How to age with dignity

why bother aging with dignity, just do as you like, no one cares when youre gone, its not like it was with our parents, people move on a week after youre dead, have a great few last years

Im with the "why bother" crew. Spent too many years being dumbed down my exh now living how I want. I have a new DH who keeps me on my arthritic toes. We go out and when on hols Im known to get up and dance and do a bit of Kareoke so hardly"dignified"😁 I decided years ago I would grow old disgracefully after being "good" all my married/working life. As for kids, I dont give a damn what they think, they've embarrassed me I the past and its my time now to make the most of life 😉

dignity - don't know the meaning of the word!
my body might say at 78 (almost 79) that i'm getting older but i refuse to admit it.
so I will have to be dragged kicking and screaming with no dignity whatsoever into old age!

Violetbynight

For the incontinence pelvic floor exercises help a lot. Memory lapses are sometimes due to the numerous pills that we are prescribed as brain fog is often listed in the side effects. We are overwhelmed with dementia warnings and worry unnecessarily when we can’t remember everything, whereas when we were young we would laugh about it. The brain is like a computer and occasionally gets overloaded with information. It needs to be freed up to let the next bit of information in.

My dad told me when I was in my 60's that a brain could only remember a certain number of facts and to let another one in a gap had to be made so one got thrown out. He never lost his faculties and lived to 96 and anyway he was my dad so I believe him!
Needless to say, I'm 79 and I have only ever remembered important things I don't even try to recall the rest. Authors, book titles, characters all forgotten before I start the next book.

WithNobsOnIt

I was hoping for a Sex and Drugs and Rock.and Roll.retitement.

But this has been curtailed by lack of suitable men , limited income and arthritis.

But l am still.rnjoying life as much as l can doing things that give me pleasure or are entertaining.

Happy Retirement

🎆

No Nobs on it after all then?

Lupatria

dignity - don't know the meaning of the word!
my body might say at 78 (almost 79) that i'm getting older but i refuse to admit it.
so I will have to be dragged kicking and screaming with no dignity whatsoever into old age!

How does that manifest itself please? Genuinely interested.

I think carbohydrates are the devil. Lots of people I know who have dementia ate a high carb diet
I’ve no scientific proof of course

Witzend

I've always enjoyed Crosswords and Codewords and subscribe to a couple of Take a Break magazines (my favourites being 'Take a Crossword' and 'CrissCross').

Concise crosswords only as my brain hasn't ever seem to sync with the Cryptics!

I have a book and pen everywhere - including the car and in the loo!!

My hubby also prints out the daily ones from our Times subscription and those available daily from the Guardian and Mail. I don't like doing them online on my ipad as it's too easy to get frustrated and click on the letter or word answer. By printing them off I really have to THINK!

My children know that the minute I'm struggling with the Times crossword that's the time to book me into Dignitas.
.

MargaretTay

I think carbohydrates are the devil. Lots of people I know who have dementia ate a high carb diet
I’ve no scientific proof of course

Oh dear, I just ate a piece of birthday cake.

I’ve no scientific proof of course
So nothing to back up your beliefs.

MargaretTay

I think carbohydrates are the devil. Lots of people I know who have dementia ate a high carb diet
I’ve no scientific proof of course

there is some truth in what you say MargaretTay, but onluy some truth. There is a higher risk of dememntia if you eat a lot of refined carbohydrates, white flour sugar etc and if more than 25% of you diet comes from UPF.

However a diet high in complex carbohydrates found in vegetables, fruit, and legumes are generally associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline.

Can you give us more information on the types of carbohydrates your friends were eating and for how long?

However this diet will only lead to an increase in risk, it doesn't make it certain and it has to be seen in the context of a lifetimes eating pattern.

A person in extreme old age, widowed and lonely, may develop a diet of easily eaten unchallenging food based on bread and sugary foods, but if they have eaten a well balanced diet for their first 80 years, the effect on cognition will be far less than if they have always lived on bread and potatoes with little fruit and veg.

The variables underneath your statement are so diverse and complex, I think you need to do a bit more research before making such sweeping statements.

The latest thing is that eating more eggs will stave off dementia.

If a such a privilege to get to our age - do what you can and what you want x

Witzend it’s not just dementia to avoid ‘nappy changing’ my friends just had a stroke and can’t speak coherently and is in nappies
Afraid I like my carbs hopefully that’s an old wives tale
I do daily soduku s when I can’t do it I ll get worried

Oreo

The latest thing is that eating more eggs will stave off dementia.

There are eggs in cake.

Just saying.

It seems a strange thing to decide to do or not to. I haven't got time to think about how I age so just do what ever comes naturally.

I can relate to being fed up with pills, scans and people mentioning your age! Enjoy your hobbies. I think of dignity as how you behave with other people. In which case, having been polite and courteous my whole life, I am not sure I can age with dignity. I am ageing with a fight and being grumpy and reacting to ageism and negative attitudes wherever I go! Nothing is good enough in the health service these days. Just look after yourself and pamper if you can. I would love some pampering.

My mum, who lived to 92, used to say “ You’re as old as you feel”. Admittedly some days she felt very old when her arthritis was bad, but her mind was young and active so she felt young.

I’ve just come home from choir with a friend my age. We were both talking about the singing holidays we are going on, great fun regardless of our age.

I have always eaten a healthy diet Eat well, not too much, most of it plants has been my guiding light. It has got me to 82, with no serious medical problems and still capable of painting and ecorating gardening and going for good long walks. Genetics helped a bit as well.

I have never jumped on bandwagons, in fact I usually choose to jump off them when they start rolling. There is always someone somewhere telling me that if I eat less of this or more of that it may bring all the plagues of Egypt upon me, but so far there is no sign of them and I have had a good long run without them.

We live in a world and at a time when the range of delicious and fascinating foods and cuisines available to us has never been wider, enjoy them all - in moderation.

Witzend

My aim would be at all costs to avoid dementia*, so I won’t need ‘toileting’ as they like to call it, or to have my nappies changed.

*there’s no sure way, I know, but it’s in the news lately from some American study, that people who eat eggs regularly are less likely to develop it - because of some substance in eggs.

So no prizes for guessing what I had for breakfast, or rather brunch, just now…

Thanks for that Witsend! I’ve not eaten an egg since I was eleven!

They make me really poorly

I do eat cake - would that work too?

I do eat cake - would that work too?

I ate cake today. ⅙ of my daily egg!

Oh, that was supposed to be 1/6th 😁

⅕ ¼ ⅛ ⅛ ½
Just practising

Mostly I try to ignore ageing although I have several ailments which are entirely down to age! However, when I retired I read somewhere that learning a musical instrument was good for the ageing mind so I bought a keyboard and picked up where I'd left off aged 11, at Grade 3. Several years later I'm on Grade 7 pieces. I don't know if it's helping my mind at all but my smugness has rocketed! 😂😂😂

In my late 70s I discovered that I was a performance poet. I took my very varied poems to many local open mics then, during Covid restrictions, enjoyed Zooming them all over the world. I have met many wonderful new friends in many countries, some in real life, most of them much less than half my age.
The poetry community has truly given me a new lease of life and connections with people at various stages of theirs and I am eternally grateful for their patience and encouragement. While I respect the words of my fellow poets I don’t think dignity has much relevance!

How fascinating Elrel.