John Kalb: Winning at Aging

Dr. John Kalb: Winning at Aging

   There are a lot of books published on how to have an active, healthy old age -- and Ashland chirpractor John Kalb has read them all and decided to publish a whole new slant on it called “Winning at Aging: Your Game Plan for a Healthy Living.”

   Yes, it’s got chapters on healthy diet, exercise and mental activity -- the boilerplate of any such tome, but it proclaims that the real secret for good aging is not life extension or a big portfolio, but a better quality of life, one that comes from inside you and lets you experience and enjoy old age.

   “It’s a middle path,” says Kalb. “You maximize health, of course, but you don’t live in denial of aging. You nurture that which improves with age and what is it? Character and wisdom. I call it creative aging or conscious aging.”

   Aging Americans often live with “the shadow,” which is our mania for affirming youth, beauty and activity -- and it drives a lot of seniors to get face lifts, put on “gobs of makeup,” color their hair and try to look a decade or two younger, all the while denying the reality of death and not asking how it adds positively to our lives.

   “If I identify too strongly with being a young, vital, sexy person and then aging starts changing my life, I’m going to hit a point of crisis and become an angry, bitter, frustrated person,” says Kalb.

   From a million magazine articles, books and talk shows, older folks already know how to set up a good eating and workout regimen, though most Americans of every age, he notes, still “gain weight, eat junk food and sit all day at a screen.”

   Kalb, 62, goes back to square one, using famed psychogist Abraham Maslow’s pryamid-shaped “Hierarchy of Needs,” established in 1943 and stating that we all need, at the bottom level, food, water, air, sex; in the middle: family, friendship, work, self-esteem and at the top level, morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem-solving and acceptance of reality.

   “I turn that upside down, starting out by asking, why bother, why am I here, what’s really important, then, if I find that, I travel down the pyramid in style. What I recommend is to clarify your core values.”

   Kalb lists 60 values most people have and asks patients or students to prioritize them.  His top values are freedom, truth and service -- and for quality aging, he asks himself how he can live those, so as to “live on purpose.” Personally, Kalb’s top three values are freedom, truth and service.

   The unexpected results, he says, are that people who report living “meaningful lives” also test lower for cholesterol, the stress hormone cortisol and have lower systemic inflammation, which he calls “the silent killer.”

   Kalb suggests we “rustproof” our body with antioxidants, “fireproof” it from inflammation, “poison-proof” it from toxic foods and “sugar proof” it from diabetes-causing glycogens -- all of which points to a diet low in simple carbs, gluten, dairy, red meat, oil, fruit drinks and any manufactured foods.

   A good aging diet, he writes, has rice milk, nut milk, lean meats like chicken and fish, starches like rice, millet, buckwheat, breads with quinoia and amaranth, oils like olive, flax and walnut -- and lots of plain old water.

   Walking about his well landscaped yard, all done by himself, Kalb uses it as an object lesson, noting that, decades ago, he could work on a flagstone walk all day, but now he lets it be a couple hours.

   “Lower the bar. Recalibrate unreasonable expectations about appearance and performance and accept normal losses.”

   Many seniors think a high-performance portfolio will remove all the fears, stresses and dangers of aging, which Kalb calls “the money trap.”

   “We need enough money to live well but having it is no guarantee of living well. Money gets us above survival mode but people with a billion are no happier than people with a million. If it gets obsessive, that’s a downside to aging and can become like a drug. I call it affluenza.”

   In creating a game plan for healthy aging, he notes, keep in mind that “part of us wants to do the right thing but part of us has inner wounds, secrets and blocks and wants to do self-sabotage. It says I’m not good enough, not worthy and didn’t get enough unconditional love.”

   To overcome these dark parts in aging, Kalb says it’s important to sustain health, keep exercising, build friendships and engage in service outside your own world, helping make a better community and planet.

   “It’s been proven that we get physiological benefits from having meaning and purpose beyond our own selves.”

   Ironically, as we move closer to the end of life, the doors open for us to be happier, says Kalb, but to get there it’s necessary to move beyond the glamor of youth and confront the reality of death.

   The least happy decade in life is not the 70s or 80s, he says, but the 40s, as we peak out and begin colliding with the sceptre of losses -- in our beauty, power, importance.

   “Confronting death is one of the key values of aging. Death becomes an ally for a better life. If I’m in denial of death, I’m wasting time and trying to fill the void.  If I’m at peace with death, I’m free to make each moment the best I can.”


THE DO’S AND DON’TS OF AGING:

--Do eat your veggies, drink lots of water and avoid junk food, sugars, red meat, prepared dishes.

--Do exercise.  It not only keeps you healthy but it reduces stress and makes you actually happier.

--Use money to make you secure enough, but “enough is enough.” Avoid “affluenza.”

--Be active, but let yourself gracefully slow down.  You used to install a flagstone walk in a day but who cares if it takes a week now?


THE INNER GAME OF AGING:

--Identify your core values, gained from a lifetime of experience. Live these values to achieve a meaningful life. This is “the perennial wisdom of the elders” and produces inner peace, strength, health.

--Keep expanding your network of friends, using it to do greater good beyond your own personal world. Winning at aging is not about making just your world secure, but expanding to the big picture that includes us all.

--Be active, but let go the superficial things of youth that shout you’re sexy, full of energy and don’t have lines or gray hair. Old is groovy.  It’s a legitimate, good and interesting phase of life that, once accepted, opens to wisdom, peace and spiritual growth.