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Many of us are in our latter years, i.e. old. Below is an excellent list for aging and good advice to follow.

1. It’s time to use the money you saved up. Use it and enjoy it. Don’t just keep it for those who may have no notion of the sacrifices you made to get it. Remember there is nothing more dangerous than a son or daughter-in-law with big ideas for your hard-earned capital. Warning: This is also a bad time for investments, even if it seems wonderful or fool-proof. They only bring problems and worries. This is a time for you to enjoy some peace and quiet.

2. Stop worrying about the financial situation of your children and grandchildren, and don’t feel bad spending your money on yourself. You’ve taken care of them for many years, and you’ve taught them what you could. You gave them an education, food, shelter and support. The responsibility is now theirs to earn their own money.

3. Keep a healthy life, without great physical effort. Do moderate exercise (like walking every day), eat well and get your sleep. It’s easy to become sick, and it gets harder to remain healthy. That is why you need to keep yourself in good shape and be aware of your medical and physical needs. Keep in touch with your doctor, do tests even when you’re feeling well. Stay informed.

4. Always buy the best, most beautiful items for your significant other. The key goal is to enjoy your money with your partner. One day one of you will miss the other, and the money will not provide any comfort then, enjoy it together

5. Don’t stress over the little things. Like paying a little extra on price quotes. You’ve already overcome so much in your life. You have good memories and bad ones, but the important thing is the present. Don’t let the past drag you down and don’t let the future frighten you. Feel good in the now. Small issues will soon be forgotten.

6. Regardless of age, always keep love alive. Love your partner, love life, love your family, love your neighbor and remember: “A man is not old as long as he has intelligence and affection.”

7. Be proud, both inside and out. Don’t stop going to your hair salon or barber, do your nails, go to the dermatologist and the dentist, keep your perfumes and creams well stocked. When you are well-maintained on the outside, it seeps in, making you feel proud and strong.

8. Don’t lose sight of fashion trends for your age, but keep your own sense of style. There’s nothing worse than an older person trying to wear the current fashion among youngsters. You’ve developed your own sense of what looks good on you – keep it and be proud of it. It’s part of who you are.

9. ALWAYS stay up-to-date. Read newspapers, watch the news. Go online and read what people are saying. Make sure you have an active email account and try to use some of those social networks. You’ll be surprised what old friends you’ll meet. Keeping in touch with what is going on and with the people you know is important at any age.

10. Respect the younger generation and their opinions. They may not have the same ideals as you, but they are the future, and will take the world in their direction. Give advice, not criticism, and try to remind them that yesterday’s wisdom still applies today.

11. Never use the phrase: “In my time.” Your time is now. As long as you’re alive, you are part of this time. You may have been younger, but you are still you now, having fun and enjoying life.

12. Some people embrace their golden years, while others become bitter and surly. Life is too short to waste your days on the latter. Spend your time with positive, cheerful people, it’ll rub off on you and your days will seem that much better. Spending your time with bitter people will make you older and harder to be around.

13. Do not surrender to the temptation of living with your children or grandchildren (if you have a financial choice, that is). Sure, being surrounded by family sounds great, but we all need our privacy. They need theirs and you need yours. If you’ve lost your partner (our deepest condolences), then find a person to move in with you and help out. Even then, do so only if you feel you really need the help or do not want to live alone.

14. Don’t abandon your hobbies. If you don’t have any, make new ones. You can travel, hike, cook, read, dance. You can adopt a cat or a dog, grow a garden, play cards, checkers, chess, dominoes, golf. You can paint, volunteer or just collect certain items. Find something you like and spend some real time having fun with it.

15. Even if you don’t feel like it, try to accept invitations. Baptisms, graduations, birthdays, weddings, conferences. Try to go. Get out of the house, meet people you haven’t seen in a while, experience something new (or something old). But don’t get upset when you’re not invited. Some events are limited by resources, and not everyone can be hosted. The important thing is to leave the house from time to time. Go to museums, go walk through a field. Get out there.

16. Be a conversationalist. Talk less and listen more. Some people go on and on about the past, not caring if their listeners are really interested. That’s a great way of reducing their desire to speak with you. Listen first and answer questions, but don’t go off into long stories unless asked to. Speak in courteous tones and try not to complain or criticize too much unless you really need to. Try to accept situations as they are. Everyone is going through the same things, and people have a low tolerance for hearing complaints. Always find some good things to say as well.

