There are many “Lifelongs” -- ranging from Lifelong Dental Care to a Lifelong Bowling Score. But I think those closest to most of our hearts are Lifelong Friends and Lifelong Learning. This blog is about what I discovered about Lifelong Learning, thanks to two Lifelong Friends.

Laura and Sandy, (married), asked me to register with them for a Monday evening class at the UCLA Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. I responded with an immediate “yes”, confident that anything Laura and Sandy were doing would be very cool and interesting. “What class are we taking?” I asked. I was hoping for something creative, like interior design for beginners or Yoga for the 60 plus body. But NO, they came back with “Astronomy”. Hmmm… 

Now, the entire depth and breadth of my knowledge of astronomy included: being able to spot the Big…or maybe it was the Little…Dipper;  knowing Mars was the red planet and Pluto had been downgraded to dwarf status; and of course, understanding that, no matter your age, it is critical to whisper “Twinkle Twinkle”… upon spotting the first star of the evening. Quite frankly, I felt that my astronomy education was complete.

My friends, who were most eager for me to join them, went on the explain that Osher was for older adults who wanted to “dabble” in a subject. There would be no tests or homework.

“Ok, I’m in.” I just couldn’t resist spending time with them, and what the heck, I figured I might even meet some “interesting” men.

Our instructor was a dynamic, flamboyant, renowned astronomer, who pinned up her hair with chopstick-shaped pins from which dangled charms of the heavenly bodies.  She began by asking the 25 of us to introduce ourselves and say why we were in the class. Great, a chance to check out the crop! 

As the student introductions proceeded, I quickly realized that I was in over my head. A dozen or so were repeat students back for more. Some had even made their own telescopes. There were retired science professors. And one man had even trained to be an astronaut in his youth. He hadn’t made the cut and had become a police officer. Now in his retirement, he had time to  indulge his lifelong passion for all things space.

Whoa! These people actually knew something.

When it was my turn, I sheepishly said my name and something about enjoying star gazing with my family as a child. The instructor politely said, “Thank you, next.” Ugh!  There went my chance of impressing any of the male students. Even worse, I was in for a long 10 weeks.

As the class continued that night, I kept falling asleep. No matter how much I resisted, pinched myself, or sipped water, my head continued to bob up and down.

On the ride home Laura, who is one of the kindest people I know, suggested that, given I get up early to go to work, maybe the class went a little too late into the evening for me. She informed me that I could get a refund for my tuition after the first class if I didn’t want to continue.  I quietly responded, “Let me think about it.”

Inside I was screaming, “I AM NOT A QUITTER.” I knew I hadn’t been dozing off due to tiredness. What had put me to sleep was the fact that the conversation was so foreign. I could not wrap my head around what our teacher was talking about. I was lost in space.

When I got home, my attitude of stay strong and never quit set in. I jumped on Amazon and ordered “Astronomy for Dummies” rush delivery. I called Laura and told her I would continue the class. That week I spent hours in my favorite neighborhood restaurant every afternoon studying my Dummies book.

I arrived at class #2 hoping that I had armed myself with enough knowledge to keep my eyes open. Eureka! I not only stayed awake, I was familiar with some of the references and EVEN LEARNED SOMETHING.

By the end of the 10 weeks, I had not struck up a relationship with a man. However, I could talk about “Black Holes” at a cocktail party.

But the two biggest lessons I had learned were (1) it is never too late to take on learning something new, even something way outside your comfort zone, and most importantly, (2) you might even fall in love with your subject matter.

Here are some of the best tools I have discovered for us Lifelong Learners when  jumping into   the unknown:  My favorite and reliable “Dummy Books”, One Day University, and Khan Academy. If you haven’t already, check them out.

“Once you stop learning you start dying."

Albert Einstein

Candace Shivers is a founder/principal of the Love of Aging movement, along with her good friends and colleagues, Maureen Charles and Liz Dietz.

