Latest / "What's Next? Conversations with Boomers" / Your Guide to Super Aging with David Cravit & Larry Wolf

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Your Guide to Super Aging with David Cravit & Larry Wolf · "What's Next? Conversations with Boomers"

0:15
SPEAKER_01: You are listening to What's Next Conversations with Boomers, and I'm Barb Demaray, your host.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: How would you like to reverse the aging process?
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's actually possible.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Today we have on the authors of Super Aging, Getting Older Without Getting Old, that is Larry Wolfe and David Kravit.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: They're going to be talking about something new that has just come out for their newsletter subscribers.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: And also, what do they mean?
0:52
SPEAKER_01: How do we reverse aging?
0:54
SPEAKER_01: Larry, welcome back.
0:56
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Babu.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: So nice to have you back, David.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: Great to have you here again.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: Great to be here.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: My pleasure.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to start by actually quoting directly from your newsletter that talked about this.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: Here is one of the most empowering ideas in modern biology.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: Your genes are not a fixed program running silently in the background.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: They are dynamic, responsive, and to a remarkable degree shaped by the choices you make every day.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's pretty powerful.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to start this episode with Larry talking about the playbook.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm going to pass it over to David, who's going to expand on what I just quoted you and what I just read.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay, Larry, tell us about the playbook.
1:52
SPEAKER_03: Well, the idea behind the playbook is very simple.
1:56
SPEAKER_03: There are a lot of very basic things that are really key to aging well, that are key to superaging.
2:05
SPEAKER_03: And the idea of a playbook is to translate these critical strategies into simple actions.
2:13
SPEAKER_03: There's just very simple, very sensible things that you can easily do every day that will make a huge difference in your life.
2:24
SPEAKER_03: And so we begin by telling you why an element is critical, what you need to know, and then how do you translate it into a simple action?
2:36
SPEAKER_03: And we add to that brain drills because keeping your brain sharp, challenging it every day is critical to maintaining your cognitive strength.
2:48
SPEAKER_03: And we give you a simple exercise snack, we give you a food fix, and we end with your thought of the day.
2:57
SPEAKER_03: So the idea of the playbook is to give you something that you can turn into a positive, useful action in about 10 minutes every day.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: I think it's wonderful.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: I read it, and I love the exercise snacks, and I do them a lot.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: Based on that episode we did.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: I, okay, I'm gonna do a squat right now.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna do a wall push-up right now.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't take any time.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to be an athlete, right?
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Because we get sort of bogged down in I guess I have to go to the gym for an hour.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: I guess I'm gonna have to lift all these weights.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: I guess I'm gonna have to.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: But no, we don't have to be doing things like that.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: Lots of simple, doable little things, as you say, not only exercise, food, brain exercises.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna add to that because I couldn't help but thinking about it.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm taking French and I have for a long time.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: I have a private tutor and I have a new one.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: And oh my gosh, I feel like I'm doing mental aerobics twice a week.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm just like my brain, my uh gosh, I think surely this must count for brain exercises.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: It's just anyway.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything more you want to say about it, Larry?
4:12
SPEAKER_03: Well, I was just gonna mention that I'm studying Spanish, which uh I find very difficult.
4:18
SPEAKER_03: So uh I sympathize with your French problems.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: Good for you.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's hard, isn't it?
