Senior Living Communities - Where does Mom's rent go ?

Retirement communities seem like a great idea on the surface: like a cruise ship for seniors. Social opportunities, wellness opportunities, fine dining, special holiday functions, maintainence services, housekeeping; some have nurse stations, and some have full time LVN's represent a picture of complete care just waiting to put it's arms around your aging parent.
You and your parent tour a facility. The people are so nice. The place looks like a fine hotel. Everyone is so happy to see you. It must be heaven. Oops, trying to avoid that! But as the last stop on route, except of course for some of you, not a bad place to hang your silk scarf, and support hose.
"That beautiful apartment is how much?" $5,000 dollars a month..."and up!!!!????" You swallow. Subtle, but hard. Your parent imagines friends,fun, privilege, bridge players, and chocolate. So where does your rent go? I will give you a hint: it is not dining services, or housekeeping, or maintenance, or capital improvements of health care, or activities. In many upscale senior living communities, you may be surprised to discover that over 40-50% of the operational dollars go to marketing and not to services that directly benefit your parent. The reason is simple, senior residents move into these communities when they have an average of 5 years left to live. Sad, but factual. So inherent in all "retirement communities" is alot of resident turnover, even when residents are content within their community. Just imagine the numbers, when the residents are not content.
When a resident dies, an apartment becomes empty, and corporate revenues shrink. Some corporations have silent partners (investors), who do not appreciate declines in occupancy levels. Less occupants, less profits. So a tremendous amount of your rent dollars are spent attracting a continual stream of new residents. 40-50% of the yearly budget at the property level is spent on marketing, and the recruitment of future residents. There is even greater turnover, of course, when the services are so-so. I was given $2.40 per person per meal, based on two meals per day in one such upscale retirement community in La Jolla California, as recently as 2007. Marketing first, nutrition? Somewhere much farther down the list.
The caretaking mission represented by these corporations is really not their mission. Profit, not people, again is the mission. The mission of most of these communities is NOT to keep your parents content with cruise ship five star services, no matter what they say to you, during your "free" marketing tour and lunch. The corporate mission is to keep the building full, create large revenues, make tremendous profits,purchase more properties, turn them in to more goldmines. Oh, the hours spent in departmental leadership meetings, working on the shape of the spin.
Until late 2007, I functioned as the Dietary Director for one such "for-profit" corporation. This Carlsbad company, proudly announced, at the 2006 dietary conference for all dietary directors, that they made a NET profit of $11 million dollars with their 23 properties nationwide. More shocking is the fact that some of their properties went much of the year below full occupancy. You can just imagine the profit at full occupancy. Alot of profit for a company that on my campus, outside of dining services, had alot of resident turnover, unhappiness with other services, and four executive director turnovers in two years! It is only about occupancy folks. The rest is marketing.
I am not alone in my understanding of just how senior living communities operate. But, people on the inside of the industry, do not speak up because: they are care-givers, and need these jobs. Some, like me, become disillusioned care-givers, and leave the industry. Find the honest broker on your marketing tour, and call them later for a personal chat. They will tell you. Most workers, and local property leadership in these companies are disillusioned too. Or they have darker motives for staying in silence.
There are many things I discovered in my tenures, that have turned me off to retirement communities as a viable future option for aging adults. I have not even touched on the average direct care-giver to resident ratios of 1 to 20 :at the very best. This ratio is at the very root of the problem. Try caring for twenty parents with two hundred challenges daily per parent, and you will get the picture. The cloth just does not stretch to cover the need.
Higher corporate costs drive operational changes that should concern adult children seeking quality residential solutions to caring for their aging parents. I do not believe that all upscale retirement communities really fulfill their care giving promises: and today there are alot of other alternatives you should also consider.For this much rent ( and more), similar services, are offered for this inclusive price: you should, and do expect five star level housekeeping, fine dining complete with special holiday programming; wellness programs that focus on fall prevention, strength training, and balance education for your parent; maintainence (toilets do have their problems, so do air conditioners/heaters, elevators). If you are still considering an upscale independent living community of 100 to 500 occupants, consider this: every year, you can expect a cost of living increase of 5-9 % in these communities: whether you like it or not. And trust me, the corporation can always defend the reasons for the increase. You will have only the choice to pay or move.
Are indepenedent living communities really full of independent living seniors? Retirement communities ususally bill themselves as housing for independent living residents: those with minimal mobility and functionality issues. But in the last twelve years, I have seen less truly independent residents, and more highly dependent, borderline assisted living or early dementia type residents move in. The corporation is motivated simply by the drive to keep the place full. This creates a great demand on service personnel, often untrained. If your parent is very independent, it can be depressing. Your high functioning parent may be seated in the dining room, at dinner, with someone with incontinence issues. Or worse. So before you sign that rental agreement, remember what I have shared with you : current and future residents are hunted constantly by full time marketing people to keep the building full. We had 140 residents, and two full time marketers: they were each required to make 50 phone call contacts each day to "prospects". Be comfortable but observant, when taking a marketing tour of a community: observe the care giving ratio; study the interaction of the residents with each other, and with department heads, peak into administrative offices, talk with the maintainence director and the dietary director about the challenges of their positions. Call them later to ask about what they didn't say. Find out about the property's budget: anyway you can. Look at the food served; tour the kitchen, look in those walk-ins. Fresh, homemade preparations or commercial preparations? Sit down at lunch with a random group, and not of the marketer's choosing. Always try to take an 'unplanned' tour, to get the most honest insight.
In conclusion, you may get more services, of a better quality, in smaller board and cares, than you will in large retirement communities. Retirement communities do have a huge socialization advantage: alot more prospective playmates for your parents. But they are not for everybody. Make sure to take an industry savvy professional along with you while you are touring, and examining what you really ARE getting for your rent.