At the age of 65, following the death of her husband, Candace reinvented herself, launching her current career in the field of aging. She is a champion for older adults living a healthy and vibrant lifestyle and a leader, educator, and expert on the impact of attitude on the quality of life for older adults. Candace currently serves as a Special Projects Manager for Wise & Healthy Aging non-profit providing innovative programming for older adults.

A renowned public speaker, she spent 36 years training people from around the globe in effective communication, leadership, and public speaking – talents she brings to the Love of Aging movement.

Candace is proud to be from Hope, Arkansas, Home of the World’s Largest Watermelon.

Give it up for the Hippocampus

How do we know things? How do we know each other, ourselves, names of objects and historical events? How do we know where we left our keys or why we came into a room? We know these things because we have a memory of them, of course.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that most, if not all, seniors are concerned about their memory and their general cognitive function as well. Fortunately, we need not be greatly concerned if we can’t remember why we are standing in the middle of the kitchen or where we put our cell phone. This happens to everyone, not just seniors.

It does happen more frequently with seniors than with younger people though. This age-related increase in mild memory impairment is normal. I sometimes laugh at myself when I’m standing in front of an open refrigerator wondering what it was I needed.

In his book Successful Aging, Daniel Levitin shared a joke that is apparently popular with memory researchers:

Two elderly gentlemen are sitting next to each other at a dinner party.

“My wife and I had dinner at a new restaurant last week,” one of the men says.

“Oh, what’s it called?” the other man says.

“Um…I…I can’t remember.” (Thinks. Rubs chin.)

“Hmm…What is the name of that of that flower that you buy on romantic occasions? You know, it usually comes by the dozen, you can get it in different colors, there are thorns on the stem…?”

“Do you mean a rose?”

“Yes, that’s it!” (Leans across the table to where his wife is sitting.)

“Rose, what was the name of that restaurant we went to last week?”

As is true of other parts of our neurological systems, memory has evolved to help us adapt to the demands of the environment. There are several systems accountable for memory, and each is associated with specific anatomical area(s) of the brain. But before we start drilling down into brain parts, let’s look at how memory works and the types of memories we have.

Types of Memory

We have several different memory systems. Spatial memory allows us to know where we are. Procedural memory helps us remember how to perform simple tasks like using a faucet or activating the turn signal on our car. Short-term memory allows us to remember information we learned just a few minutes ago.

According to Levitin our memory systems form a hierarchy. Spatial, procedural, and short-term memory each use different neural circuits in the brain, and each is vital for daily functioning. But above them, at the top of the hierarchy, are implicit memory and explicit memory.

Implicit memory is the type of memory that we use to perform complex behaviors like playing the piano or tennis. Once these behaviors are learned, we do them automatically without having to think about them or consciously reconstruct them.

Explicit memory, on the other hand, includes two types of memory: semantic memory and episodic memory.

Sematic memory is the memory of general knowledge. This memory includes all the things and information we know but don’t remember learning. It’s knowledge we know so well that we take it for granted. For example, what is the capitol of Russia? Moscow, of course. But when did you learn that?

After so many decades spent acquiring knowledge, we older adults have a lot of information stored in sematic memory. According to professor Alan Castel in his book Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging we sometimes have trouble retrieving general knowledge because we have so many semantic memories in our brains that they become cluttered. The sheer volume makes semantic memories harder to find and affects our recall.

Episodic memory, on the other hand, is the memory of all those things we know from particular events or episodes in our lives. Your wedding, the birth of a child, the funeral of a loved one. We remember these events because we were in them. We were there. What differentiates episodic memories from semantic memories is they have autobiographical components to them.

I recall that in 2007 I was a graduate student sitting in a conference room with three professors giving an oral defense of my dissertation. My committee members asked me a series of questions and asked for explanations of various points I made in my research. When they were done, they asked me to leave the room so they could discuss my work. In about 20 minutes they called me back into the room. I sat down at the table. My Chair stood up and extended her had. I took it and she said, “Congratulations, Dr. Lopez.”

