Live Longer Better
  • Your journey
    • More About the Optimal Ageing Programme >
      • About Muir Gray
      • Muir Gray's publications
    • Coping with Lockdown
    • Using the right words right; ageing, fitness, disease and beliefs >
      • Bad language about older people
    • The Lockdown Wellbeing Programme >
      • The Daily Mail series
    • the Daily Dozen + 30 for 4S fitness
    • What is happening as we live longer >
      • Your monthly briefing
    • LLL for LLB
    • The environment is tough >
      • Retirement has benefits and risks >
        • Join the Challenge Hub
      • Some people got a better start than others
      • the impact of isolation is now recognised
      • The physical environment is the cause of many problems blamed on ageing
      • Poverty affects too many older people
    • the Living Longer Better Programme >
      • what would a good life in your late 80s be likel
      • What do you fear most and want to avoid
      • Start to write your Living Longer Better Plan
      • Think positive
    • How to reduce your risk of a bad death
    • My diary & daily routine
    • My health record
    • My housing
    • Othercare - Supporting someone else
    • About the OxAP >
      • Muir Gray's Bookshop >
        • The Antidote To Ageing
        • Midlife
        • Sod60!
        • Sod70!
        • Get Moving
        • Eatwell!
        • Dr Gray's Walking Cure
      • Here is the news
  • Get physically better
    • Increase strength, stamina, suppleness and skill >
      • Strength
      • Stamina
      • Skill
      • Suppleness
      • Work hard
      • Brisk walking >
        • Virtual Walking
        • Restart Sport >
          • Restart swimming
          • Restart tennis
          • Restart football
          • Restart cycling
          • Virtual Cycling
      • If you have difficulty walking briskly
      • Join a Gym or Wellness Hub >
        • Meet others for fitness >
          • Silver sneakers
          • Age UK Generation games
          • Join a Gym, Fitness Centre or Wellness Hub
          • Find a personal trainer
      • Find a Trainer
    • Reduce your risk of disease >
      • Eat Well
      • Stop smoking
      • Increase activity - physical, cognitive and emotional
      • Watch the alcohol
      • Accept the offers from the NHS screening programmes
      • We need a revolution
    • Look after your body >
      • Happy and Positive Birthday >
        • Sod 60!
        • Sod70!
        • Sod It! Eat Well
        • Sod Sittin, Get Moving!
      • Skin maintenance
      • Teeth and gum maintenance
      • Feet maintenance
      • Bone, joint and muscle maintenance
      • Bowel maintenance
      • Brain maintenance
      • Mind maintenance
      • Heart maintenance
      • Lung maintenance
      • Waterworks maintenance for men
      • Waterworks maintenance for women
      • See as clearly as possible
      • Keep your Hearing as acute as possible
    • If disease occurs - Optimise Your Healthcare >
      • Living with a common condition >
        • Arthritis
        • Cancer
        • COPD _ Bronchitis
        • Diabetes
        • Dementia
        • Heart disease
        • Parkinson's Disease
        • Stroke
      • Making a big decision >
        • Should i have a hip replacement ?
      • Consequences of common conditions >
        • Loss of status
        • Disability and handicap
        • Isolation
        • Depression
        • Frailty
      • Look out for social as well as drug prescribing >
        • Enjoy Activity Therapy
      • What you can do to help the NHS even more
  • Think better
    • Train your brain ; we now know the brain can get fitter at any age
    • Understanding Dementia & Alzheimer's Disease
    • Reduce your risk of dementia >
      • Stimulate your brain more every year >
        • Learning new skills and build on your assets
        • Get even more engaged
      • Protect your brain >
        • Sleep better
        • Get more active
        • Avoid over medication
        • Control stress levels
        • Air pollution and dementia
      • Keep the oxygen flowing
    • Combat depression
  • Feel better
    • Stay engaged and don't lose your sense of purpose
    • Feel even better by helping other people even more
    • Meet others like you
    • Optimise the Internet >
      • My Virtual Reality
    • Join others for a Daily Service
    • Feel better by visiting Great Places >
      • Visit the great Museums
      • Visit the great libraries
      • Visit a National Trust treasure
    • Feel better through music >
      • Join a concert party
      • Your virtual choir
      • Music for Moving
    • Feel better by reading, listening and watching with other people >
      • Kindling Book Club >
        • Crime
        • Classics
        • Health
      • Audible Book Club
      • Your BBC
      • Your Film Club
    • Feel better by learning new skills and ideas
    • Feel better by joining a club to play games and meet others >
      • Chess Club
      • Bingo club
      • Bridge Club
    • Feel better by supporting nature >
      • Visit the great gardens
    • Feeling Better by Going Down Memory Lane >
      • Sporting memories are powerful
  • Understand better
    • Ageing is a normal biological process
    • From 40 to 90 loss of fitness is serious
    • The effects of disease are often compounded by loss of fitness
    • Negative beliefs and attitudes have a huge impact
    • The importance of planning with purpose
    • The Ageing Brain and the Maturing Mind
    • Strength and Power can always be increased
    • Skill and co-ordination can be improved at any age
    • Stamina can be improved by brisk walking
    • Suppleness can always be improved and stiffness always reduced
    • Activity Therapy is of vital importance