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Very hard.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'd say good on us.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: That's what I say.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's supposed to be hard.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: If it's too easy, the brain doesn't get the workout it needs.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: It's if you've got to think of it as a workout.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: If you lift a book off that table up and down three times, it's not working out your muscles.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: If you take a stretch band and stress your muscles a bit, so the brain needs that.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: They call it cognitive friction.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: It needs something that's hard, not impossible, because then you'll give up, but a little bit difficult, and that's where the benefit comes.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is my second private tutor, and the one I had previous to this was it's not that it was easy, but we just had conversation.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: And this guy, he gives me all these exercises to do it, and I'm just gonna know what you want.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: But okay, I'm gonna stick with it.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna stick with it.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: And when I get it right, I'm just okay.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay, David, expand on what I quoted from your newsletter.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: The idea used to be that the genes were well, the genes are set.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: Okay, the code is set.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: Well, we can't change the code, but we can change what the genes do with the code, how the genes, it's called the expression, how the genes express themselves.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: And we can modify that and influence that.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: I want to be careful here because it's not a cut and dried thing where all of a sudden they've discovered one new drug and we can reverse aging.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: And there is a fair bit of debate among clinicians and to declare, I'm not a clinician, as to you know what the the clinical effect can be at the cellular level, how far does it go?
6:03
SPEAKER_02: Does it go too far?
6:04
SPEAKER_02: What can we do?
6:05
SPEAKER_02: But broadly speaking, we can influence, which is epigenetics, how the genes express themselves.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: I think one of the examples in one of the articles we wrote, we can put sticky notes on the genes of how to behave without changing the underlying code.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: So then the question becomes what are these sticky notes?
6:25
SPEAKER_02: What do we do to moderate how the genes express themselves?
6:31
SPEAKER_02: And it's a mixture of two things, one of which I'm very comfortable to talk about, and one of which you really need some trained clinicians to talk about.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: And that second one is, you know, the ingestion of whether it's medications or chemicals for specific bio things that you can do at the genetic level, where there's a lot of research going on right now.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: It's not finalized, it's not, you know, boom, here's the product, and take this and you're gonna you're gonna reverse aging.
6:59
SPEAKER_02: So that's a big fat disclaimer coming from me because I want to be honest with your audience.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: But lifestyle habits were found to exert a very tremendous influence right down to the cellular level.
7:14
SPEAKER_02: And this is what to me is the most dramatic thing, whether it's slowing down aging or reversing aging, or the third one, which I think is really the interesting one, are you you're not really reversing it as much as slowing it down to the point that it almost stops?
7:32
SPEAKER_02: So chronologically, you're doing nothing.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: We can't, you know, we're all gonna be a half an hour old or a half an hour from now, and that's just the way it is.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay, but do you then say I'm now gonna have the body of a 30-year-old, which means I'm going, I'm aging backwards?
7:48
SPEAKER_02: That's a bit, that's up for grabs a little bit.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: But can you say to yourself, I'm gonna slow down the rate of aging, and I'm also gonna improve my strength, so that it is as if I have the cognition and the body of a younger person.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: And in addition to the epigenetic stuff we've talked about, we also carried a report of a landmark study done by Yale of some 15,000 adults who were followed, uh, older adults who were followed over about a 15-year period.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: And they found that a third of them improved their physical performance as they got older, and another third of them improved their cognitive performance.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: So their brain's function, so they're not reversing aging totally.
8:35
SPEAKER_02: The body is 15 years older than it was, but the brain is the brain of a younger person.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: So there's parts of the puzzle that you can reverse by increasing your performance to the point where it is the equivalent performance, let's say, of a much younger person.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: And in that sense, you are reversing it.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: So I would be you're not reversing it chronologically, but you're reversing it.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: And the good news here is, and you can ask me about this, I'll make one more point and then I'll stop, is that many of these influences that cause you to improve your performance as you get older, your performance is getting better, not worse, are related to conscious lifestyle choices you can make that are made in the presence of your genes still being with the same code.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: So you haven't gone in and stem celled out the code or you know, done something with the code.