I was so happy I almost started crying. Earning my doctorate at 59 years old was one of the seminal moments of my life. I remember every detail about that room and the members – their names, where they were sitting, even the items on the table in front of them. Heck, I even remember what color blouse my Chair wore that day. That is an episodic memory!

One thing we can glean from the example above is that emotion is a key factor in remembering. Even if the emotion is negative. This is true because the area of the brain that facilitates the storage of emotional memories–the amygdala–is active when we store emotional memories and less so when we store semantic memories. Semantic memory events rely more heavily on another area of the brain–the hippocampus.  

The Aging Brain 

One of the things we do well at when it comes to memory is recalling emotional information. This is probably because these memories carry greater importance for us and because emotions activate the amygdala. And the amygdala tends to continue to perform well even as we age.

On the other hand, the hippocampus, which is the area of the brain responsible for storing all memories, and general memories in particular, declines in volume by about 1% a year after the age of 50.

The hippocampus is a sort of gate keeper for all memories. Even though our memories are not actually stored there, the hippocampus is responsible for the dissemination of information to various areas of the brain where information is turned into memory.

HM: A Case Study

While researching this article, I dug out an old textbook I used when I taught undergraduate psychology–Foundations of Biopsychology  by Andrew Wickens­–and read the chapter on memory. In his book, Wickens describes a classic case study of a person known only as HM, a study from which we learned a great deal about the role of the hippocampus.

HM was born in 1926. At the age of 9 he had a bicycle accident and injured his head. He began having seizures, which increased in severity over time. By his late twenties, HM had such severe seizures that he could no longer work. After several attempts to correct the problem with toxic levels of medication, his doctor decided it would be helpful to remove his hippocampus. (What were they thinking?)

The operation was a success in that it stopped the seizures, but the side effects were disastrous. HM was no longer able to store information into long-term memory. HM suffered a profound case of anterograde amnesia. (Antero means “in front”.) He had good language skills, a good vocabulary, and above-average IQ. He could remember things from his past, but after the surgery he had only short-term memory. He could not consolidate any new long-term memories. A researcher who worked with HM for 40 years had to reintroduce herself to him every time she came to work with him.

What can we learn from this case? Maintaining the health of the hippocampus, is essential if we are to continue acquiring new long-term memories.

What Can We Do?

Fortunately, there are things we can do to support good brain health and even increase the volume of the hippocampus.

In Successful Aging1, Levitin references a book written by a neurologist Scott Grafton, Physical Intelligence: The Science of How the Body and the Mind Guide Each Other Through Life. Grafton points out that when thinking about brain health, the idea of a brain/body dualism is unproductive. The focus should be on the health of the whole organism not just the brain. You can’t separate the two.

Grafton argues that the single factor with the largest effect on mental health is exercise and physical activity in general. “We now have hundreds of trials with thousands of subjects” that show the benefit of physical activity.

In addition to exercise, Grafton also believes we benefit from “…problem solving, social enrichment, mind body coordination, and fresh air.”

So, should we all run out and buy a treadmill? Well, a treadmill may get oxygenated blood to your brain, but that’s not the whole picture. Yes, Levitin points out, “A systematic meta-analysis showed that for adults with mild cognitive impairment, exercise had a significant beneficial effect on memory.” But what about problem solving, social enrichment, and fresh air?

Okay, how about tennis? I don’t know how to play tennis. So, if I took it up, I would have to learn how to play. That would certainly involve mind-body coordination and problem solving as I dash around the court trying to figure out where the ball is going and how I need to swing the racket to be effective. Since, unlike a treadmill, I would need to find people to play with, I would probably make new friends. I think that would constitute social enrichment. And, unlike a treadmill, I would be outside in the fresh air.

Of course, few of us are likely to take up tennis as we age. So is there a happy medium?

The truth is, you don’t have to buy a treadmill or take up tennis to engage in healthful physical activity. Walking works. Just walk at a pace that moves you out of your comfort range to get your blood flowing.

