Staying Young While Getting Older Takes Work

They say “youth is wasted on the young”. This has much meaning as you get older. You don’t repair as quickly. When you’re young and, say, you hurt your shoulder lifting a heavy box, by the following week or so that incident is completely forgotten. If that same injury happened to an older person, it may take weeks or months to hopefully recuperate.

I mention the shoulder because I just found out I have a torn rotator cuff and I’m always in some level of pain. I have been for over a year. So I finally got an MRI of it and it was confirmed – a 50% rotator cuff tear. The doctor informed me that as people age, their rotator cuff gets thinner – sort of like fabric that has worn thin. It then may disconnect from the head of (the ball part) of the upper arm bone. If the tear is severe, surgery may be needed to reconnect the tendon part of the rotator cuff to the bone.

For now surgery isn’t necessary. But increasing flexibility in the shoulder is. At least five time s day I have to do flexibility exercises to get more motion in the shoulder. This might not have even happened when I was younger – when all the muscles and tendons were stronger. When we get older, we’re more prone to problems because, frankly, our bodies aren’t quite what they used to be.

That’s just one example. How about as we get older, we produce less growth hormone? It’s that growth hormone that controls many things but as an older person, the results of that decrease are often seen in weight gain. It’s unfortunate that the younger population that is overweight doesn’t appreciate that if they don’t get the weight off now while they’re young, they’ll also have the decreased growth hormone to contend with when they get older.

As we age, we really have to be more diligent than the young to exercise and keep active. Every day you should be asking yourself, “Have I done something that involved some physical activity? Have I done flexibility exercises because my body is not as forgiving as it was when I was younger if I fall or lift something poorly? Have I lifted weights to try to maintain a healthy level of muscle? The young can miss days of exercising and not feel the effects. When you’re older, a missed day means you just missed the opportunity of maintaining some semblance of youthful vitality.

Our attempts to keep some of our youth is and should be viewed literally as a job. So, yes, you may be having to work two jobs – one to make money and the other to be well enough to earn that living. Jack LaLanne is a perfect example of a man who has taken exercise seriously all his life. And even at his age today, he still maintains a rigorous exercise schedule. When I interviewed him for one of my books (Your Personality Prescription), he shared his feelings about the youth of the U.S. and how sad it was to see them so overweight and care so little about the health of their bodies.

When it’s time to retire doesn’t mean it’s time to sit back and ignore the needs of your body. It’s then that it needs more of your attention. Make time or you may not get as much in the long run.