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Getting Older?

            I just noticed I am growing older. There is a French expression: “coup de vieux” which means “a hit of old.” What this means is that we tend to plateau for quite a while, nothing seems to change much, and then suddenly within a day or so we get older. This just happened to me. I was priding myself at how young and vital I felt, and then last week I told a friend, “You should join my Bible class, we're studying Islam.” And she said, “I am in your Bible class!” Oops! Even though I wear hearing aids, I strain more to hear people, and even though I wear glasses, I squint more to see fine print.

            And now something else is beginning to happen. I was always the kind of person to go everywhere, do everything, meet everyone—ready for that next adventure. I have become hesitant about leaving my home. I was the first woman to be inducted into the San Diego downtown Rotary back in 1987 and hardly ever missed the Thursday lunches; now I think twice about getting myself up to go and have begun to miss meetings for no other reason but that “I'm a bit tired today.”

            Last year I attended my granddaughter’s wedding in Toronto with no problem and much joy. This year I'm hesitating to go to my youngest grandson's graduation from medical school, also in Canada. It feels like “too much.”

            So the question I keep asking myself is “should I push myself or give in to staying put?” I don't know the answer. On one hand, I don't want to give up on the pleasure I get from doing fun stuff, but, on the other hand, I wonder whether I can give myself permission to stop running around like the proverbial chicken without a head and stay home with a good book—which is in fact my favorite occupation. I try to live intelligently. By this I mean I eat healthily, I exercise regularly, my brain is stimulated (I'm writing this column!), I have friends… So what's wrong?

            I have often wondered why some of my healthy, elderly friends don’t go to cultural events when it is so easy with the White Sands bus providing the transportation. All of a sudden I understand: an evening out feels like too much effort, and the idea of going home and doing nothing sounds like heaven.

            They say that at my age (I’m 87), whatever does not dry out, leaks! So far I am doing neither, but I fell yesterday in my apartment—I was carrying a heavy flower pot and slipped. I did not hurt myself, but my balance gave way. I was sitting on the floor with the usual feeling of shock when one falls thinking, “Shoot! I'm getting old!”

            Somehow neither my age nor my new feelings compute. Just yesterday I was a spring chicken and suddenly I have become an old hen. The ad for my upcoming book signing at Warwick’s calls me a “Trailblazing Octogenarian.” I was literally taken aback. Is that me? So my job now is to mentally catch up with my chronological age instead of being in denial that I too am aging. The signs are there, shall I honor them or ignore them? I still have not decided.

Caring about Not Caring

The things I used to care about

I no longer do

but I really do care

that I don’t care

about the things

I used to care about

Copyright © 2014. Natasha Josefowitz. All rights reserved.

Adrenaline Highs

I have my own theory about why some people retire happily and others get depressed or ill upon retirement, about why some people drive fast and like rollercoaster rides and horror movies, and others—like me—absolutely refuse to see anything violent and frightening and have always avoided scary rides in amusement parks.

It has to do with an addiction to “highs.” People with generally low levels of adrenaline need a boost to “feel alive." While people whose levels are usually high, quickly become anxious when over-stimulated.

I’m of the latter category. Even a scary book makes my heart beat faster, and I get so uncomfortable in suspenseful movies that I want to leave. The feeling of being frightened is deeply unpleasant—I do all I can to avoid being in such situations.

My granddaughter, on the other hand, loves to be scared. She thinks it’s fun. A large number of people must agree, considering how many movies are made just to raise adrenaline levels. Steven Spielberg said in an interview that during a preview of Jaws, he saw someone leave as the shark was swallowing a man and thought: “It’s a flop.” Then he saw the person throw up and return, and he thought: “It’s a block-buster.”

Addictions to emotional highs are not very different from addictions to alcohol or drugs. Without the stimulation, one feels low key, empty, or depressed.

Some people can only work under pressure¾deadlines are motivators. I’m always several columns ahead, and I handed in reports early in college. Deadlines make me anxious. I can work under pressure if I have to, but I hate the feeling it generates.

Why do people continue working at a hard and fast pace when they could retire and don’t need the money? A newly retired friend of mine recently said to me, “I miss the challenge, I miss risk taking, I miss having the control.”

Another friend, a recently-retired CEO, said, “Who am I if I’m not a manager, if I’m not in charge¾if I don’t have the opportunity to make important decisions?

What these persons miss, besides their job identities and the daily adventure that work provides, is being looked up to by colleagues and staff, being someone who matters, feeling responsible, and being challenged.

The people who retire most happily are college professors who have had experience filling up their time in productive ways during the long summer vacations.

Interestingly enough, stress addiction can be harmful to some, leading to heart attacks—but not to all. For some, the release of adrenaline in the blood stream might increase resistance to disease through the production of lymphocytes.

In other words, stress may be bad for some individuals but good for others. They thrive living in the fast lane, getting high on violent video games and extreme sports. People addicted to adrenaline seek ways to get these surges and when deprived of them become irritable or depressed.

I get a “high” when I see a good performance in a theater or have a particularly stimulating conversation, and that’s enough for me.

Seeing a destructive storm on television, hearing someone else’s bad news or a dramatic story also provide a small kick, which explain people’s preoccupation with sensational trials and sex scandals.

After all, what is “having a good time” but a “high”?

Stress is negative when people have little control over their work. Low-level employees with heavy job demands are at the highest risk of heart disease. The workers with least control over their jobs were five times as likely to develop coronary heart disease as were those with the most control.

“Job control” involves two factors: the ability to make one’s own decisions and the capacity to use a range of skills.

If psychological strain cannot be translated into action, then the cardiovascular system is adversely affected. Even talking to someone about one’s stress is an action that can be helpful.

Being in control and being needed are highs. So how to get that high in other ways is what must be found.

What gives you a high? How much of it do you need and with what intensity? Being aware of one’s needs for adrenaline highs is already half the battle in seeking what one must have to feel alive. This will give you control over your behaviors and not let you fall prey to unconscious motivations and needs.

Copyright © 2013. Natasha Josefowitz. All r