9:32
SPEAKER_02: But with the same code, you're changing the performance of your whole body.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: And that's the exciting part because it's within our grasp.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: When I first started learning about this a long time ago, I mean I never heard of the term epigenetics, but what I was most interested in is that because so often we say, well, it's just genetics, that genetics actually has a much smaller influence on who we are and how we perform than we once thought, which is encouraging because it's not an absolute, you know, your parents were like this, so therefore you're going to be, your grandparents, therefore you're going to be.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: And that is not the case anymore, which I find very encouraging.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell It is encouraging because it means that we can do something about our bodies and our performance, given the genetic code doesn't change.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: So that's the part that's immutable.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know enough a geneticist could come on and really explain it.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: But you know, the double helix and the code being what it is for each of us, it's not that the genetics have less influence, it's that it can be overcome or modified right down to the cellular level.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: And I'll give you one good example, and it's my favorite one because it's sort of the Uber condition that controls everything else.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: So it used to be that we felt that it was a good thing to be optimistic rather than pessimistic, and we felt that in a kind of a generic way.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: In a kind of a grandma's advice, you know, look on the sunny side way.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: I mean, of course, why not?
11:06
SPEAKER_02: It's a good idea.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: But they've now traced that right down to the cellular level with research done among people who were positive versus negative, correlating to longer or shorter lifespans.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: And of course, optimists live longer.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: And then they would research further and they said, Well, okay, well, why is that?
11:26
SPEAKER_02: Is this just sort of generically they're happier so they live longer?
11:29
SPEAKER_02: No, they found that in the presence of a positive mental attitude, two mental attitudes, one about life and two about aging, I feel positive about aging.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to allow the aging to process, which I could do nothing about, because as I said before, we're all going to be a half an hour older 30 minutes from now with the cat saw it.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: But if I feel positive about it, so they found that cortisol, inflammation, biological markers of health and wellness are affected by a positive attitude.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: So there's a direct biological outcome as opposed to just generic feel-good.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: Well, it seems like good advice, why not?
12:11
SPEAKER_02: You know, which used to be the case.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the advice hasn't changed, but they now know why.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: They can trace the mechanisms that make this happen, and that's what's so exciting.
12:20
SPEAKER_02: Positive attitude is numero uno.
12:22
SPEAKER_02: It overlays everything else.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when you listen to people talk sometimes, I mean, we come in all shapes and sizes and personality types, et cetera.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: But it is a joy to be in the presence of someone who has a positive attitude.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: And that's infectious, isn't it?
12:39
SPEAKER_02: It is infectious.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: It's absolutely infectious.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: And that's why that spills over into another in our book, The Seven A's, the attitude was number one.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, association relationships, if you're positive, then you have a social circle, and that feeds off that, and one feeds off the other, you're more likely to achieve another one of the seven A's, you're more likely to achieve things.
13:02
SPEAKER_02: All three of us on camera now took our lives in very different directions.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: I won't say opposite directions, but just added new dimensions to our lives at a time when the old model was you're done.
13:15
SPEAKER_02: It's finished.
13:17
SPEAKER_02: 65.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: God willing, you'll have eight to ten years, but nothing's going to develop during that time.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: You're not going to change, you're not going to adapt nothing new is going to happen.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: God willing, you'll be healthy and uh, you know, that'll be it.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: Now we don't see that as static, we see it as dynamic.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: And if I may one funny thing, but you'll appreciate uh when we launched the playbook, I looked at a lot of other blogs on our platform on Substack and I started subscribing to them.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: And some of them are very personal, very individualized.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: And one of them is a retired commercial shipping captain.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: And uh he's got a wonderful blog.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: And he celebrates the fact that he's retired.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: He gloried, I'm retired.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: And you can't tell me I don't have to answer to anybody anymore.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: I can spend a whole day doing nothing, and I can be passionate about.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: And as you read his stuff, you realize that technically he retired.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's no longer captaining ships through the commercial waterway.
14:18
SPEAKER_02: But he is the most active, engaged, busy guy I've ever seen.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: Savoring every little micro moment he's doing.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: He had a whole project where he was trying to double cross his smart TV by giving it instructions it couldn't follow.
14:33
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: But but he was passionate about it.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, in other words, the the operating thing is he positive?
14:38
SPEAKER_02: He is, and is he engaged?
14:40
SPEAKER_02: He is.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't need to be learning having a salary-paying occupation.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: He's heavily engaged in discovering the pleasure of leisure.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: That's his shtick.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's his particular thing.