CHANGE THE WAY YOU COOK, SLOW YOUR RATE OF AGING

Twenty years of professional cooking, and mentoring of professional cooks has taught me skills that inspire wonder in my middle aged friends.  I could write a book on how to perfectly roast, saute, grill, fry, or caramelize anything from potatoes to  duck breast to rump roasts. 

There is more and more proof that these very techniques of browning our meats, caramelizing our onions, and garlic; french frying our potatoes, slow sauteing of veggies to brown them, roasting our turkey to golden brown, toasting our bread, and blackening our louisiana redfish, grilling our burgers over high heat are at the very causative heart of unhealthy aging. It is not good enough to pack your daily diet with all the antioxidants and nutritious whole grains that you can prepare and serve your health conscious family. The techniques that you use to cook these items, techniques made famous by almost all TV cooking show chefs, and two hundred years of Americans trying to gain mastery over classic french cooking skills, are equally critical.

Browning of high fat foods, such as red meat( worse if dusted in high glycemic flour, hot dogs, and bacon, or high glycemic vegetables such as onions or carrots, slow dry smoking of your baby back ribs can accelerate your visible aging, and more critically your cellular aging.  The browning process exposes the sugar in  a protein to a high temperature which caramelizes the natural sugars in the food, and gives it that beautiful caramel color. 

When a sugar binds with a protein, advanced glycation end products or AGE's are formed.  AGE's  compromise the effective functioning of particular proteins, and AGE's build up in the body over time: as more and more proteins are compromised (tissues, hormones enzmes, antibodies, nerve cells), your aging accelerates because the proteins can no longer function perfectly as they were designed: as they replicate imperfectly damage is done: aging is accelerated.  Our body and brain becomes a house of cards. Eliminating AGE's in the diet (there are other sources which I will discuss in other posts) should be at the top of anyone's list if they are concerned with avoiding cardiovascular disease,slowing the rate of their aging, or avoiding Alzheimers, diabetes, dementia.

   Many cooks pride themselves on black grill marks; many chefs like to "char": some chefs like to put blackened fish items on their menus: Avoid all of these.  Charring has been conclusively shown to be carcinogenic.  Avoid charbroiled ANYTHING !

Cooking starchy vegetables at high heat also produces AGE's or glycation as it is being simply addressed.  That is the problem with french fries. French frying of potatoes or yams or  produces AGE's and acrylamide. Acrylamide, also found in potato chips is strongly associated with developing cancer. Even FDA researchers found that it damages DNA and cell proteins, and creates a first step to cancer. Acrylamide is not present in uncooked foods.  It is not formed, however when you boil a potato.  The good news is coming, hang in there.  

