(Trying to) Age Gracefully
How do you view your mind and body? As one or two separate identities? Which has control the most and what will be the first to fail you?
I witnessed in 2025 the demise of a human body in a way I never expected; to see the will of the mind lose to the body was something equally as horrific as it was enlightening. The mind body is powerful; it drives us equally as much as it paralyses us; we often forget which one leads and how to look after both. Regardless of whether you are aging or not, the need to recognise the importance of health for both is fundamental to live a well life. Notice I didn’t say long life; we can look after mind and body and still fall victim to the cruelness of an early exit from the physical world.
As I move through the years, I am doing my best to age gracefully. I am not ignorant to the reality that ageing happens, it will happen to all of us despite being completely oblivious in the younger years to the ‘coming for you’ aging process. What we fail to recognise when we age is, this process should be seen as an absolute privilege; life is fragile and our inability to try and mask it with age defining procedures on the outside, fails to recognise that you have little to no control to what is going on in the inside.
Life Expectancy
We are getting older but are we getting healthier?
In the 1920s, a newborn Australian boy could expect to live to roughly 55 to 59 years, while a newborn girl could expect to live to about 59 to 63 years.
In 2026, the estimates project that a newborn Australian boy can expect to live to approximately 81.6 to 82.6 years, while a newborn Australian girl can expect to live to 85.4 to 85.5 years.
The key shifts here, a 100 years later are contributed by modern medicine, public health initiatives, and vastly improved living standards. So, with our current diet trends of fast food, lack of mobility and a stress culture could we see these number change to go backwards in the next 100 years? Time will tell.
Retrospective thoughts
Over the past year I have thought deeply about my own mortality; it’s a strange thing to sit with thoughts of your own death, we don’t often gift ourselves this mindset as it conjures up amongst other things, fear. I do regular check ins with myself to remind myself; death comes for all of us (everything that lives will die) and what I most fear is how our death going to happen more than death itself.
Elevating Health
There are numerous layers I have put in place to help build greater health within; to be proactive as opposed to, reactive. However, despite some of my best efforts, not all my actions are sheltering me from some of the joys of ageing; especially those related to hormones. I am so thankful that conversations around peri menopause and menopause are now out in the open; regardless of your sex or age, it’s a conversation to be had as its all learning and whether its relevant to you presently, it’s not the point – it’s a think tank conversation that is either stored away or verbally outspoken around the café table to help prepare and arm you with information that will be fundamental when you near the ageing age (which can be anywhere from 35 years of age)!
Being conscious of my health plan; helps me consciously take control of the things that will help me live a well and fruitful life. I know too well there are no guarantees, but what I appreciate is getting to know the human body better as I age; it’s truly fascinating but I am not quite ready to sign up for a medical degree just yet!
As a guide, my health plans include a GP and Dentist visit every 6-12 months and every 2 years visit Breast Screen SA and have now added to the list, a bone density scan.
Visiting the GP for a general chat and investing interest in my own body; doesn’t have me obsessing about health and wellness but more gives me the opportunity to take some sort of control over the declining nature of this aging body. I am very aware that despite feeling young at heart, now in my early 50’s (honestly, when did that happen?) there is a decline happening, how rapidly this occurs is half up to me. So, with regular check-ins with someone who knows the physical body better than me; we can help stay ahead of the decline before it totally spirals out of control.
Regular blood tests are reasons alone to visit your GP; we can tell so much from the reading of our bloods. It also occurred to me that building a relationship with a medical professional has them invested in your health which may in the long run help identify any issues that may arise before deemed too challenging.
Regular visits and tests help create a benchmark and foundation on which any anomalies can be detected quicker than if there were nothing to compare it too. Your base line is a powerful piece of information and most of the time, it takes an expert to understand them – not Dr Google which can do more harm than good when it comes to understanding symptoms and results.
Easing into life
I’m at ease with ageing; it’s both a privilege and a curse but when I think about ageing, I think about choice and dignity. It took me many years of looking in the mirror to find this ease with what is fundamentally inevitable; to move with ageing as opposed to against it. To resist is like resisting a new day dawning; despite your deepest wishes and desires its going to happen regardless. You can try to hardest to resist but change is always happening, the greatest service you can do to yourself is recognise this to be true.
I don’t want to live forever, in fact some days I question the viability of living at all but today, I am facing ageing head-on, and although I don’t necessarily like it all of the time; I am more comfortable than ever saying, I am comfortable most of the time.
