Now that dementia has become the "biggest killer" in Australia, there have been plenty of stories flooding the media about it, even going as far as taking the battles of the sexes angle - as women have a higher rate than men. What I haven't seen mentioned in any of that approach though, is it is because dementia is an age-related disease, and women live longer than men by about four years in Australia. The biggest killer for men in Australia is still heart disease.
Pretty unfair.
It is a bit misleading that dementia is the leading cause of death though, because it is nearly always a secondary factor that actually causes the death, with dementia being the underlying condition. Still, as someone who has hard a traumatic brain injury (infarction [stroke]), I am about 3x more likely to get dementia than the average, so I assume that "yeah - that'll be me." However, what people should consider if they are planning on living past retirement age, is that in general being healthy is the best defence against dementia.
Easy.
Really though, it isn't that hard to do what it takes, it just means eating healthily and having a balanced diet with enough nutrients, exercising regularly and keeping fat down (especially belly fat - caused by carbs), and avoiding getting hit in the head too often. While physical degradation is just part of life and our brain is physical, we can improve the function of it so it is working as well as it can.
Just like the rest of our body.
I feel I have been dealt a pretty bum hand in this life in many ways, since pretty much all the important bits of me have been heavily impacted in some way, even though I have looked after myself for the most part. Yet, I still don't understand how so many people who have very few physical reasons, have so many physical problems.
Ok... I do understand.
Or at least, I am pretty sure it has something to do with how we value our emotional feeling more than our physical feeling. Our "needs" are not dictated by biological necessity, they are chosen by emotional state. Think about yourself for a moment (as if you ever stopped) and consider when you are most likely to eat junk food, or drink alcohol, or skip exercise. How were you feeling at that time? Are the reasons physical, or are they emotional?
Did you need to finish that whole bag of chocolate? Where you unable to go for a brisk walk or to life some weights? Was the fourth, fifth and sixth beer required for your hydration?
Probably not.
You just didn't feel like it. Or you did feel like it - whatever the case might be. But it wasn't needed by your body to function, but your actual needs were overpowered by your emotional needs and you gave in to the toddler's tantrum and conditioned yourself a little more, to be a little worse.
This is human nature.
We aren't very good at delaying our gratification for an unguaranteed future, but we are very good at treating ourselves now, just in case tomorrow doesn't happen. Yet - tomorrow always happens and for the most of us, we are going to live to the averages for our type of person. For instance, one study suggested that a morbidly obese person in the US can expect to live to about 58 years of age, which is 20 years less than the average. The average... not the healthiest. It is about the same as a heavy smoker.
But the problem with not planning for a future that is probably going to arrive, is that while we make decisions in the moment based on how we feel right now, we aren't very good at predicting how we are going to feel in that uncertain future. And as someone who is only 46 but have some parts of my body functioning like I am in my seventies, I can tell you - it feels like shit. I have lived with pain since my mid-teens, and it keeps accelerating at a faster pace the older I get.
Unless you already live it, you don't know what it is going to feel like when your weight has increased further, and you joints have aged a couple decades more. You don't know what it feels like when a mild flu becomes a major issue. And you definitely don't know what it feels like to look into the mirror, and not fully recognise the person staring back. You know them, but they don't look like who you know, and the timeline is disjointed, like it has been passed through a kaleidoscope and split into a puzzle.
We all slow down.
And as we are living longer, with far less daily routine than we had previously, it is natural that our brains are breaking down earlier. Living long used to be indicative of health. Now, it is indicative of medicine advancement. Living longer, doesn't mean living better, and I suspect if we did know what it was like to come in and out of dementia symptoms, many would choose not to go on. But, preparing for that means living better all the way up to that point.
Feeling better now.
Someone that truly feels well, doesn't eat themselves until they vomit, or drink themselves into a stupor. Someone truly healthy has a mind that functions well, a body that functions well, and an emotional understanding that functions well, to maintain a high quality of life - not a good feeling right now, at the expense of everything else to come.
We don't need fad diets or personal trainers.
We just need to pay attention to the needs of our body, rather than the demands of our feelings.
Taraz
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