I am crying over the french fries too !

Roasting our chickens and turkeys to a golden brown may be tasty, but the browned skins are a significant source of AGE's. The crusting of fish in seeds or nuts, very popular in the last ten years, is another category to avoid.  Foods that naturally have higher fat levels generate more AGE's: it is not the fact that foods may be sauteed or grilled, or broiled or roasted alone.  The damage comes from temperature , whether high, or low for long time , that produces browning. The worse damage occurs, especially  when high fat foods are  cooked at high temperature or for long periods of time.

There are many cooking techniques that do not produce or promote, or accelerate AGE's. Marinating protein foods, or cooking them in liquid, does not promote glycation.  Skewer smaller cuts of meat, fish, chicken, or vegetables will cook faster and avoid AGE formation; poaching in flavored stocks, gentle steaming. For stirfries, cut all ingredients smaller; enjoy soups and stews; choose fatty fish,organic chicken, or turkey ONLY  (no antibiotics or hormones) and grass fed beef, cook onions and garlic til transparent.  Saute over medium heat, not high heat, and avoid browning the vegetables.  Always try to cook using gentle heat.

Two years ago as the first of the baby boomers turned 60 years of age,  volumes of research data on aging, inflammation, and discovering just what accelerates or slows or rate of aging have been everywhere from the internet to the front table of the national bookstores.  We have learned that our daily food choices play a very significant role in just how well or how poorly we are aging.  A greater and greater number of big city restaurant menus are reflecting our new awareness: most  feature on a regular basis Salmon for it's anti-aging benefits, and it's sustainability: other nutritional powerhouses are becoming commonplace like  quinoa, wheat berries, grapeseed oil.  Plate presentations are  'going green": less center of the plate protein, and more veggies: recognizing the now well accepted virtues of a plant rich diet .

It is not good enough to pack your daily diet with all the antioxidants and nutritious whole grains that you can prepare and serve your health conscious family.  The techniques that you use to cook these items, techniques made famous by almost all TV cooking show chefs, and two hundred years of Americans trying to gain mastery over classic french cooking skills, are just as important in keeping you healthy.  Never forget, you are what you eat, and how it's cooked !

ACTIVE AGING COOL WEBSITES

WALK.SCORE.COM- ON-LINE TOOL THAT CALCULATES THE WALKABILITY OF A NEIGHBORHOOD. HELPING YOU LOCATE RESIDENCES IN NEIGHBORHOODS THAT SUPPORT WALKING. RESEARCH SUPPORTS THAT IN COMPACT NEIGHBORHOODS WHERE STREETS WERE DESIGNED FOR WALKING, THERE IS A SUBSTANTIAL DECREASE IN OBESITY,DIABETES,LUNG DISEASE,HYPERTENSION, CAR ACCIDENTS, AIR POLLUTION.

THE PEACE CORP HAS STARTED TARGETING VOLUNTEERS THAT ARE 50 + YEARS OF AGE. NOW, HERE IS A WAY TO START GIVING BACK TO YOUR WORLD.  WWW.PEACECORPS.GOV/MINISITE/50PLUS

CHECK OUT BODYVIVE @ WWW.LESMILLS.COM. ONLY 160 CLUBS IN THE U.S HAVE CERTIFIED INSTRUCTORS, AND PROGRAMMING.

 IF YOU HAVE BEEN VERY INACTIVE FOR DECADES OR HAVE HUGE BALANCE CHALLENGES: CHECK OUT SILVER SNEAKERS YOGA STRETCH AND SILVER SPLASH PROGRAMS WWW.SILVERSNEAKERS.COM

For a peek at the upcoming US Department of Health and Human Services guidelines for physical activity, to be released in October 2008, go to : www.health.gov/PA guidelines

Visit the Center for Successful Aging’s website: http://hhd.fullerton.edu/csa

 

TURNING OFF AGING, DRIVING DOWN HEALTH CARE COSTS

      Aging is not simply decay. You just don't wear out. But this how we have thought about aging until the research of the last five years has replaced our presumptive conclusions with knowledge.   One particular researcher from UC San Francisco demonstrated in 1993 that by manipulating a single gene in a one-millimeter worm; the worm's  healthy life span could be doubled.

