I thought I wrote the last words on “old age sucks,” but I am compelled to say bad things about the column on the Five Myths of Aging by the online “interesting facts” people. These “myths” are NOT myths.
First Myth: Aging definitely means declining health. Is that true? Only if you’re killed in a traffic accident or a plane crash. People don’t die of old age after feeling great. That’s why hospitals are full, doctors are impossible to schedule, nursing homes abound. They are inundated by old people who do NOT feel good. Old people DO have declining health. The myth is that you and I can avoid the decline or fix it. That myth makes us spend lots of money and spend months, even years, suffering from impossible cures.
There is no cure for the declining health that comes with old age. We can prolong the good years by living right: eating the right foods, sleeping eight hours, staying close to family and friends, working, exercising. (The article mentions all of these factors). When the body finally ages enough, however, it’s not going to feel nice. Even if you have been a righteous, do-good-to-yourselfer, there comes a time when your health will fail.
Second Myth: Cognitive decline is inevitable. Wrong. And right. Mental decline is not inevitable – if you have lived like a nun. If you have lived like a nun, you may escape the plaques and tangles that cause memory loss. Plaques and tangles are aided and abetted by all the stupid things in ordinary life: smoking, drinking, getting fat, having multiple sex partners. However, even nuns finally succumb to brain decline. When someone says, “She’s 100 and smart as a tack!” they really mean: “still recognizes me,” or “still makes jokes.”
Third Myth: You can’t learn new things in old age. Well, OK. Old people can learn new things; they do it all the time when the tax laws change. The point is this: If you’re older, you are not going to have the flexibility in your body or your brain to pick up new things FAST. It will be slow and painstaking – and that’s why most old people don’t start gymnastics or piano lessons. How much patience must a person require to slog through an activity that would have taken five minutes at age 8?
I’m sure everyone is familiar with the advice to take up crosswords or a new language to fight off Alzheimer’s. Is that good advice? Probably not. Most old people like to be in control. They don’t like to work at an activity that makes them feel like a dork. So they won’t do it. Good for them.
Fourth Myth: Older people need less sleep. This is false, of course. Old people know this from experience. They don’t fall asleep in front of the TV set because they need LESS sleep. They budget their time because they don’t want to nod off in the middle of baking cookies. They KNOW they need eight hours of sleep. The trick is to get it.
How did the less-sleep myth get started? I suspect it started when middle-aged people noticed they slept a lot less than their teenagers who sleep a LOT. In the 30s, 40s and 50s, life demands long hours, hours spent daydreaming about going to bed. When old age hits, they CAN’T sleep. If six hours in bed results in frequent trips to the bathroom, leg cramps and insomnia, it’s not proof that they need less sleep. It’s proof they will need a nap to try and make up the loss.
Fifth Myth: The best years are behind us. Well, LOL. It depends on how terrible the younger years were! But this isn’t what the myth-deniers mean, is it? No, they mean you can fall in love, take trips, enjoy your hobbies, go to concerts, make new friends, blah, blah, blah. But none of these perks are common with the old old, are they?
Eighty-year-old people do fall in love – and when they do, they make the news! It’s that bizarre. Old old people don’t take trips because their feet cramp when they drive and they can’t walk through airports. They don’t enjoy hobbies because they can’t afford hobbies and they can’t see well. They don’t go to concerts because they can’t hear the soloists above the background din. They don’t have a roaring social life because their family and friends are dead or dying – or simply rude to old people.
Sure. There are some good years after age 65. They are good until the body or brain starts wearing out. Then they aren’t so good. Expecting them to be terrific is just asking for depression. It is NOT helpful or even informative to tell people that they can have a robust old age IF they never smoked, never abused alcohol or drugs, never relied on junk food or red meat, never had more than one sexual partner, never suffered from prolonged stress. We’re back in the convent again.
When you’re young, you can’t even imagine being old. So you go ahead and live like a young person with all the cavalier disregard for bad habits. If you meet a young vegetarian who lives a healthy life for the sake of his old age, you have met a neurotic person. And he’ll die whenever his DNA decides anyway.
Listen up, myth-makers: You are not feeding us myths. You are feeding us lies.
