81. Do you have FOGO (Fear of Getting Older)? How to Thrive in All Stages of Life

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All right. Hello. Welcome back to the Holistic Inner Balance podcast with Dr. Nicole Kane and myself, Hadley. We are here today to talk to you about aging. And maybe you have a fear of getting older, or fogo, as we just. Just found out is a thing while we were researching this. A lot of people have this, and we wanted to dive into how to age consciously and to really embrace all of the different stages of life while also creating longevity and aging intentionally. So we wanted to bring this to you this month because we have a very special, special event going on this month, and that is Dr. Cain's birthday.

You can't see, but I'm putting my forehead and my hand together and I'm looking at the desk.

Do you want to tell us how old you're turning?

I'm turning 39 for the second time.

I love it. So we were talking about this last week, and we just started having a conversation. We were like, wait, pause. We're tabling this until next week when we can actually start recording it because we started having a really good conversation about it. So let's get into it.

Yeah. And I didn't know there was a term for it. Fogo, fear of getting old. Which when I found that out, I don't know why Hadley hadn't occurred to me in a way that makes sense, you know, when you, like, know something, but then it actually settles into your soul and, you know, like, you feel the knowing. I knew that people are nervous about aging, that there's a whole spectrum of fear of aging. But when I was reading the report from Pfizer there that 87% of Americans report having fogo, this fear of getting old, suddenly I realize that I am not the only one that's in terror about this.

Totally. I think our whole society is terrified of getting older.

Yeah.

And it's even, you know, it starts as young as in your 20s. Right. Like, I mean, I remember the first time I felt this way, and it was. It was sort of recently, I'm a little bit younger. And so I. I got my first gray hairs.

Oh, you did?

Yes. And so I was like, oh, my go. This is it. I've always thought of myself as kind of like the youngest person in the room. I've had a Lot of. A lot of times my friends are older than me. And same with, like, in business settings and stuff. I started my business when I was pretty young in the grand scheme of things. And so feeling like, oh, I'm not the youngest person the room anymore. And that was sort of an existential crisis a little bit. I mean, not. Not necessarily a crisis, but I always thought of myself as someone who wouldn't really fear getting older. I was always kind of annoyed when my mom would talk about it or, like, you know, her wrinkles or whatever. I'm like, mom, you know, it's just a part of the process. Like, it's. And then I remember feeling this way for the first time and being like, oh, I get it. I get it now.

I appreciate you acknowledging there's. Especially in my world and in our industry, our jobs are to help people age gracefully and to look at the bigger picture and meaning and purpose. And then when the cameras are off and the phones are turned off and we're sitting alone and you find that gray hair or you discover a freckle that I wasn't there before or whatever it is, and then that's when the scary thoughts can creep in. And so that feels really validating for me because I have multiple parts, and part of me doesn't want to be nervous about it, but then there's another part of me that's very existentially concerned.

Yeah. Well, there's part of me that's like, well, you shouldn't be nervous about this. Right. Like, I'm shooting on myself.

Yeah.

About. Like, you should be. You should be, like, more enlightened than that.

Yeah. That's a great way to word it. I wish that I was more. More enlightened.

Yeah. Right. And yet we have so many cues and, you know, messages coming at us that it's not okay to get older. Right. Like, our society is all about staying younger. All of the advertisements, all the things, especially towards women. Yeah. Is like, it's a bad thing to get older, and you should try to look as young as you can as long as you can. Even the fact that we are all, like, very hesitant to share what our age is is so weird to me. It's like we get. We're so excited when we're kids, and we're like, I'm six and a half, or like, I'm seven and three quarters. And if you don't add that three quarters part, those kids get mad. They get really mad. I'm not just seven, I'm seven and three quarters. Yeah, yeah. And then we get to this age usually somewhere in our 20s. Right. Or like, right before we turn 30, when a lot of us have an existential crisis. And it's like, now for women especially now, you don't really want to ever tell anyone your age. And so this is not. This is not something that we. I don't think that we need to take on as individuals to, like, try to be more enlightened. I think it's more of a, like, societal change that we need to make to allow people to be okay with getting older. But I want to talk a little bit about that today, about how we actually cultivate some of. Some of that for ourselves and maybe influence the people around us and change sort of our language around aging, while at the same time not just being like, oh, it's fine. You're going to get older, you're going to fall apart. You're not going to be able to do stuff. And so we want to talk a little bit about how to age kind of gracefully and do it in a way that you still feel good in your body. So we're give some tips for that today as well.

