Make an effort to do what you’re looking forward to
Stop lounging on the couch, snacks or a glass of wine: haven’t we lost track a bit, journalist Malou van Hintum wonders. Healthy living seems to have become an end in itself rather than a means of enjoying what makes life worth living.
This year I will be 60 (at least I hope so). This means that I am on the eve of a phase of life with two or three chronic conditions, a greater risk of age-related diseases such as cancer, dementia and osteoporosis, and an initial cognitive decline. Although the latter can be easier, because I am a fanatic chewing gum when I am not in company. Professor of neuropsychology Erik Scherder says chewing is good for your memory and creativity.
There are more things I do well or could do well. I have a sit-stand desk (I usually sit behind it), a desk bike (it’s very often next to the desk), a great dog (which I use for at least an hour and a half in the outdoors every day). I hardly eat any meat or fish and do eat lots of vegetables (except on pizza day) and I eat an apple every day (and often a few handfuls of grapes, but you have to be careful with fruit because of the sugar in it). I also regularly open one or two packs of crackers in the evening and spread them with the hummus with mango from the Moroccan shop around the corner. Two glasses of wine, delicious!
Oh no. Stop! Two glasses of wine a day times seven days a week are fourteen glasses. This makes me almost an excessive drinker, according to the Trimbos Institute – which studies our substance use, among other things. The Health Council – an authoritative advisory body in the field of public health – is even stricter and advises a maximum of one glass a day, and preferably nothing at all. At the same time, the Nutrition Center advises against drinking fruit juice or thick juice, because they contain too much sugar. Soft drinks are not an option anyway. Tea is ok! But I drink that during the day and at the beginning of the evening. How much tea can a person digest in a day?
Those crackers with spread on them make me gain weight slowly but steadily. Eat 50 calories more than you need every day and after a year you will be 2.5 kilos heavier, write aging scientists David van Bodegom and Rudi Westendorp in their book Getting old in practice. I probably regularly eat 250 calories too much (that roll of fat above my jeans is not a good sign). Or even more, if you count the piece of chocolate with the tea in the evening. Why do I keep forgetting to take that cucumber out of the vegetable drawer and enjoy it festively with a glass of water? Some cottage cheese topped with watercress or radish and enjoy!
Your environment largely determines whether you make healthy choices, write Van Bodegom and Westendorp. When I opened their book, a poster immediately fell out with all the pictograms, with a caption and a short explanation. Eat with small cutlery from small plates. You eat less, but feel just as satisfied. Use a pedometer, ride the bike more often, have more sex, and the calories will fly off. Turn the thermostat down a degree: your body will burn more calories to stay warm. I usually only turn on the heating in the evening and wear a thick vest during the day. Nice and warm in a fresh house! Doing well! But unfortunately, those who are nice and warm do not burn those extra calories. “You don’t have to shiver from the cold, but you do have to experience it as fresh in the house,” write the two aging scientists.
Already a little tired of all the regulations? Me too. And that’s just getting started and we haven’t even mentioned devices that can measure all kinds of bodily functions, and that can warn us if something seems wrong. For example, there is a Fitbit smartwatch (‘smart’ watch) on the market that, in combination with an app on your mobile phone, can measure your heart rate, the oxygen level in your blood, your temperature, the degree of stress you have, and which can also detect cardiac arrhythmias.
Professor of aging Andrea Maier, author of Eternally Tenable. The unprecedented future of our bodies is excited about such technological feats because – she says – they give us more control over our lives. But there is no danger of the opposite: that, once connected to such measuring equipment and obsessed with the figures it produces, we will do everything we can to get ‘good results’ (and every time we are unnecessarily worried at the GP because ‘something wrong’)? And don’t we become alienated from our body if we only feel okay when the scores are optimal?
In this way, our bodies threaten to cease to be just that: a unique and personal thing that we can scratch and tickle, with which we can love and feel pain, that is a historical atlas of our lives with all its burn marks, scars, freckles, pigmentation spots and (smile) wrinkles. The lifelong friend becomes a biological mechanism that we must monitor and control in order to delay its inevitable decline for as long as possible.
Of course you get happier if you stay as healthy as possible, but should we really go so far as to make health a goal rather than a means of living a good life? Those who like to go out with the grandchildren will prefer to be as fit as possible. Those who enjoy long walks or bike rides can work on their fitness in a playful way. And those who love gardening are also doing a good job. But if you hate gardening, you shouldn’t start rooting in the ground.
Alzheimer Nederland answers the question whether dancing helps against dementia that no sport or activity has been scientifically proven to reduce the risk of dementia. And suppose this is the case, says Alzheimer Nederland: “What good is that knowledge? Are you really going to choose an activity based on a study that lowers your risk of dementia, but causes you to do something several times a week that you don’t enjoy? We don’t think and hope so. Do healthy things that you enjoy and can therefore sustain. Because if we force people to move in a way that does not suit them, then at most we will have the puppets dancing.”
This also applies to many lifestyle recommendations. Suppose you don’t feel like brushing your teeth every day standing on one leg, deliberately placing frequently used items in a hard-to-reach place, always hanging over the seat for ten seconds before sitting down, or stretching your legs straight ahead. when you sit on the couch? (According to Andrea Maier, who also encourages her readers to walk outside on the curb in order to improve your balance – there is a good chance that you will then be taken off the street as a ‘confused person’…). So suppose you don’t start all of that, because it just makes you very grumpy? Well, then don’t do it.
Feeling physically and mentally fit increases the chance that you are looking forward to each new day, sleeping well, not stressed, living as relaxed as possible and knowing which things are worth committing to and worrying about. What do you enjoy, what do you enjoy, what do you like, enjoy or important to do?
Perhaps you prefer to curl up on the couch and read a book instead of bravely embarking on – often too narrow – cycle paths where e-bikers and groups of cyclists rule, or walking in traffic jams on the beach or in the woods. Maybe you are one of those cyclists who loves to race through polders or dunes, only to come home exhausted and satisfied – with a lot of enthusiasm for that cold beer that is already waiting in the fridge. Maybe embroidery, canning vegetables, coffee with friends, playing chess, making music, trying out recipes, reading poetry, learning a language, crafts, making music, eating with your family, cuddling with your dog, or having a drink with something like that A damn glass of wine and toasts with smoked salmon and wasabi mayonnaise (yes, my favorites). Or just sitting in the sun with eyes closed and not thinking about anything at all.
See what you value in your life and exert yourself physically and mentally to be able to do the things that you enjoy and that give you energy. And remember that shared joy is often double joy. Loneliness is more deadly than smoking, write Van Bodegom and Westendorp. Humans are social animals, some more than others, but hardly anyone wants to live without friends. That’s because friends are valuable socially, emotionally, and also practically. The same goes for good neighbors.
In the so-called blue zones – areas in the world where many healthy, very old people live – one of the nine recommendations for healthy aging is: be an active part of a community. In the words of Van Bodegom and Westendorp: “That you are missed somewhere if you don’t show up.”
Another recommendation is also worthwhile: drink two glasses of wine a day. Cheers!
This article previously appeared in Plus Magazine July/August 2021. Want to subscribe to the magazine? You can do that in an instant!
Sources):
- Plus Magazine