Ideally, walk on a path in a park or in the wilderness. The constant need to make physical and spatial adjustments while walking on an unpaved surface stimulates the neural circuits in the brain and helps keep your navigational skills and memory systems in shape. The area most stimulated by those adjustments is the all-important hippocampus.

Need evidence? A study was done using a group of seniors that walked for 40 minutes three times a week and comparing them to a group of seniors that did stretching exercises three times a week. The study concluded that the average walking group member’s hippocampus increased in size by about 2% after one year.

So, if you want to stay sharp and slow the inevitable decline of your brain, and hence your memory, the best thing you can do is stay active. Do something that will get oxygen to your brain and require you to keep your brain focused on what you’re doing. And try to do it with other people.

Oh, and just for fun, see how a “memory athlete” can remember the first 10,000 digits of Pi.

Ed Lopez, PhD, Love of Aging’s Science Editor is a retired organizational psychologist, university instructor and researcher. His research has been presented at international conferences and published in a peer reviewed journal. Ed is also a decorated Army veteran who served in Vietnam. 

Hello! I’ve got exciting news about August 21^st.

I’m betting if I asked most of you what is special about August 21^st, with the exception of those who have a birthday or anniversary, you would respond, “I dunno.”

Well, congratulations, you’re with billions of people around the planet who haven’t got a clue. And I am out to change that, to put August 21^st  in the spotlight. 

August 21^st is World Senior Citizen Day!

Now I happen to travel past an iconic doughnut shop on my route to work, and on June 5^th, National Doughnut Day, they’re lined up around the block because EVERYBODY seems to know it is National Doughnut Day.

But World Senior Citizen Day–who’s  ever heard of i that? Well, we’re going to change that and create an uproar around World Senior Citizen Day.

If you look it up on Wikipedia, the point of the day is to raise awareness of the challenges faced by older adults, including diminishing health and elder abuse. And amen to that. We bring out our the trumpets to get everyone’s attention on those issues.

However, there is little focus on the kinds of things we hear from members of the movement daily about their vitality, sense of accomplishment, and love of aging.

I am inviting you to join us on August 21^st at 2pm Pacific Standard Time for the world’s first Global Celebration of Aging. For 90 minutes, we are going to celebrate, have a musical performance, give out awards, hear from people around the globe, share what we love about aging, and Zoom dance.

And the best part is for the first time since we have created this community, we will come together via Zoom.

Love Of Aging is hosting this event in collaboration with WISE & Healthy Aging, a Santa Monica, CA, based nonprofit whose purpose is to advance the dignity and independence of older adults.

You can register by clicking here. The registration page will say “Oasis Lifelong Adventure”.

When you register, you will be asked to make a $5 tax deductible donation to WISE & Healthy Aging to help them fulfill on their purpose.

The night before the event, you will receive a Zoom link from WISE & Healthy Aging via email. Click on that link to access the event from your computer, smart phone, or tablet.

You are welcome to invite people of all ages to join us; after all, everyone is aging. However, you are the stars of the show. 

See you at the world’s first Global Celebration of Aging!

Candace Shivers is a founder/principal of the Love of Aging movement, along with her good friends and colleagues, Maureen Charles and Liz Dietz.

At the age of 65, following the death of her husband, Candace reinvented herself, launching her current career in the field of aging. She is a champion for older adults living a healthy and vibrant lifestyle and a leader, educator, and expert on the impact of attitude on the quality of life for older adults. Candace currently serves as a Special Projects Manager for Wise & Healthy Aging non-profit providing innovative programming for older adults.

A renowned public speaker, she spent 36 years training people from around the globe in effective communication, leadership, and public speaking – talents she brings to the Love of Aging movement.

Candace is proud to be from Hope, Arkansas, Home of the World’s Largest Watermelon.

Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott reached the pinnacle of his career when he landed on and returned safely from the Moon. He was 39 years old. “My career had been finished,” he later told a reporter "and that's it. Now go find a new career.” There Scott was at 39 asking: What’s next? What do you do after you’ve landed on the Moon?

How many of us after we’ve finished our careers and retired have asked: What’s next?