      Cynthia Kenyon 's latest research has linked the growth of cancerous tumors to the aging process. The  conclusion from these two monumental breakthrough studies is that: is we can manipulate a single gene to slow aging, we can create a resistance in our bodies to the growth of cancerous tumors.

     You may recall from basic high school biology that cells divide: research has shown for quite some time that as cells divide little mistakes occur metabolically.  In our youth, our body's cells repair this damage to cells, tissues, organs: but as we age (not chronolgically, but metabolically), these mistakes accumulate, and our ability to repair all the damage created by these mistakes in cell division, just can't keep up.

      Mistakes in cell division, and metabolic aging imposed by poor lifestyle habits (the bad synergy that comes from poor nutrition, chronic idleness instead of movement, not forcing our systems to grow and adapt on the physical levels, and other forms of chronic stress) produce just about every disease and degenerative human condition that we as a society experience: Cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Osteoporosis, cardiac arrest, stroke.

     The promise of this research is that controlling the genes that control aging, may be easier that controlling the decades of poor lifestyle choices that contribute to a person's disease, and degenerative aging. 

The financial value to our health care system would be huge: as lifestyle related disease, and degenerative aging have overburdened our country's health care system, and our individual health care premiums to a critical breaking point.

     Now that we have the knowledge that aging can be turned on, and turned off, should our society continue to financially support individuals'  that repeatedly make illness choices, overuse and burden the health care systems, and  drive the cost of medical care for those practicing wellness thru the roof ?  It is the individual's right to make illness choices, including those that lead to morbid obesity.  But these individuals  are making themselves ill, overusing the health care system, and pay the same monthly fees that I do.  Health care should be VERY expensive for those making illness choices, maybe that would be the necessary deterrent.  

Suggestions for those beginning rehab of their lifestyle

To prevent falls, get up and down from a chair quickly, walk briskly, recover from being thrown off balance,or even brake quickly in a car: you need muscle power.  Muscle power declines faster than muscle strength over time: and most significantly after the age of 60.  Good news: water resistance can be very effective. In a supervised setting, using oversized water resistance equipment on your hands, and feet, an older adult can enhance improve their muscle power, and have a better chance at staying independent . Muscle power exercises in the spa are also beneficial to the same goal.Contact Mary E Sanders at www.waterfit.com for more information

BOOMERS WILL REDEFINE THE WORLD CONCEPT OF AGING...AGAIN !!

     Alot of people around the world are keeping a watchful eye on the choices that the baby boomers make in 2008.  Considering that in the U.S. alone in 2005 there were 78 million in 2005 (US Census) and in 2007, Canadian census bureaus reported 8.9 million people between 45 and 64 years of age.

Their preferences will influence all organizations in the world for many years to come.  So, what are we boomers looking for ??

     The International Council on Active Aging ( www. ICAA.com)  has identified 8 major trends indicating our intent to actively age : 

1. We use the internet to network socially,  make travel plans, and learn about health issues

       Newer age-qualified retirement communities all are hard wired for the internet; 89% of boomers get their health information from net sources; Kaiser and Secure Horizons and others have internet programs for their members  to access, education, tools, coaches, and a social network; 32% of us visit online communities that specifically market to the 50 year old + set. Some internet based travel companies, like Travel by Leisure Care (goal is to change the view among seniors, and their children, that they are too old to travel) actively promote physical activity and well being through travel. 

2. Retirement Communities are no longer all about golf

      Some are gay friendly ( like the Billie Jean King endorsed Rainbow Vision community in Santa Fe, NM; some are multigenerational communities near college campus'; some are in urban areas, close to live theatre and music, and the performing arts; 

    Some have fitness and athletic orientations.......with wine of course ! They are more about bonding with people of like interests, than away warm air, and swaying palms. Some neighborhoods simply evolve into retirement communities, as residents age in place,and desire to stay close to their friends: services are merely subcontracted, and brought in.

