked the equivalent of half a city block outside to reach his climate-controlled office. That was the extent of his engagement with the outdoors.

I don’t have enough years left on the planet to spend them encased in air-conditioned structures that separate me from what is real, and essential. I want to be out there, amid it all, with the city and Mother Nature, as unpredictable and sometimes scary as they both may be.

Photo courtesy of Jan Huber on Unsplash