AGING WITH INTENTION

To Risk or Not to Risk…

BY LINDA HENRY

Linda Henry writes regularly on topics related to aging, health care, and communication, and is the coauthor of several books, including Transformational Eldercare from the Inside Out: Strengths-Based Strategies for Caring. She conducts workshops nationally on aging and creating caring work environments. Her volunteer emphasis is age-friendly communities. I recall visiting an amusement park as a child that featured two roller coasters—one of adult size and a smaller one intended for younger riders. I so envied the kids who were having such fun. I really wanted to join them, but at the same time, I was scared to do so. After much angst and self talk (“You can do it!”), I finally climbed into the seat and the cars began to move, at first slowly, and then faster and faster, up and down and around. I was terrified, so much so that they had to stop the ride to let me off. To this day, I avoid taking physical risks, although I am not reluctant to undertake a task I have never done before.

Life can be risky. According to Princeton University psychologist Elke Weber, there are five areas in which we have a risk-taking tendency: financial, health/safety, recreational, ethical, and social. She argues that we have innate risk thresholds in each area partially depending on our values or how much we think we will benefit from the activity.

While age may affect our willingness to take chances, it is not the only metric. Examining risk-taking and age is more complicated than comparing young people being bold and adventurous and older individuals being more cautious, states Gregory Russell SamanezLarkin, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University, and co-author of a recent study examining risk-taking and age. Research suggests that while risk-taking behaviors are more likely to change during early and late periods of life, significant biological and cognitive changes, plus major life events such as marriage and retirement, affect our inclination to take chances.

Most of us do not think about the implications of the behavioral decisions we make. To discover how inclined you are to taking chances, reflect on a few of the risk-taking areas identified by Weber and decide how likely you are to make risky choices.

For example, consider the long-term consequences of the decisions we make that impact our health and safety. Data indicates that when we maintain a relationship with a health care provider and follow wellness screening and vaccination guidelines, we are more likely to remain healthy as we age. On the other hand, those of us who choose to disregard or delay such recommendations face greater health risks. We jeopardize our safety when we talk on a handheld cell phone while driving, speed, choose not to wear a seatbelt or life vest, or engage in activities that are increasingly hazardous as we age such as climbing tall ladders and cleaning gutters.

Sometimes the benefits of an action justify a higher risk. Some individuals may be reluctant to join a group because they fear not being accepted. Yet, the desire to belong may outweigh their hesitancy. Hopefully, you have gained a better understanding of how willing you are to take chances—or take risks. To risk or not to risk is the question. You decide.

G–AGING

Play with gravity to stay young in body and at heart

BY JOAN VERNIKOS, PHD

Almost 88, I wonder how aging seems to have passed me by. What I mean is that I have not had time to think about aging. I retired from NASA in 2000, but my to-do list is longer, not shorter. The talk I give about the effects of gravity on the body— received with polite appreciation 25 years ago—is applauded with enthusiasm when I speak today. In my case, there really has been no retirement and I love it, nor do I expect to retire any time soon. There is so much to do, so much to learn, so much to share.

My father was 60 when I was born. A doctor before there were CT-scans or MRIs and only limited lab tests, diagnosis depended on examining the patient with his hands, taking their temperature, and looking at them from top to bottom. He specialized in infectious diseases— pain, redness, coughing, temperature, and vomiting were basic symptoms. Antibiotics and vaccines introduced during World War II for polio, typhoid, and cholera kept some of the most serious diseases and infections under control.

My older sister (who later became a pediatrician) and I “apprenticed” in medicine at the dinner table each evening as the day’s cases were discussed. It was there I developed my curiosity and problem-solving capabilities. When my sister went to medical school my dinner table education expanded even more, not to mention her delight in diagnosing me with the sickness discussed in class that day.

There was no question in our parents’ minds about what we aspired to when we grew up. Surely, we would both follow in father’s footsteps in his clinic. But this was the 1950s and girls did not become professionals. Schoolmates headed to secretarial or translator careers.

Always the rebel, I backed off medicine the first day I walked through the smelly anatomy class. My sister registered me for pharmacy, hoping I would revert to medicine one day. Four years later, as things were getting politically unstable in Egypt, I went to London University for a “better” qualification.

With a PhD in Pharmacology and a young husband who needed support, we headed to America to teach at The Ohio State University. It’s there I pursued my research on stress. As luck would have it, the Professor of Physiology was setting off to California to form the first Biomedical

and Biological Sciences in a new NASA. He recruited five scientists to get started, including me for my stress expertise. With two very young kids in tow we set out for NASA’s Ames Research Center. Had I planned any of this? Hardly! And so began my journey into Space Medicine and Aging barely three years after a human was launched into orbit!

Engineers designed spacecraft to defy the pull of Earth’s gravity, to reach Earth orbit, and circle Earth in microgravity. Then re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and land in the Pacific Ocean. In order to study what happens to the human body away from Earth’s gravity (G), ways of mimicking a reduced G environment had to be found. Sitting in the buoyancy of water was one way to reduce the normal pull of G on the body, but hours in water is not healthy. A better simulation model was provided by lying in bed continuously.

When you stand, gravity pulls in one direction only, downward from head to toe. When lying down gravity pulls across the chest, minimizing its influence. Studying healthy, active men and women confined to bed continuously, I noticed the resulting changes were remarkably like those of aging: muscle and bone atrophy, balance and coordination problems, and much more. We now know that not only in bed but in actual space flight, aging changes develop 10 times faster than they normally do as we age on Earth. The similarities are substantial.

Whether we like it or not, we are born on Earth surrounded by Earth’s gravity, 1G pulling straight down. As babies we push against gravity to stand up. It became clear to me that gravity is the stimulus we use to grow and develop. Stop using it, become too sedentary, we stop growing and start wasting. On Earth we are evolved to use G to grow and stay healthy. We call the changes aging because they look like those that happen naturally as we age.

The less we move, the less we use G, the faster we age. The more we move, the more we play with the forces of gravity, the slower we “age” and the later we “age.” There is no magic, just common sense. And then we keep having fun, loving life and doing what we love, grateful for all the friends and things this life brings us.

Gravity is the stimulus we use to grow and develop. The more we move, the more we play with the forces of gravity and the slower we age.

JOAN VERNIKOS, PHD, born to Greek parents in Alexandria, Egypt, studied in London and taught at The Ohio State College of Medicine. She is a pioneering research scientist who conducted seminal studies in space medicine, inactivity physiology, stress, healthy aging, and making chocolate truffles. Recruited by NASA in 1964 to study stress in astronauts, she later worked on ways to keep astronauts, including John Glenn, healthy in space and back to Earth’s gravity. Vernikos served as chief of the Life Sciences Division at NASA Ames Research Center in California, and director of NASA’s Life Sciences at its Washington, D.C., headquarters from 1993 to 2000. Winner of numerous scientific and leadership awards and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, she was inducted into the International Astronautical Federation Hall of Fame in 2018, and received its top honor, the Emil Allen Award, in 2019. Motivational speaker and an author, her books include The G-Connection: Harness Gravity & Reverse Aging, Adventures in Chocolate with her husband Geoffrey Hazzan, the groundbreaking Sitting Kills, Moving Heals, followed by Designed to Move and her latest, Stress Beyond 50. Her mission is to empower individuals to have greater control over their health and well-being through frequent daily movement, turning stress from foe to friend, and living a long life with a smile.