3. We intend to function cognitively, and intellectually at a high level throughout our aging

     Our brain health is paramount in importance: 69 % of us list dementia , and all it's forms as our top fear in aging.  Just look at the funding for Alzheimer's research. A close second is losing our physical functional health.

4. Technology is inspiring us to move in our living rooms, instead of watching TV

    There are the interactive games, like Wii ( Nintendo); Dance step mats (Dancetown); the Cybex Trazer          ( that leads movement, and gives sensory feedback).  Accepting the paramount importance of movement most boomers already own a pedometer.

5.   70% of us will work during our retirement years (AARP)

      Most of us want to continue to make a difference in our communities.  Many of us will choose a new career. Progressive companies worry about the age related brain drain, and are beginning to offer more flexible arrangements, in the interest of retaining this skilled workforce.

6. We will continue to learn. 

     On-line learning opportunities; programs at universities and colleges that focus on the 50 yr old + set; many boomers returning to college for a first degree at 60 years of age

7. Physical Fitness is priority #2

    Boomers understand that all money and education, and aspiration to travel in the world is useless, if their bodies are not in shape to enjoy it: age friendly gyms, training programs,seniors strength training as a norm; 25% of helth club members are over 55; 87 % of boomers over 60 years of age ist improving their physical health as a top priority.

8. Health Plans are beginning to pay for preventive services

    They are just beginning to understand that illness is more expensive to treat the wellness, and illness is at the vortex of our current skyrocketing medical costs.

For boomers, it is all about staying engaged in life, and not sitting around. There life experience has taught them that aging is not about chronology: with the research confirmations coming in at lightening speed; look for this generation to change the world view.........again.

Retirement Communities: Are they actively transforming the way we age ?

     When I was first hired in 1996, as Executive Chef of a prominent retirement community in La Jolla, California, I was instructed to do "whatever it takes" to keep the 340 residents happy. In retirement communities, it is great food that keeps residents content, and motivated to continue. During the next 8 years, my residents enjoyed the highest resident satisfaction in the history of the company's very large portfolio.
    I took a year off in 2004, to do some travel, remodel aspects of my 85 year old mother's home in West Los Angeles, and pay more attention to my middle age health. Bouyant and re-charged, I returned to the job market, and was immediately hired by another corporation's "flagship property".  As Dietary Director, I was still charged with a similar mission, "do whatever it takes to keep the residents satisfied". Only this time, my company was for profit; the first senior corporation I worked for was not for profit.

      In eighteen months, I improved the resident satisfaction  from 50%, when I began my tenure, to 94% as of September 2007. My residents knew that I was not just a chef, but a nutritionist, focused on improving resident  wellness. They had no prior knowledge of quinoa, wheat berries, eating for antioxidant protection: but I took the responsibility seriously, for improving their understanding of nutrition and it's straight line correlation to their current state of wellness. My mission was to educate.

     To their credit, some retirement corporations are genuinely interested in positively influencing the way in which their residents age.  Sadly, most programming, in my experience, in the six dimensions of wellness programming are all grossly underfunded.

      The two corporations from which I draw my experience, and these conclusions, seemed to more of an interest in maintaining full occupancy, than in promoting wellness for the residents .   My corporate supervisor actually instructed me to use commercial high sodium meatballs, because they were "cheaper" than scratch; the same fellow instructed me when I first arrived, that I should not cater to special diets: "we do not cater to special diets". Nutrition was not a primary concern, but it should be.  Malnutrition is one of the primary reasons that adult children seek to move their parents into a community.  Malnutrition amongst the senior population is staggering, and omnipresent, even when adjusted for economic factors.

Commitment to wellness, and staffing expertise should be a common denominator for communities committed to housing seniors .  But it is not a common denominator.  In one community, I personally raised $20,000 from the residents to build a wellness and balance room, and the corporation matched these funds to help realize the goal of promoting active aging. This community was very interested to walking the talk.

The other community had excellent equipment, but had a Wellness Director with no experience or certifications in senior fitness. 