Maintain and improve your mind


MIND MAINTENANCE
 
It is important not to romanticise the past and imagine that there was a golden age in which it was wonderful to be an old person, an elder. As the historian Sir Keith Thomas, deservedly a Companion of Honour, described in book on the history of witchcraft titled Religion and the Decline of Magic. The historical truth is that poor old people were often pushed out because their family simply could not afford to feed them.  Rich people stayed in positions of power, often because they were afraid of what might happen to them if they passed on power to their family, after holding on to it for too long – the play King Lear described the fate that followed all too clearly.

The psychological changes that are sometimes associated with growing old are usually negative. “Old people” or, even worse, “the elderly” are portrayed as being slow, cautious, and reactionary and many people have come to accept that this is as much a part of the ageing process as white hair.  It is not.  By that we mean that not only that it is not a part of normal ageing, but we also mean, and emphasise, that the person who reaches the age of seventy has to decide.
  • “Will I go along with the stereotype of an old person?”
OR
  • “Do I accept that what other people call caution I call wisdom from experience and I am going to use the mind space freed up from work to learn some new skill or help other people or both?”
It is up to you to decide whether you want to accept what society and, perhaps, people close to you believe about growing old, but there is no process affecting the mind like osteoporosis affects the bones that is an inevitable part of living longer.
 
What you can do?

The advice we gave on brain maintenance is relevant to the mind also. Intellectual activity can help both mind and brain but because other peoples‘ beliefs about growing old can have an impact on even the most optimistic person it is essential to take action.
 
Be positive

Never use the word ‘old’ or say you are growing old or that you are getting older. Say you have you have lived for longer and that brings benefits.  Useful things to remember about having lived longer are 
  • I have more experience
  • I have tackled more problems, some successfully, some unsuccessfully but I have had more opportunities to learn
  • I don’t make decisions too quickly
  • I am less ambitious for myself.  I want to help the next generation.
 
Be Mindful
​

Mindfulness is a hot new approach in psychology.  It has been defined by the person who has done most to develop it as 
  • “the awareness that emerges through paying attention, in the present and non-judgementally, to things as they are at present.”  Many people spend too much time worrying about the future and going over and over the problems of the past.  It is prudent to think about future problems, and how their risk can be reduced.  It is natural to reflect on what has happened, good or bad, but not to spend one’s whole time grieving and worrying.  You need to create time at lest once a day to focus on the present and its good points.  This is not to say that you need to adapt a Pollyanna like approach of ignoring past or future problems but once or, better, twice a day just make ten minutes to 
    • sit, upright, but comfortable, feet on the floor and focus on the present. 
    •  Look at the sky or your garden 
    • Concentrate on every breath.
    • Put your hands on your knees and feel the weight of your arms on your lower limbs.
 
The best method is to search for Professor Mark Williams of Oxford University or the Oxford Mindfulness Centre on the web.  His site has many free resources to help you learn the techniques of mindfulness, and has links to the handbooks.

Be active, socially mentally and physically

Learning new skills, or improving old ones, is good for the mind.  The sense of challenge and achievement is very good for the mind and so too is physical activity. 
​
Be active socially, the evidence that helping other people also helps oneself is strong and getting stronger.  People in their seventies have learned many things and have a lot to give.  Already voluntary services are often led, and depend on, people in their seventies are too modest.  They assume they have nothing to contribute apart from their money, but this is not the case.  Acting as a volunteer either for face to face work with people in the community in which you live or with people in a village in Asia or Africa who you will never see is of great importance not only to those people who receive help but also those who offer it.
 
Be active physically; the evidence that physical activity is good for the mind as well as the body is getting stronger.  Physical activity includes adopting the right posture, erect and without a stoop, as well as activities designed to increase strength, stamina, suppleness and skill.  The programme that we propose for physical fitness will also help your mind but remember, in the words of Jean Paul Sartre – “the mind is its own place and can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell”.
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Proudly powered by Weebly