Awaken to Secrets of Longevity

Words of wisdom for all the world to live by. I can’t help but know how true these words are as I watched the Senior Tennis League prove their worth. Like children, they enjoy each other and realize that taking anything or anybody too seriously can only lead to stress. They laugh at themselves, each other and they hug, kiss and feel the energy of hearts beating with another’s. Transmitting the laugh, while feeling a special bond to one another was at the root of the longevity of my first members. They spent all 30 years with me and most lived to the ripe old age of 89-years-old. Yes, they were rich in spirit, full of love and nurtured, cared and saw the other “through the rain.”

Yesterday was a bit chilly, as September began changing the warm breezes into an invigorating wind. The groundskeeper had failed to open the lavatory, thinking that these older people would not be running around on that day. He was wrong, of course, and I called him on the cell phone to request he help us out by opening the outdoor access door to the lav. Dave is a special kind of person and he knew how important it was that he expedite his travel with key in hand. Urgency just happens and older people need to stay hydrated with relief close by. Oddly enough, his last name is “Greene” and so it is easy to remember. All these years in the sun, we watched as he planted the new flowers in the spring, cut the grass, painted the court lines, replaced the tennis cranks (that is, the ratchet that draws down the nets).

And so in the playground of my mind, I can feel their enthusiasm and vicariously experience their joy while they “high-five” each other for a good shot. The old teacher still swells with pride as I watch them grow in skill and respect for one another. It still amazes me that this sport attracks the best people I have ever known. They are all intelligent and caring, and have traveled the road of life with distinction and honor. As Barry Manilow sang, “I Made It Trough the Rain” and “ended up respected, by the others who got rained on too and made it through.” Interdependence is probably the secret to the “empty nesters” who do exactly as the National Institute on Mental Health has suggested, “When your children are grown, give them space to live the good life, don’t always reach out to prevent them from falling~Get a Life!”

I paraphrased that last statement, but in essense it is so true. My father used to say, “So I see, said the blind man when he hit the post.” It takes so long to develop the wisdom that enriches the life of the group of lovely people who live in my hometown.
What’s the sense of getting older, if you don’t get wiser?”

With the special gifts we are given, we can do so much to make the world a better place to live in. The secret is in the teachings involving psychiatry: “First-know yourself.” Find out what it is in you that makes you happy-makes you chuckle and tickles your funny bone. If you find it, you can live the “Golden Years” without worrying about anything. Doris Day sang,“Que Sera Sera” and those words of wisdom still have me humming and even singing along with her. “Whatever will be -- will be. The future is not ours to see -- so enjoy the “precious moment” that will never again occur. My lovely sweetheart puts it this way, “We’re not here for a long time - just a good time.” You just have to get up, dust yourself off and go on. The “roller coaster of life” is such that going down is the same force that carries you through to the upward climb.

Your brain: Use it or lose it. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist, and best selling author, spent the last 40 years probing the mysteries of the brain and chronicling them in case stories. Sacks is best know for his book “Awakenings,” which was made into a 1990 film staring Robin Williams. His theory was that the mind is like a muscle that needs to be used to get stronger, more nimble and creative. I, too believe in that. His 10th book, “Musicophilia,” published in 2007, details the importance music plays in keeping the brain nimble. Sacks is now 75 and teaches at Columbia University, where he is a professor of neurology and psychiatry. He also suffers from arthritis and lost vision in one eye because of melanoma. Like the pens I use, Sacks uses oversize pens to make writing easier. Having played the accordion~I find typing very easy and continue to enjoy the peace, love, wisdom and sounds of music the for life.

Professor Oliver Sacks gives a great deal of thought to “good aging” as I do and has shared some of his views with Consumer Reports:
★ Develop a new skill or an old one
★ East less meat and more fish.
★ Stay productive -- some of the finest work is accomplished after 70-years of age.
★ Travel with friends (how about that train ride to Toronto?)
★ Stay physically active -- even if you are limited in your movements. (I use the shopping cart as a walker and go to the “farmer’s market” with small bills.
★ Cherish your wisdom. The great cultures of the Far East (with the greatest longevity) do just that. Read “Desiderata.” I have it where I can never lose it-right above and in front of the seat we use every morning to pass on yesterday’s waste to make way for a new day (“Cats”).
★ Pick your parents carefully. Well now, that is something none of us could do with our biological parents. However, the new epicigenetics teaches us the value of living a healthy, happy and productive life that allows us to go around the bad genes and pass on the new you to your offspring.
Music is magic. I was lucky to have been brought up by a father who insisted we choose an instrument to play at the age of 7-years-old. That has passed on to my children and grandchildren. My 44-year-old son sits at the grand piano without a sheet of music in front of him and plays the most beautiful music. He tells me he thinks of me as he looks up and finds the fingers of both hands making magic - so soothing to the president of his own corporation. Unlike my father, I placed a small accordion in his crib before he was out of diapers and let he make whatever sounds he found as he pressed the keys and buttons of that first accordion. One day, at the age of three, we were at the kitchen table as he began playing each song I had played with him. No lessons, no grilling practice sessions, no criticism or sternness - just a loving, hugging, kissing father. He must have been in third grade when I skipped out at lunch time -from the high school I taught at to go to the auditorium of the elementary school I had graduated from P.S.77. He played one of my favorites, “Those Were the Days.” He received a standing ovation after his solo performance and I returned quickly to my teaching duties four blocks away. Sometimes you get lucky. My son did very well, but he did follow the performance of a “Tuba” player.