Yeah. There was a quote that I read, and I think it kind of goes along with, like, my origin story that you're causing me to reflect upon is that growing old is the greatest unknown in the lives of everyone who is not yet old. And I struggle with that great unknown. And so when on one side there's all of this unknown, and then on the other side, I hear messages like, oh, George Clooney ages so well. Like, you got that salt and pepper and his smile lines around his eyes. He's so good. And then just recently, Jane Fonda just started to grow out and embrace her gray hair. And of course, her face is flawless because first of all, she's beautiful. But second of all, she's had a lot of work done. And it was just like this huge conversation about how she's, like, taking a stand for win by actually growing her hair out gray. So it's like, why are our heads exploding with shock when a woman allows herself to have gray hair? And so there's this strange juxtaposition for me of, like, this mystery and then these narratives that you're talking about.

Hadley.

And I'm the type of person. I'm gonna. This is like confession hour, but I'm the type of person. Hopefully you guys will all forgive me for this, but I can't believe I'm gonna tell you this. When Harry Potter came out, I Got the last book and I read the last page of the last book. I didn't read anything else.

No way.

I couldn't handle the unknown. I just had to know whether or not she killed F. Harry. And I'm not gonna spoil alert that here, but I could tell you my roommate was so mad, she didn't speak to me for a week. She's like a huge Harry Potter fan and I hadn't earned it. But like, that unknown makes me legitimately anxious. And you can't skip ahead to know, like, how's my life gonna go? How am I, how am I gonna die? You know? Did you see that movie, the Pixar movie Soul?

Oh yeah. So cute.

It's so good. And in this movie, like, you know that he's going to die because it's like the whole premise of the movie. And then he's going through all these like dangerous sit like a piano, almost drops on his head. And then there's the manhole. There's like all these things and I feel like there's this like part of me that's just like waiting, like, when's it gonna happen? Is it gonna be a diagnosis? Is it gonna be a car accident? Is it gonna be a plane crash? And so that's my anxiety. And I actually became aware of that when I was a kid. Like, I remember a very early memory of laying in bed and I was probably 12 years old. And I remember thinking to myself, I will never be this young again. I'm gonna go to sleep tonight and when I wake up, I'm gonna be older. And then the day after that I'm gonna be older. And the day after that I'm gonna be older. And I was like, oh my God, I will never be this young again. And I like scan my body and I'm like, okay, gotta hold on to this moment. And now that I'm turning 39 again, I remember that moment of being 12 years old and I was totally right. And I almost grieve for that 12 year old because there's been so much deliciousness of life between now and then. And yet she had this fogo based on whatever was happening existentially or in the media or messages that my family was giving me about what it means to get old. And so I'm so excited that when I brought this up to you, I'm like, you're like, oh, your birthday's coming up. And then that sincere conversation that started is, I'm so glad to be able to talk with you about this, learn about what Ayurveda has to say about it. And hopefully other people who are really struggling with these milestones or observing others going through milestones, or just existentially contemplative like I was, that hopefully this will help a lot of people.

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to get into it. I am, really. Ayurveda has just so much beautiful wisdom here. And it's sort of something that I've been saying steeped in for the past few years. And so I think that it's going to be the thing that helps me, and it has been the thing that helps me to not. Not have as much fogo, though. Our society, you know, makes me have fogo a little bit. It just. It definitely. It definitely pacifies that a little bit. And so, yeah, let's talk a little bit about, you know, what Ayurveda says about aging, and that is that there are different stages of life. And we've talked about the doshas here on the podcast. And, you know, if you are new to the podcast, you can go back and listen to those. We won't get super deep into, like, what each of the doshas is, but essentially, each dosha maps onto each stage of life. And so, and I'll ask you, so what would be, you know, that first stage of life when you're a kid? You know, what. What do you think of when you think of kids? What kinds of verbs come to mind for you? Or I guess adjectives come that come to mind for you.