17. Pain and discomfort go hand in hand with getting older. Try not to dwell on them but accept them as a part of the cycle of life we’re all going through. Try to minimize them in your mind. They are not who you are, they are something that life added to you. If they become your entire focus, you lose sight of the person you used to be.

18. If you’ve been offended by someone – forgive them. If you’ve offended someone - apologize. Don’t drag around resentment with you. It only serves to make you sad and bitter. It doesn’t matter who was right. Someone once said: “Holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Don’t take that poison. Forgive, forget and move on with your life.

19. If you have a strong belief, savor it. But don’t waste your time trying to convince others. They will make their own choices no matter what you tell them, and it will only bring you frustration. Live your faith and set an example. Live true to your beliefs and let that memory sway them.

20. Laugh. Laugh A LOT. Laugh at everything. Remember, you are one of the lucky ones. You managed to have a life, a long one. Many never get to this age, never get to experience a full life. But you did. So what’s not to laugh about? Find the humor in your situation.

21. Take no notice of what others say about you and even less notice of what they might be thinking. They’ll do it anyway, and you should have pride in yourself and what you’ve achieved. Let them talk and don’t worry. They have no idea about your history, your memories and the life you’ve lived so far. There’s still much to be written, so get busy writing and don’t waste time thinking about what others might think. Now is the time to be at rest, at peace and as happy as you can be!

REMEMBER: “Life is too short to drink bad wine and warm beer.”

As seen on Facebook.

  

Yummy honey

Honey is far more likely to do you good than antibiotics if you have a cold and cough this autumn.  That is the recent new guidance from the NHS.  Research has found that honey significantly reduces the frequency and severity of coughs.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and Public Health England (PHE) are urging us to buy 'self-care' products such as honey, herbal remedies and cough medicines instead of asking our doctors for antibiotics.  Only if coughs get very bad and prolonged, or if you feel really unwell and breathless should you consider antibiotics.

 

When your phone rings and rings

You've just sat down to supper and the phone rings. It is yet another cold-caller, trying to sell you something.  A nuisance to most of us, but a potential danger to hundreds of thousands of elderly and vulnerable people who might respond to the offer of 'personal injury' claims or 'protection insurance'.

It is reckoned that in the current epidemic of cold-calling that is sweeping Britain, nearly half of landline phone calls made to the elderly and vulnerable are from cold-callers. Furthermore, as many as a million people estimated to be on so-called 'suckers lists' are being bombarded with around 150 nuisance and scam calls a month. 

In a bid to protect vulnerable customers, 166 local councils have now resorted to fitting phone blockers in people's homes, which only allow calls from pre-selected friends and family.  

 

What is happening to our attention span?

Social media and video games are harming our young people’s minds.  They are being so bombarded with instant gratification that, like young children, they need to have ‘something every moment to distract them.’

So says Baroness Greenfield, a senior research fellow at Oxford University.  She refers to studies at Harvard and Princeton which found that students even preferred to give themselves electric shocks rather than face 10 minutes sitting quietly on their own. ‘People are no longer able to go into their own mind, think laterally and have their own thoughts.’

She predicts that in future, many people will end up emotionally stunted. ‘They are going to be like three-year olds: emotional, risk-taking, with poor social skills, weak self-identity and short attention spans.’  They will be become ‘more narcissistic, with lower self-esteem and higher depression rates’.  Hospitals are certainly treating almost twice as many girls for self-harm as they did 20 years ago.

Lady Greenfield urges parents to read with their children, play sport with them, or do gardening together: ‘all activities with a beginning, a middle and an end, which cannot be rushed’.

Take hoarding seriously

How much stuff do you have?  Do you find it really hard to throw things away?  You are not alone!  But the problem is so serious for some people that hoarding has now been classified as a medical disorder.  The World Health Organisation (WHO) says this could benefit thousands of people, because they will finally qualify for medical help.

But lots of us like our stuff without being ill.  So, what does it take to ‘qualify’ as a real hoarder?   (About 2 to 5 per cent of us exhibit some symptoms.)  WHO defines it as someone with an ‘accumulation of possessions due to excessive acquisition of, or difficulty discarding possessions, regardless of their actual value.’ For example, a hoarder might have a cup of tea – but then be unable to throw away the used tea bag. 