14:51
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't want to start a new company.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: He's doing what we're talking about.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: He's very positive, he's very engaged, he's a wonderful writer.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: I don't know where he got to be such a good writer, and he's got quite a following.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: And so that's his passion project.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Passion.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: That's key, isn't it?
15:07
SPEAKER_01: To be passionate about something.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: Retirement, I mean, it is the end of a chapter, but we can also look at it as you know the entrance to a brand new chapter.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I've got opportunities to do this and this and this.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Why don't I try this?
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, Larry, look at you learning Spanish, doing Tai Chi.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: You're over 80.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Do you mind me uh saying that?
15:30
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I I am over 80, and um I think you're watching me do Tai Chi is quite ridiculous, but it's great learning.
15:39
SPEAKER_03: I mean, just the moves, the whole different nature of Tai Chi, I think you really um extends me mentally.
15:47
SPEAKER_03: I I find it very, very challenging.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's just an interesting combination of interrelated physical and mental challenges.
15:56
SPEAKER_03: It's um a very, very interesting discipline.
16:00
SPEAKER_03: And I you would recommend to um anyone else over 80 like me to uh take up a difficult new discipline.
16:09
SPEAKER_03: Challenge yourself with um a new thing, something you've never experienced.
16:15
SPEAKER_03: It's not too late to learn to do anything.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: And on the topic of retirement, we have a section on our website that we call unretirement.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: And I remember this wonderful story we um ran in our newsletter and our website about a 104-year-old doctor who said, and I quote, Retirement is the energy of longevity.
16:43
SPEAKER_03: So I think it's very, very critical not to um retire.
16:49
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't matter what you do, uh, there's so many great things to do.
16:54
SPEAKER_03: I mean, just so many worthwhile organizations need volunteers.
16:59
SPEAKER_03: There's so many new things to learn, there's just so much going on in the internet, there's just so many um new exciting things to um see and do, and the um more leisure time you have, the more exciting opportunities there are.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: And we mean, just to clarify, retirement, I mean, look at the meaning of the word originally, it meant withdraw from.
17:23
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: It didn't necessarily mean stop earning a salary.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: It morphed into I've got a full-time job, I reach the age of 65, they throw me my retirement party, I don't I no longer am earning a salary at that job.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: But that doesn't mean I'm withdrawing or I'm retiring from an act of life.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's Larry's point.
17:47
SPEAKER_02: It could be I don't quit at 65.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: I stay working in companies are now extending the career path of a lot of people.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: It could be I do quit.
17:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't work for company ABC anymore, I don't draw a salary anymore, I'm doing volunteer work, I'm learning a new language, I'm doing, I'm I'm starting a new business.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: That's why I like the word engagement so much.
18:06
SPEAKER_02: I'm engaged, I'm in the play, I'm in the thick of it.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean I'm drawing that paycheck.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: And I think that we should be careful about saying, you know, it's bad to retire.
18:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it used to be one size fits all, 65% retire.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: Now we're saying you retire, hybrid retirement, side gig, new career, stay in the old job and don't quit.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: Quit but start a new business.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're into the world of all of the above.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: And the common denominator that links them isn't whether you're getting a paycheck from company ABC.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: It's are you engaged?
18:44
SPEAKER_02: Do you have an exciting reason to get out of bed in the morning?
18:47
SPEAKER_02: As long as that's the case, that's what promotes longevity.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: This is why the podcast is called What's Next?
18:54
SPEAKER_02: That's exactly right.
18:56
SPEAKER_02: Next might be the most powerful word for people of our age.
19:01
SPEAKER_02: Because as long as you can believe in the word next, it means you're engaged in something.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: You got something you're after.
19:07
SPEAKER_03: Just one thing.
19:08
SPEAKER_03: I think one of the most interesting and critical things we do is there is so much new going on in the way of medical research, lifestyle research.