I was 70 when I retired from a 45-year career that I loved.

Imagine, getting to do what you REALLY, REALLY LOVE. Imagine your job is something which for you is the most important way you could use your life. That’s how my career was for me.

Over the course of 45 years, I got to know and interact at a profound level with over 150,000 people from diverse cultures all over the planet, empowering them to create lives they loved. It was my version of a Moon walk. And then it was finished.

So, I’d Walked on the Moon.

What was next?

From age 46 to age 66 I ran my own business, an arty boutique in Santa Monica, CA. The ongoing conversation in my head, and with a few friends and acquaintances and, well okay, with some of my customers, coworkers, and the UPS guy, was that I had no intention of retiring. I would keep working until I couldn’t. Not for lack of money. I realize now that it was for lack of imagination! I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if I retired.

I had to DO SOMETHING after all! I am a doer, and I don’t mean workaholic. I also DO movies, swimming, reading, TV, lunch dates, travel, shopping, museum visits, restaurants, theater, and Dodger baseball – sometimes at the stadium but mostly at home on the couch.

Another reason I couldn’t imagine retiring is that I am driven to be USEFUL. Not only at work, but also to my family and friends and to the organizations I participate with.

Then I closed my beloved store “gioia” (Italian for “joy”). I don’t need to tell you what has been happening to small retail businesses. Even I shop online now, so I can’t blame my customers, right?

The conversation that woke me up

It was the fall of 2018, and I was having what I thought was a casual conversation with my friend Gordon Starr–just two business leaders catching up on what we were up to personally and with our work–one of many such conversations we’d had over the years. Then I mentioned that my 65th birthday was approaching and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that milestone. How had 65 crept up on me so fast?

”You’re approaching 65. So you’ve got maybe 25 years left. How are you going to spend the next 25 years of your life?” Gordon asked.

What?  This was no longer a casual conversation.

“Try flipping your aging paradigm like I did,” he advised. “I have 22 years left, and I really recommend looking at how you are going to take advantage of what life has given you so far. How will you make the maximum difference going forward?” 

Whoa! Gordon’s questions had stopped me in my tracks. I needed to think.

A Social Quid Pro Quo

About ten years ago I started thinking about retiring. I lived in Mexico and was teaching university students online, having already stepped back from the most active elements of my career working as a consultant for large organizations. A few years later, I moved back to the US and slowly wound down my teaching work. It took me a few years to go from “thinking about it” to making it official, but for the last three years I have been fully retired.

At first it was kind of nice; I had no serious responsibilities. I had no clients to call, no student papers to correct, and no research duties. Life was good…for a couple of months.

However, after catching up on my reading list and binge-watching Game of Thrones, I started to get bored. I started to not have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I would lie there and think about what I had to do that day: Let’s see…coffee, read the local paper (bad news), surf the net (more bad news), and walk my dogs (the high point of my day). I started to wish I had kids and grandkids. Maybe I could offer some sage advice about something or nurture a sick child. Anything to make me feel like I was being of value as I had when I felt my clients and students held me in some regard. I had no real friends nearby so visiting them was out of the question.

I had lived in this state of mind for a few months when I started to realize it was affecting my mental health. I was starting to feel depressed...

Science and Beauty From the Garden

The dichotomy of gardening

It has always occurred to me that there is a sort of fundamental dichotomy in gardening. On one hand gardening takes work, energy, perseverance, and money. On the other hand, it is relaxing, fulfilling and provides a sense of accomplishment. I am of an age where spending time on my hands and knees planting spring bulbs is taxing. Carrying bags of compost and potting soil taps into my back and knees. After a day in the garden, I need a hot bath and time to relax my aging muscles.

So, what is it that keeps me coming back and putting more effort into my small plot of land? There is not always an immediate sense of satisfaction. Bulbs takes months to come up and flower. Bare root roses take time to grow and bloom. Of course, there is the ongoing and sometimes time-consuming tasks of controlling weeds and pests. Unless I’m planting a bed of annuals, I’m not likely to get immediate gratification.