Successful Aging

1. My personal definition of successful aging would be good physical health, financial security,  being able to be optimistic (coping skills), and staying involved in activities/ active social life.
My definition has changed since the beginning of the semester, because I have learned a lot more about successful aging and all it entails.

2. The thing that I found most interesting about this semester was learning just how many different aspects of successful aging there are and how many different things can effect the way you age such as:
Financial Aging
Mental Aging
Physical Aging
Emotional Aging

3. The aspect of successful gaining that I would like to keep learning about it financial aging.  Financial aging particularly interests me because it is what I am majoring in.  I never thought about finances when I thought of successful aging, but once we tied it in I realized how important it can be.  I find financial aging really interesting and hope to learn more about it in the future.

4. I have gained a lot of knowledge about aging through this seminar.  Some things I may try and work on are stressing less (putting things into perspective), staying active, eating right, and having an active social life, since these are all things that have an effect on successful aging.

Stress and Aging

Especially around this time of lots of projects and papers being do, I thought it was appropriate to look further into the effects of stress on aging.
Being college student we experience a lot of stress quite frequently.  Learning all the effects stress can have on aging only makes me want to stress more.  The article I found stated many of the effects of stress such as, premature lining of the face, and thinning skin.  If you are chronically stressed genes inside your cells whither and shrivel, muscles weaken, skin loses elasticity and firmness, and brain functions lessen.
So stress effects aging not only physically but also internally.

An interesting point of this article I found is that some people lead very stressful lives, but if they keep difficulties in perspective they do not suffer the consequences of stress as much.  So it's not always about how stressful your life is, it is more about how stressful you perceive your life to be.

This article helps me put things into perspective.  I hope that as finals comes this year, I will better be able to handle all the stresses it can bring.

http://anti.agingarsenal.com/diet-exercise/effects-of-stress-on-aging/

Financial Aging

Being a finance major, I have been exposed to just how important saving for retirement is. It is an intimidating topic though.  Seeing the calculations on approximately how much I will need to save for retirement is depressing, especially when I don't even have a steady income yet.  In all my finance classes we learn how important it is to start saving now rather than later, because of the potential interest you can gain on money you invest or save.  This concept makes complete sense, but it is hard to follow because you have the money to invest when you are older and in a steady secure job.  However, it is hard to find all the money to put away each month when you are just starting off.
Seeing the actual number I have to save for retirement is a huge wake up call.  I always think of retirement as such a long ways off, but I already have to start planning for it.  It is interesting to learn about all the different aspects of aging, and how financial aging is a part of that as well.

Georgia Centenarians

I was able to take away a lot of new information through watching the videos of the Georgia Centenarian study. It was interesting to hear the views of people who do live to be 100 years old. 

It was fascinating to learn about the similarities and differences between all the Centenarians that were involved in the study.  What interested me most was finding out their lifestyles and common foods that they ate.  It was surprised with the difference of what we today find to be healthy foods and what the common foods in their diets were.  Other factors I found interesting were how most of them were still active people who had positive out looks on life.  Religion seemed to be a big part of these particular Centenarians lifestyle, which explains why they may have more of a positive perspective.  The part that would be hardest about living to such an old age like these Centenarians would be seeing all your close friends and family leave before you.  It would be hard living it somewhat of your own age cohort and being surrounded by much younger people, I could see how it would get lonely.  The information about the genes linked to Alzheimer’s was also interesting and could be applied to information we previously learned about how some individuals are more likely to get certain genetic diseases because of certain influences.

This information applied to me because, everyone ages and has to deal with the effects of aging.  So it was a beneficial experience to see that people who live to be older than most can still function and be happy in society.  This gives aging more of a positive outlook and me more hope for healthy aging.  Even if these are just a few of the cases of people who live to be this age, it is enjoyable to see that age doesn’t have to limit what you are capable of or be a measure of happiness.

Anyone could benefit from the information learned in the Georgia Centenarian study.  Most people will experience growing to an extremely old age or knowing someone who does.  It is important to know what they are going through and how they feel about aging so we can understand them.  If we are more aware of their views then assisting them in their later years will be more successful for both the elder and the caretaker.  

How Long Will I Live

When I first saw my results to the life expectancy test it seemed higher than what I would've guessed.  Then again with technology and medicine continuing to improve the number seemed pretty accurate.  Most of the questions were what I expected, with what you eat and how much you exercise, and family health history.  However, I thought it was interesting how much they focused on cigarettes and tobacco.  There was 4 or 5 questions strictly related to smoking and secondhand smoke, which made me realize what a big potential impact that must have on people's life expectancy.  Other questions that I thought were very interesting and unexpected were the how often you floss question and how you barbecue your fish, poultry, and meat.  I'm sure all the questions asked had relevant reasons to estimate each individual's life expectancy, but I think guessing someone's life expectancy by just asking a certain number of questions is hard.  There are so many outside factors that can effect how long someone lives or potential things that could happen in society we don't even know about yet.  I found this quiz very fascinating, because I have never guessed how long I would live so it was interesting the things that were taken into account when estimating my life expectancy.

The Genetic Theory of Aging

http://longevity.about.com/od/researchandmedicine/p/age_genetics.htm

The article I found was titled, The Genetic Theory of Aging.  I found this article to be very interesting and highly relative to our discussions on how genes relate to aging.

The article discusses how our lifespan is largely determined by the genes we inherit.  Our potential age is determined at the moment of conception, however some of how long we live can be explained by learned behaviors, such as what we eat and how active we are.  The article goes on to say how some genes are harmful while some we inherit are beneficial.  Certain mutations of genes happen after birth with exposure to toxins, and fine radicals can also cause gene changes.  I thought this was interesting, because it directly relates to what we discussed in class.  Another interesting fact I found in this article was that as much as 35% of your lifespan can be explained by genes, which is a large percent to be based just on genes.
Overall I found this article very helpful in elaborating on the specific topics of genes and aging we had previously discussed in class, which helped my overall understanding.

What Processes Cause Aging

I thought the reading this week was very interesting, and definitely got me thinking about aging.  The oxidation theory was very intriguing to me.  With my major not being at all related to the field of science I was able to learn a lot about the complexity of the theory.  Some of it was difficult for me to grasp, but it was still very interesting.  It's weird to think that oxygen works in both a way to keep us alive and age us.

I appreciated that the metabolic processes were put into easier to understand terms of rusting and browning.  Browning being described as what happens to meat when being cooked, and rusting as more of the build up of free radicals.  This made it easier to understand the processes and put them more into context.