     Most of these retirement communities struggle with occupancy, because people come in with some serious challenges, and while in residency, usually go quickly downhill. So the corporations that profit from occupancy, spend alot of money on marketing, but much less money on regular programming that benefits existing residents.  This is my greatest concern.  Marketing is very important, but everyday programming for residents that actively promotes and fosters wellness and active aging shows a greater sense of corporate responsibility.
     My last employer made $11 million dollars in profit from 23 retirement communities; they spent $2.40 per resident per meal, based on two meals per day. Dining services had, by far, the largest budget for all the properties within the corporation: that will tell you how little is actually spent on housekeeping, wellness, environmental services, capital expenses. In September of 2007, the management team of my property had to discourage the corporate leadership from spending $250,000 renovating the front of the building for aesthetic reasons(stamped concrete, palms, glamorous entrance, walkways,lighting), when the residents were screaming about the level of noise in their dining room, and the discomfort of their upholstered chairs.
If you care about the way that your parent ages, there are many other  alternatives to these glossy retirement communities. At the very least, you should understand that the data supports the conclusion that people moving into retirement communities, actually decline faster than they would if they were at home with caregivers.

Retirement Community corporations must exercise more corporate responsibility toward active aging programming and creating more socially responsible environments.  Wellness, and activity programs must be properly funded. It is time for these corporations to properly commit funding for recycling, greening the dietary operations,  and  minimizing campus generated waste.  A funded commitment to wellness does not stop at the fitness room.  

A CALL TO SHIFT THE ILLNESS CENTERED PARADIGM IN AMERICA

     Birthdays arrive the same day every year. At fifty, we laugh, celebrate our stature as “almost over the hill”; and cheerily accept, and imply that whoohoo, we have arrived and are on our way down. Wow  !!………no wonder death is so welcome with seniors. After 35-50 years of accelerating decline, of simulating winters with decades of our unhealthy choices, I would want to be taken out back and shot as well ! The last five years has been explosive in research about aging: it is critical that everyone in America become educated.
As a society, we have made it easy for people to become unhealthy: it is socially acceptable to become sedentary: you are simply ‘not athletic’; your honorable commitment to your sedentary job excuses you from hunting and foraging (otherwise known as exercise); your parents had diabetes, so it is in your genes, and therefore o.k. for you to be diabetic as well.
As a society, we may be appalled at the high cost of health care, but we don’t see the connection between the outrageous checks we write each month to maintain our wellness coverage, and the cost to our ourselves, and our society of supporting the epidemic of commitments made to illness lifestyles.
As an individual who understands my nature, my evolution, and works hard to incorporate good science to optimize my own health, and quality of longevity, I am committed to seeing a cultural change in this country that shifts responsibility for illness back to the individuals whose personal choices are making them ill, and making me pay for their illness.
TransformAging is my vision for a cultural movement that seeks to establish ‘wellness is the only option’ education as part of core curriculum from elementary schools thru graduate schools. I think you should understand how to feed yourself, and how to care for your amazing body before your graduate high school. There is simply too little cultural pressure in this society against individuals who consistently make illness choices. 
Whether you like it or not, the way you choose to live your life, on a daily basis, determines your state of health. Repeat bad choices over and over again, day in, and day out, and your body, and brain will just make healthy adaptations to the environment that you are creating. These healthy adaptations take the form of deadly diseases, because your choices are telling your system to shut down and die: again, whether that is your intent or not, is irrelevant.
It is a proven fact that 70% of all premature death and aging is lifestyle related. Individuals who refuse to make wellness choices should be penalized by the society: their health insurance premiums should be ten times what mine are.
Obese adults, obese children should be taxed for taxing the society, driving up everyone’s costs because they choose to overeat, because they have a dollar in their pocket, an overabundant recreational (not nutritional)food supply; and they choose not to hunt or forage(exercise). In evolution, nature does kill off animals, and human animals that make these choices: but in the meantime, why are the wellness committed individuals paying the way for illness committed individuals to make these choices that work against our very nature ?
We have a huge medical and pharmaceutical industry that exists solely because we all support an individuals’ right to make choices: even unhealthy ones. Picking up the tab for someone else’s unhealthy choices is going too far, and it has got to stop.  It is up to this generation of boomers to stand up, and start to shift the paradigm from illness centered aging to wellness centered aging.
Health insurance premiums must reflect our focus on wellness: if you continue to be inactive, or obese , year after year, despite all the awareness, and education that passively surrounds you: your health premiums should go up. If your actively engage in growing younger, and making the time to signal your brain and body that it is springtime, a time to grow, no matter what your age: you should have lower premiums.
It is pathetic that we have the highest standard of living, and the highest incidence of illness and disability over fifty years of age, fifty percent of which could be eliminated by making lifestyle choices that are true to our true nature.