19:21
SPEAKER_03: There's just so much new information out there all the time that I think you know, everyone as you age has some problems, even though you can maintain your vigor, your youth, your mental acuity.
19:36
SPEAKER_03: I, for instance, have very serious vision problems.
19:41
SPEAKER_03: But there's just so much going on in the way of new research.
19:45
SPEAKER_03: For instance, in uh the area of vision, um Sinclair at Harvard is now doing research where he's injecting um genes into the eye, I guess, with the objective really of regrowing the optic nerve.
20:01
SPEAKER_03: Uh and I think they started human trials, they they had good results with mice.
20:07
SPEAKER_03: And this is just one of many, many examples.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: So one of the things that's both exciting and I think very important to do to maintain your health and your lifestyle really is to keep up to date with a lot of the new exciting things that are going on.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: Uh hence the um second of the seven A's, awareness.
20:32
SPEAKER_03: And that's the whole purpose, actually, of our super aging newsletter, you know, to help people keep up to date.
20:39
SPEAKER_03: And I love the title of your podcast, What's Next?
20:44
SPEAKER_03: Because that's so much of what life is all about.
20:47
SPEAKER_03: It's just a uh a great brand idea.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: I am going to use this opportunity to hold up your book.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: This is the book.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Read the book, subscribe to the newsletter, you'll get all these tips and more than you can imagine.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: Try and try the playbook because you'll find out all about it on our website, superagnews.com.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: So that's a brand new product.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: So you get a new one every weekday.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: So it's fabulous.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: It's it's absolutely fabulous.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: I also I want to add that there are people that have never exercised.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: They've never gone to the gym, they've never been walkers, they've never done this or that.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: So would you say to those people, it's never too late?
21:31
SPEAKER_02: True.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely true.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: And there have been numerous studies.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: And again, you know, the disclaimer here, obviously, unfortunately, there are people who are disabled.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're talking about a tiny minority who can't, but two things are important here.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: Number one, it's never too late.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: But number two, it is astonishing.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: If your goal is longevity, remember the distinction here, which the trap people fall into.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: If you want to be ripped, you gotta go to the gym.
21:59
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
22:00
SPEAKER_02: If you want to be if your goal is I want to be ripped, then I need a trainer, I need a gym, I know I'm not gonna get there uh by you know.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: But if the goal is longevity and better health, it is To me, and I we research and write about how little it takes.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: That's another reason for the playbook.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: And I'll give you an example that if you can make it a daily habit.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: So let's look at what you said exercise.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know what?
22:30
SPEAKER_02: It's expensive, it's time consuming.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: I gotta change clothes, I gotta drive to the gym.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: By the way, none of that's bad.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: Go ahead and do it, it's wonderful.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: It's a barrier to a lot of people.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: The time, the money, the cost, the equipment.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: Exact opposite extreme, exact opposite extreme in our playbook.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: Every time you walk through an open doorway in your home, walking down the hall to enter your bedroom, walking out of your bedroom into the hall, walking out of room A entry, stop in the space between the two rooms in that open doorway and do 12 heel lifts.
23:07
SPEAKER_02: When you're waiting for the kettle to boil, do eight wall push-ups.
23:13
SPEAKER_02: Integrate it into your daily life so it becomes a habit.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: And then that promotes longevity.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: Now it doesn't promote being ripped, it doesn't promote either every part of your body is developing your biceps, you're the total body workout, it's a whole other topic, and I'm not against it.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: But these little things, I'll give you another good example.
23:35
SPEAKER_02: When you put your socks on in the morning, do a stretch.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: Don't just bend over and put your socks on.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's opportunities baked right into your daily life, unobtrusively, where you can do these things and they don't do any harm.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: They only do good.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: And they're easy.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: Really easy.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: No equipment needed.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: No equipment needed.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to change your clothes.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to put your Lululemon outfit on.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, again, based on the episode that we did on the exercise snacks, because we're all sitting too much, in my opinion.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'll put myself in that category.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: But I will sometimes get up and do a squat and just stay in that to, you know, stretch my hips and get myself moving a little bit.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: And it takes minutes.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: And the walking, as you said, I didn't realize this.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: And I think it was, did I read today or yesterday?
