MY new old BODY Archives - My New Old Self

Worry less and live longer 2

Feb

9

2018

By the time you finish reading this, you may have lengthened your lifespan. How’s that for encouragement to read on? Let’s start with this question: do you worry about your health? Most people are concerned about leading a healthy lifestyle. They want to feel well, be fit and look good. As we get older we ...

Do Not Resuscitate – read my DNR tattoo

Dec

15

2017

If you feel very strongly about something, you want your conviction to be perfectly clear to all. Surely one of the clearest ways to make your view known on a particular issue would be to have it tattooed onto your body. Well, someone actually did that. A 70-year-old man, suffering from various life-threatening conditions, wound ...

Will they remember me when I’m a popsicle? 1

Dec

1

2017

Scientists have made a major breakthrough in cryogenically freezing dead bodies for revival in the distant future. The idea is to preserve a person in a state of suspended animation at sub-zero temperatures. My New Old Self is not convinced about this effort at immortality. Firstly, this feat has only been achieved in fish embryos ...

Telomere care – it’s up to you!

Feb

10

2017

Want to live longer? Here’s how: “Have fun, get exercise of any kind, say something warm to somebody every day and enjoy healthy food.” If you think that sounds like a touchy-feely tip from a credentials-free healer, you’re wrong. Those are the words of a molecular biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Dr. ...

How to sprout – with e-Help

Jul

23

2016

Older people have a not undeserved reputation for complaining. Something we often complain about is technology. It has been challenging for Baby Boomers to master the ever evolving technological advancements of the digital age. Those born between 1946 and 1964 have straddled the analogue and digital eras. We were well into adulthood when we started transitioning ...

Live longer – and better!

Jun

24

2016

When I saw this cartoon it depressed me. “These are them?” All this effort to stay young – and all it gets us is more years of being old? Wait a minute. Let’s refill that half-glass of water, abandoning such pessimistic measurement of its emptiness. Readers of this column will know how fond My New Old Self ...

For the love of bacon 2

Nov

5

2015

Have you checked out the sizzling debate over bacon’s impact on the human lifespan? Bacon lovers are reeling from a new study by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that classified bacon as carcinogenic. News stories about this research have been passionately defensive of bacon. It would seem that the headline ...

In Praise of Fidgeting

Oct

22

2015

I have often sung the praises of taking advice from our elders. Eat your vegetables – that turned out to be a good tip, proven by scientific studies to make you live longer. Get some fresh air. Go for a walk, preferably amongst greenery. Those are other oft-heard suggestions from parents and grandparents. Now this ...

Text Neck, now Birder Neck 3

Oct

9

2015

I come to you with my head hung in shame… Correction: if I could move my neck without wincing, that would be my contrite posture. But I can’t. Not just my neck but my head and shoulders have been locked in painful spasm. I beg your forgiveness because My New Old Self aims to offer ...

Studies show… Duh! 4

Jul

30

2015

I love it when something I’m already doing turns out to be good for me. Especially now that I’m endlessly checking out advice on how to avoid all that bad stuff that comes with aging. My eyes are riveted by headlines such as “Chocolate protects against memory loss”. I never fail to click on links ...