Signs of a problem hoarder include: keeping items of absolutely no value, such as junk mail and old newspapers; struggling to organise themselves and make decisions; an over-attachment to various items; and increasing difficulty with everyday tasks. 

The results can be awful: living spaces fill up with clutter that makes the proper use of the room impossible, and even dangerous.  Such impairment will slowly ruin a person’s personal, family, social, educational, and working life. 

Anyone who is a serious, compulsive hoarder needs help.  The mental health charity Mind may be useful for starters:  www.mind.org.uk

Is it Joe or Jo? Amy or Aimee?

How do you spell popular names for boys and girls?  This argument has rumbled on for years. Now a recent YouGov poll has asked the public, and some results point to a swing back to preferring more traditional spellings. 

Joe 87 per cent; Jo 4 per cent

John 79pc; Jon 9pc

Mark 78pc; Marc 9pc

Alan 76pc; Allan 9pc

Stuart 55pc; Stewart 21pc

Carl 54 pc; Karl 23pc

Geoffrey 48pc; Jeffrey 28pc

Stephen 47 pc; Steven 29pc

Abbie 47pc; Abbey 12 pc

Amy 79pc; Aimee 10pc

Sarah 72pc; Sara 10pc

Rebecca 83pc; Rebekah 6pc

Claire 66pc; Clare 13pc

Deborah 68pc; Debra 17pc

Theresa 51pc; Teresa 27pc

Catherine 48pc; Katherine 26pc

Are you a club-sandwich pensioner?

We all know about the sandwich generation – those of us who are caught in between trying to support our children in buying a home, and also in supporting our parents who need social care. 

But now there is a new generation – the club-sandwichers.  They are those of us whose money is now going out in three directions: towards helping our parents, our children – and our grand-children.

People planning to stop work this year expect to hand over on average £360 a month to their various family members.  The money will fund university fees and living costs, help children buy a home, or even just help with food.  

A spokesman from Legal & General says: ‘The 2018 generation of retirees have benefited to a large extent with the property boom, with stock market booms, with having final salary pension schemes.  I think that parents and grandparents who have that money are feeling that they don’t want to go to their grave in a gold-lined coffin, they’re quite happy to help where they can.’

 

What an apple might do for you

Here’s some good news:  an apple a day could help keep diabetes at bay, according to new health guidelines.

Yoghurt, cheese and regular cups of tea or coffee are among other food and drinks that could also help ward off the condition.  But keep an eye on the meat and potatoes – they may actually increase your likelihood of diagnosis.

The dietary advice comes from Oxford University and Diabetes UK. It also suggests eating more wholegrains and fruit and vegetables.

 

Keep your brain healthy

Here’s an excellent reason to get regular exercise:  women who are fit at 50 are five times less likely to get dementia.

A Swedish study found that middle age is the key time for people to take steps to promote their brain health.  And boosting your exercise does not have to mean major exertion – just try a brief jog, or a brisk walk with friends.  Doctors suggested that the best way to maintain good brain health was to ‘eat a balanced diet, maintain a healthy weight, not smoke, and keep blood pressure and cholesterol in check.’

 

Don’t fight ‘book block’

Don’t feel guilty about giving up on a novel.  If you don’t enjoy it, simply abandon it. 

That’s the advice of the Reading Agency, a literary charity which recently surveyed our novel reading habits.  It found that more than 20 per cent of us refuse to give up on a book once we have started – even though it is hard work.  Some of us struggle for weeks, or even months, before acknowledging defeat.  

The Reading Agency suggests instead that anyone who hits ‘book block’ should simply let the book go.  ‘You should never force yourself to read something you’re not enjoying.’

 

Best way to clean your house

The most efficient way to clean your house is to tackle it chore by chore, not room by room.

Dusting, vacuuming, and tidying room by room wastes time, according to the Good Housekeeping Institute (GHI).  Instead, once the duster is out, go over the whole house with it.  Follow the same procedure with the vacuum cleaner, mop, dustpan and brush, window cleaning gear and other cleaners.

Other good tips:  keep a running list of ‘groceries to get’, put a damp sock on your hand to wipe the dust off of blinds, add dishwasher rinse to water to clean windows and leave them streak free.