I wonder if two old codgers could get together, before we pass, and discuss the phenomenon of tennis and the studies of the Cleveland Clinic , Johns Hopkins and the USTA - on the impact of this sport on the longevity of our members. The pictures are there all the way back to 1979 with players who were the heroes of WWII and lived happily with the philosophy of an old country singer by the name of Kenny Rogers, “Something to do, Something to look forward to and Someone to LOVE!

FREE Health Screenings - Risky Drugs

How are free health-screening led to:
False Findings
Risky Drugs
Needless Surgery
How to ensure it doesn’t happen to you!
* Too many false-negatives lead us down the path to countless drugs & surgery.
* Why do we do the things we do? They are convenient, analytical and detect health problems early and they are often free ~ but they can lead to deadly consequences.
* They’re health screenings.
Health screenings can be a blessing when they catch a potential problem that can be prevented or treated early. Unfortunately, those are rare instances. In fact, for the most part, health screenings are nothing more than moneymaking promotional efforts.
The truth is they benefit: doctors, nurses, medical equipment makers, hospitals, surgeons and most of all, the big drug companies. Most of the time, they do not benefit you. "Health Alert" in its August-September 2009 issue of The National Health Reporter reveals the following:
The truth about medical health screenings… Most of the time they do not benefit you.
The problem is health screenings turn up false findings or simply harmless conditions that are diagnosed as serious disease. For those caught in this snare, they are shuffled into a series of dangerous and aggressive tests and unnecessary treatments, including invasive surgery and toxic drugs with an array of side effects.
After just taking dangerous prescription drugs, this vivacious grandmother-never got out of bed again. A jovial, loving, grandmother was the picture of vitality and good health. She was more active than people half her age— and was totally free of prescription drugs—a miracle for an 80-year-old woman.
That all changed with a FREE HEALTH SCREENING: Melinda was told she had high cholesterol (265) and high blood pressure (140/90). This, in spite of the fact that a recent study reported in the prestigious British Medical Journal, The Lancet, showed that, contrary to conventional medical wisdom, high cholesterol levels in older people add —not subtract—years of life. They also conveniently omitted the facts that 140/90 is also normal blood pressure for an 80-year-old woman and that blood pressure pills—even if taken for 30 years—prolong life by only a couple of weeks!
These facts didn’t matter to the Health Screeners. She was referred to her family physician for further testing, and soon after, placed on Lipitor® for her "high cholesterol" and Toprol® for her "high blood pressure." Well, both of these dugs are toxic time bombs!
Within days, Melinda lost all her energy. She became weak, dizzy and depressed. Her breathing became labored. And, she lost all interest in the things that once made her very happy. Alarmed, Melinda’s son took her in to see another doctor. Amazingly, that physician didn’t even ask what drugs Melinda was taking! He simply scribbled a prescription for Zoloft® to help her with her "depression."
Of course, by themselves each of these drugs would have taken a toll on Melinda’s once drug-free body. But together they mercilessly punished this vibrant and healthy grandmother. The following day, Melinda became so weak and dizzy that she fainted. She fell and broke her hip. Once admitted to the hospital, it was determined that she had osteoporosis.
Now she was prescribed a new drug, Fosamax®—this despite the fact that bone drugs like Fosamax do not help build healthy bone mass. What’s more, these drugs are implicated in irreversible, horrifying cases of necrosis of the mandible, also known as rotting of the jaw!
By now Melinda was in a life-threatening situation. She struggled along in the hospital, made it through surgery with a brand new titanium hip and ended up in excruciating pain. So what did her doctors so?
You guessed it…MORE pain meds were added to her long list of drugs. This was the final stage of her tragic downward death spiral. Barely able to breathe, Melinda was put on oxygen and the later ventilated and intubated. It was a sad and terrible end for a once active and vivacious grandmother. Unable to continue to fight the good fight, she took her last breath and died.
What can you learn from this? The combination of health-screening, drugs and invasive surgery helped to destroy this, once healthy life. Don’t let this happen to you or someone you love.
The best way to fight back is to arm yourself with information. That’s why I offer the power of knowledge with this article and many others so that you’ll discover natural alternatives to toxic drugs and risky surgery—information that can save your life.
Health care will cost a lot less and result in better results if we simply know that "for profit" drug companies, surgeons and their servants are in it for the money and could care less about the results.
The four neighbors on my own street who lived to 100 years old would not allow the paramedics to call an ambulance. They merely smiled and said, "It’s easy to get into a hospital, but impossible to get out without a release from your doctor." One hundred thousand people die, "IN HOSPITALS", every year due to incompetent treatment and results from tests that are mistaken or attributed to the wrong patient.
Tort Reform? Hell NO! Let the AMA insure and discipline the doctors who make these mistakes. Don’t blame the high insurance on the lack of "Tort Reform." If the doctor cuts off the wrong foot in operating on your family member~"How much is that worth?" Let a jury decide and ask the AMA why they don’t speak to the issues that are destroying the life of millions of American lives.
Stand up to your school dietician who has a menu of: hamburgers and French fries; Pizza and Pop; Hot Dogs and French fries and Nachos and cheese. Take your cell phones into your schools and snap a picture of the vending machines that pump up our children with too much sugar leading to a prescription for Ritalin®. Take an active role in the health of your families and shop in the produce section more that the "Prepared Foods and Fast Food Freezers!"
Americans need only look at the size of our children coming out of elementary school to know that we have a battle against "Obesity and the improper dietary habits of the American Culture." Eating 265 "Buffalo Wings" at one seating is not a sport-- it is dangerous and we should put a stop to it!