Starting over at 60 with nothing? Discover practical tips and strategies to navigate this new beginning and create a fulfilling life for yourself. Starting over at any age can be challenging, but it is essential to stay positive and resilient in the face of adversity. Focus on the opportunities ahead and believe in your ability to overcome obstacles and achieve success.
Starting Over at 60 with Nothing
There is a stereotype that after 60-65 years life is not the same. But this is absolutely not true! Life expectancy is growing, and people of the “silver” age are becoming more and more active. There is no need to think that after 60 there is only a sofa, a pension and a TV. This is a myth that has long since gone into oblivion.
Rule #1: Take physical breaks
Even if you like to spend the evening in front of the TV, it’s okay, it’s your right. There’s a good concept that dates back to Soviet times – “physical education minutes”.
In English there is an equivalent – “physical education snacks”.
This is when we get up every two hours and move for 10 minutes: you can squat if your knees and joints allow, you can stretch, turn your head, swing your arms.
Rule #2: Go to bed and wake up early
The brain “scans” the body during sleep and “corrects” the mistakes made while awake. If you like to take a nap during the day, then the most useful sleep from the point of view of “rebooting” the body will be no more than 20 minutes.
When is the best time to go to bed and get up? This is “decided” by our circadian rhythms, or more precisely by the hypothalamus, which houses the central biological clock and the pineal gland, which produces melatonin, the sleep hormone.
The best time to go to bed is 10:20–11:00 PM. At this time, we are already quite tired, we feel the “sleep load,” and the melatonin level is already high. And wake up at 6:00–6:30 AM.
Often people get up at night, for example, to drink water, and turn on the light – this is dangerous, since at this moment the level of melatonin drops to zero and, in fact, is not restored. You will, of course, fall asleep again, but the sleep will be less effective in terms of restoring the body. But there is a solution: red night lights do not affect melatonin levels!
Rule #3: Stay mentally active
Remember that a decrease in memory and other cognitive abilities is not the norm of aging, they are the consequences of certain diseases. Dementia is not a separate disease, it is a “cap” under which many different diseases are hidden. But about 50% of all dementias are Alzheimer’s disease.
To prevent cognitive impairment, it is important to ensure that the amount of information coming from outside does not decrease – cognitive health directly depends on this.
Most often, information reduction occurs for two reasons:
- due to incorrectly chosen glasses (the person simply cannot see everything – he simply cannot read the labels in the store),
- due to hearing loss.
When a person has poor hearing, he not only begins to receive less information, but he also reduces his social contacts, because he is embarrassed that he will not hear something, is embarrassed to ask again or “answer inappropriately” and seem funny. Decreased communication also has a negative impact on cognitive health.
Don’t be afraid of the new
Learn new things! It also trains our brain and allows us to maintain cognitive abilities (speech, memory, ability to think, analyze, predict, etc.) for as long as possible.
It is important that the training is motivated – that is, something that the person is really interested in and will be useful in life.
Rule #5: Communicate more
Our brain “pumps up” its cognitive functions precisely at the moment of communication, discussion. Therefore, when choosing, for example, sports, choose the kind that is accompanied by interaction with other people.
If you love to read, be sure to discuss what you read with someone!
There is such a thing as the “Roseto phenomenon”. At the beginning of the 20th century, residents of the Italian city, almost the entire city, moved to America and founded the city of Roseto. A few decades later, doctors noticed that people living in Roseto were much healthier than their neighbors, they were much less likely to experience cardiovascular diseases and cognitive impairment, and the mortality rate was generally lower than the national average.
Doctors began to study this phenomenon and came to the conclusion that neither genes, nor nutrition, nor physical activity had anything to do with it – there were no specific differences.
But where the residents of Roseto really differed from their neighbors was the way of life that they “brought” with them from Italy! They were very friendly, constantly had dinners together, visited each other, lived in large families, were involved in social work, and helped each other.
Rule #6: Monitor your blood pressure
High blood pressure increases the risk of stroke, heart attack, and chronic kidney disease, so it is very important to correct high blood pressure with medications prescribed by your doctor.
There is no need to be afraid of antihypertensive therapy – this is the absolute norm for people with high blood pressure; they need to take certain medications on an ongoing basis that will prevent serious diseases.
Lifestyle is also important to correct high blood pressure. Normally, we should “receive” at least 300 minutes of aerobic exercise per week – running, swimming, brisk walking (this does not necessarily include sports activities on the track or around the stadium, this includes walking at a fast pace from home to the store, taking the stairs instead of the elevator and so on.
In conclusion, starting over at 60 with nothing may seem like a daunting task, but it is also a chance for a new beginning. By embracing the opportunity, evaluating your skills, setting realistic goals, seeking support, embracing lifelong learning, and staying positive and resilient, you can create a fulfilling and meaningful life for yourself.