24:27
SPEAKER_01: The 10,000 steps, get rid of that.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: We that is not necessary.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: This is what I'm reading and hearing more and more and more.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: A 20-minute walk, two or three 10-minute walks.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: Those are all good.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: We just had a story about 10,000 steps.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't know this till we read our own story, that the 10,000 steps came originally from the name of a Japanese company that made a pedometer.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: It didn't come from a doctor saying go out and do 10,000 steps.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: It was a pedometer called the 10,000 step pedometer.
25:02
SPEAKER_02: So it became the conventional wisdom, and he eat much less research shows that five minutes of moderate exercise a day, five minutes, can promote longevity.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is the thing that so many people, again, people don't get started because they're overwhelmed.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, do I have to do 10,000 steps a day?
25:22
SPEAKER_01: That's just too much.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, what we were saying before, going to a gym or all of these things that just if you're overwhelmed by something, the chances of you being motivated to do it are far less than if you, okay, five minutes, 10 minutes, I can do that.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: And I can do it in my own living room.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and actually you can do it a number of times a day, and little pieces add up to um big ones.
25:50
SPEAKER_03: You're just repeating and repeating.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: Just on your point there, Barbara, we just I just searched for it while we were talking, an article we had about five minutes a day.
26:01
SPEAKER_02: They there was a study done that analyzed 135,000 adults from the UK, United States, Norway, and Sweden using wearable devices to track movement.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: They followed the participants for eight years, and they found that five extra minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per day could prevent about six percent of deaths among the least active people.
26:26
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: And if it occurred across the board and the whole population did it, ten percent of premature deaths could be prevented.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: That's incredible.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: So the impact is huge with a tiny little and this is honestly just do five minutes.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: Now imagine if you did a little bit more, imagine if you built it in a bit more.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: You did go to the gym.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: Walking, you mentioned something very important, but walking, research says, I'm gonna throw it in because it's a plug for better walking.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: Take your regular walk, but interval it so that twice during the walk you speed up.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm walking down the street and I've reached a corner.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, from here to the next corner, I'm gonna walk twice as fast.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Then I'm gonna resume my regular pace.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: Then I'm gonna walk twice as fast.
27:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm walking, you're not you're not running, you're not, you know, just speed it up.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: Pump those arms a little bit.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: They've researched this.
27:27
SPEAKER_02: This isn't just uh uh somebody coming up with a theory.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: They've said that if you do a little bit of interval training in your walking and speed it up, it can improve the efficacy of the walking by over 20%.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: In the same neighborhood, the exact same walk you're doing anyway.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: I'll get back to what we said.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: I think it was on our last episode when I was asking, you know, is walking enough?
27:49
SPEAKER_01: Because walking is great.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: And absolutely we underscore what we've just been saying.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: It is part of the whole package, right?
27:57
SPEAKER_01: It's part of strength training and all those things that we've been talking about.
28:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: Which is, you know, strength training is really important.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: But again, we don't have to go to the gym.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: We can lift soup cans, we can do you know the wall push-ups, we can do a plank, all those things improve our strength.
28:16
SPEAKER_02: And I think we often stretch a little bit too.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: Stretching is very we need to stretch, yeah.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: We do.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: But that's why I like the exercise snacks so much because you can build it into your daily life.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: When I go through uh from room A to room B, I always reach up and grab the door frame at the top and stretch for five seconds.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: I'm doing it anyway.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: Why not you know?
28:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm doing it anyway.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: So that's the key.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: And then it becomes a habit.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: Then gradually you say, gosh, I never enter a new room without reaching up and grabbing the door, just what I do.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: So you're giving yourself these instead of saying, stop everything, I do 20 minutes of stretches, which sounds onerous, I'm gonna build it in to my day.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: And that's the by the way, that as Larry said at the beginning, that's the philosophy of the playbook.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Simple little daily habits that add up to big results.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: That's the thing.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: If you can create these little steps, if they can become habits, it's much easier.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: I do yoga every single night, but it's part of my bedtime routine.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: I do yoga and then I go and wash my face, brush my teeth, blah, blah, blah.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: And now I've added some meditation, 10 minutes.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: And then throughout the day is thanks to you people, the exercise snacks.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: But things can become habits if they're not too overwhelming.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: And if you look for ways to build it into your routine.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: So another example, tiny, tiny.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: So you're lying in bed in the morning, you're waking up, you're about to get out of bed, okay?
29:54
SPEAKER_02: First thing in the morning, whatever time it is, do six hip raises while you're lying in bed.
30:00
SPEAKER_02: So my habit becomes I don't get out of bed without those six hip raises.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: It just becomes what I it becomes how I get out of bed.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: What is the formula?
30:11
SPEAKER_01: You have to do something for how many days in a robe before it comes a habit.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: I forget a different theory.
30:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it you're quite right.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: If you do, if you keep repeating it, and then if it's built into your daily routine, then you associate it with that routine.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: I get out of bed in the morning, I six hip ways, I put on my socks and I reach and I stretch.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: I walk from room A to room B.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: I always stop and grab the door frame and do some stretches.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: I'm waiting for the microwave, I do heel lifts.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: It just becomes part of the I I feel weird if I don't do it.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, wait a minute, the microwave, I'm waiting, standing here doing nothing.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: I'll do some water push-ups.
30:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the whole theory.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, you start to make that association.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: The same thing with food.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: We devised little tiny things you can do rather than a whole big complicated diet.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: Like, how do I get more of this into my diet?
31:07
SPEAKER_02: How do I get more of that?
31:08
SPEAKER_02: So it becomes little micro things you're doing.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: And that goes back to what we said before about the epigenetics.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: It's the habit, it's the repetition that creates the influence on how the G you can't just do it once.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: So it becomes the gene is learning to express itself slightly differently.
31:28
SPEAKER_02: The sticky notes are sticking, if you will.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: I think it's something like if you do something regularly for three weeks, it might be months, it then can become a habit.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: If you're only going to do it once, you know, starting today, I'm gonna do this and this and this every day.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: But you you've got to I'm gonna do this and this and this when I do this that I'm doing anyway.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: That's the key.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: So I'm waiting for the microwave anyway.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm getting out of bed.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: So I'm grafting on to my regular daily routine these little steps.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: And that's what makes it so powerful.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: This is exciting.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: Another thing that I do before I get into bed, I'm actually in my bedroom and I just do, okay, let me just check my balance right now.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
32:12
unknown: Okay, I'm good.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Just stand on one foot and then stand on the other.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: And you know, how long does that take?
32:21
SPEAKER_02: Ten seconds.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: A minute, yeah.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: A minute, 30 seconds, yeah.
32:25
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: Larry, is there anything that you'd like to add to this?
32:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's that this is such an interesting conversation and it's encouraging and it's positive.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: What could you add?
32:37
SPEAKER_03: Well, uh, just really to um emphasize the critical point that um David made.
32:44
SPEAKER_03: This is really very easy to do.
32:47
SPEAKER_03: It's very simple.
32:49
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't require special equipment, special training.
32:54
SPEAKER_03: Everything we're suggesting is simple, doable, and for the minimal investment, the payoff is absolutely extraordinary.
33:04
SPEAKER_03: There are so many ways to um keep moving, to keep your physical fitness, to uh keep your mental acuity.
33:14
SPEAKER_03: And above all, I think the key thing is to really enjoy what you're doing.
33:20
SPEAKER_03: I mean, life's interesting, it's fun, it's fulfilling, and you'll find that doing um all these simple things adds immeasurably to the quality of life.