ARE YOU SIGNALING YOUR BODY AND BRAIN TO AGE ?

     If at middle age, you are aging ungraciously, it is likely that for decades you have been signaling your body, and brain to survive by becoming depressed: if you are chronically stressed, physically, or mentally, you have created a low grade state of depression in your body as a healthy, adaptive response to what is understands as your ultimate survival challenge.
     If you suffer from depression, you can turn your take a look at your lifestyle survival strategies, and make different choices.  In nature, depression is normal: it is a survival mechanism. Depression is the body and brain’s response to famine, excess food intake, and inactivity.
As we evolved over millions of years of howling, blizzarding winters on the African savannah, it was this “survival depression” that kept us alive until the warmth of spring.  We hunted and gathered every single day; we were only sedentary if there was a famine. As winter, drought or famine approached, we became sedentary, built up our fat reserves, made our shelters to hibernate: we burrowed for warmth, and safety, in small spaces that made it impossible to move, further slowing down our metabolism. These natural behaviors signaled the critical systems in our bodies and brains to shutdown, decay, atrophy, loose their muscles, in order to survive the winter. Survival depression was our healthy response to our environment.
Now here we are in 2008, with lengthy commutes to work, whole days sitting at our computers, with little movement of our bodies; hours of TV, or checking email, surfing the web, nights of reading alone in our big houses with central heating, and air……….we are sending the signals to our body that it is winter everyday. When we don’t send out the signals EVERYDAY to our bodies to ‘hunt, and forage’; eventually this constant depressed state of decay, this modern equivalent to survival on the Tundra, takes over. And as we chronically age, the rate of this decline, and decay just accelerates. Too many decades of simulate winters.  Our bodies and brains are just responding. No wonder that we have a picture of aging in America that is one of decay, decline. Our modern lifestyle is killing us.   During our evolution, the effect of adaptation on the part of the body to the physical work of hunting and gathering, lead to chemical changes in the brain: optimism ( I will survive); increased energy, curiousity, zeal for exploration, alertness, and a willingness to work with others.
In 2008, we see an overabundance of food supply, particularly the cartoon fun foods of zero nutritional value but tons of age-accelerating sugar; we control the temperature of houses and cars, and the tigers that would be chasing us, are in our zoo’s.  Our need to exercise, move constantly is who we are. This body is really a bunch of chemical and electrical impulses that drive all our cells to function when we are forcing some adaptations on the part of our bodies and brains to occur.
     Without these acts to trigger growth in our bodies, on the cellular level; we decay. We survived over hundreds of millions of years, because each one of our ancestors got it right, and passed on their strength, speed, and smarts genetically. It took us millions of years to evolve to this point: evolve from bacteria going back billions of years. But we are basically unchanged.
     In the absence of these pressures that cause our bodies and brains to adapt, and on the cellular level to “grow”, our bodies and brains start shutting down. Daily we are sending out signals to our bodies to decay, and do so quickly. No matter what we choose to think, this is what our choices tell our body: no need to adapt, no need to get strong, no need to grow: we have to go to work, sit in our cubicle, move information on our computers. Our body is not designed for sitting in front of a computer, or a TV; or driving a car to Northern California to take in 600 miles of incredible sights, or staying in bed all day because it is Sunday.
So, as we repeat this mal-adaptation over thirty years, we reach fifty, and are ‘suddenly’ surprised that we are falling apart. If you find yourself 'suddenly suprised', read on: you change the course of your life. If you are a woman, it is critical that you raise your own awareness about the process of aging: consider that 3 million of the 70 million baby boomers are expected to live past 100 years of age. Of this 3 million boomer centurians, 85 % will be female.
You can change the signals you are unwittingly sending your body and brain: return to this site, and find out how..............