33:33
SPEAKER_03: Healthy food tastes good, uh a good meal with friends is a fabulous experience.
33:40
SPEAKER_03: So there's so many ways to um eat right, uh so many ways to exercise, and the consequences of not doing all these good things, you know, are not good.
33:55
SPEAKER_03: The older you get, the more muscle mass you lose, and the more quickly you lose it.
34:01
SPEAKER_03: So all of these uh exercises, these simple things that uh David is talking about are absolutely critical.
34:11
SPEAKER_03: But what's so nice is even though they're critical, they're so easy to do and so easy to incorporate into your daily routine, into your life.
34:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I urge everyone to uh go out, get the super aging playbook, read our super aging newsletter, take the 10 minutes a day, it'll make a huge difference in your life.
34:35
SPEAKER_03: All doable.
34:36
SPEAKER_03: Very doable.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: David, what can you add?
34:40
SPEAKER_02: I think what I would encourage people to do is understand that there's a lot of diversity possible now.
34:48
SPEAKER_02: So it used to be one solution.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: I retire or I don't.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Fitness, I gotta go to the gym, or there's not much I can do.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: Is that either or now it's broadening to say there's lots of solutions and we can build them into our life so that they become a part of how we carry out our lives.
35:09
SPEAKER_02: They don't become a strange alien thing we bring in gritting, oh grit my teeth, now I gotta do this thing, and I uh it just becomes almost unobtrusive.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: And the payoff, as Larry said, because remember the goal here, what we're all talking about is longevity and health.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: It's never been more achievable.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: And Larry earlier referred to all the research that's coming, well, study after study, we do, we write about this every week, shows how relatively modest lifestyle changes and good habits, relatively modest, have staggering impact.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: And it is it is never too late, especially want to talk about one thing that's there for everybody, is especially brain health.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, absent the disease, obviously, God forbid, but you can start revving up the brain, treating the brain as a muscle that needs a workout in the playbook.
36:07
SPEAKER_02: We uh we have brain drills.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: We don't have go ahead and do sudoku, go ahead and do crossword puzzles, love you, do it.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: But we have these little under 60 seconds, we call them brain drills, which are based on cognitive science.
36:19
SPEAKER_02: And in 30s or 60 seconds, you can do the drill.
36:24
SPEAKER_02: The point is you're exercising the brain right there on the spot by very simple little tasks.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: So I want to reflect that optimism, that sense of possibility.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: And I would like the payoff to be what's next.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: I would like the permanent answer to your question, uh, not to impose my slogan onto your thing.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: But I think the unspoken permanent answer is what's next?
36:48
SPEAKER_02: Living longer.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: As you were talking about, you know, little exercises you can do for your brain.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: I live like a three-minute walk to the grocery store.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: And so usually I just have about five things, but I try not to bring my list.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: I tell, okay, let me remember all of those five things that I need.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: And so when I do, you know, yay me! I got it all.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: I have to remember the five things.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I gotta get going and do some squats.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: So before I before I do, David, tell us how people can reach you.
37:25
SPEAKER_02: The best way to reach me is just remember superagingnews.com, one address.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: On that website, you'll find a link to me and to Larry.
37:36
SPEAKER_02: You'll find a link to our free newsletter, which comes out every Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, and to the new playbook.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: You'll be able to look at both of them.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: So I would say the one destination, I would say superagingnews.com, will open up the whole menu for you.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: You get a huge buffet of information.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: We hope so.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: We're trying.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do a great job.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Larry.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, David, for coming on again.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: Always great to have you back.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: And uh I know that we'll have you again.
38:09
SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you so much for inviting us, Barbara.
38:12
SPEAKER_03: We're so excited to uh be in your podcast.
38:16
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: This episode was written and recorded by Barb Demaray, edited and produced by Aidan Glassy.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: As always, special thanks to our guests for making it possible.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed and you'd like to hear more, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: You can also follow the show on YouTube at what's next.convos with boomers.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.