And we're talking, like, post squishy, doughy baby.

No, we're including squishy, doughy baby.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Because I think of babies as squishy and doughy. But then I'm thinking of, like, the little kids on the playground who are like, like, I was at a restaurant the other day, and there's this toddler, and he's just, like, screaming at the top of his lungs and wouldn't stop moving.

Yes. Oh, that's true. That's true. But I'm. I'm thinking of, okay, so how kids are squishy until adulthood. Right? Like, I was just talking about how I literally just grew out of my, like, baby cheeks. She was like, the just couple of years, I just grew out of my baby cheeks.

Hadley's like, I got gray hair and lost my co cheeks.

Yeah, right, exactly. So there you go. Kapha, kapha. That's the stage of life, of childhood. It's like, kids are, you know, they're squishy, they're growing and kapha is the stage of building. Right. Kapha is all about the. The elements of kapha are water and earth. And so if you think about all of the elements, those are the most, like, dense, tangible elements. You build with earth. Right. And so children are growing, building. They're like these little roly polys, and they're snotty. Right. Like, if you. You hang out with a kid, they've got so much snot, usually.

Oh, and faucets.

Yeah, yeah. And they're just drool. Yeah, drool. They're moist. They've got a lot of water, mucus, like all of the things going on. And they eat ton of food for their body weight. It's all kapha. It's all kapha. And they have that energy to be able to be moving all the time. But that's actually from kapha because they have the endurance to just be screaming continuously and not stopping and running around continuously and just having all of that endurance, and that's all kapha stuff. So kapha is the first stage of life, and that's when we have the baby cheeks. That's when we don't have any wrinkles or anything like that because we're just so. We're like juicy little puffballs. Yeah. And then. And even if there's like a kid who is, you know, a skinny little kid, they still have these qualities as well. They might be a vata kid, but they're in the kapha stage of life. So, you know, we still have our unique constitutions that we're born with, but. But things change throughout our stages of life as well. So then we come to, like, you know, 20s up until basically, like, menopause for women, same sort of age for men as menopause is for women. But what would that stage of life be? We're getting stuff done. This is the time to, you know, succeed in the material world. What. What phase might that be?

And you have to have the energy to follow around your little kapha babies.

Yeah, right, exactly.

They can probably out endure you, but you could be faster than them, hopefully. And so I'm thinking pitta.

Exactly. Yeah. So that's the pitta stage of life. And that's when we lose our little kapha baby cheeks. We might have more. We might start to get some wrinkles or some gray hairs. Gray hair is actually a pitta thing, because basically what happens is. And pitta is the element of fire is the. That's the element that kind of dominates pitta. And sometimes we are so intense that literally our hair, the Color burns out of our hair and then it becomes gray. And so that's why stress causes gray hairs. And this is all. It's all related to pitta. Same with balding. Our hair just kind of burns off if we're too intense. And that can be genetic, but it can also have components of stress and too much pitta, too much of a pitta imbalance.

In traditional Chinese medicine, they call it qi deficiency.

Yes, exactly.

And so you're like burning off all your qi.

Yes. And in Ayurveda, that's very closely connected to ojas, which we have. You know, ojas is basically like the life SAP. It's like the juiciness of our body. It's also related to, like, our immune system and just kind of like our ability to last a long time in our lives. And so that's called ojas in. In Ayurveda. And so then that brings us to this, the end stage of life, which is, you know, 50 or 60 until the. The later years, until death. And that is the vata stage. And the vata stages, you know, the elements are space or ether and then air or you can kind of think of it as like wind. And so that. That creates. We. We have more dryness, we get more wrinkles because of that dryness. Right. That dry quality. We also might have memory problems. You know, even the healthiest of people might have, you know, some things where they feel a little bit more spacey, a little bit more sc. And that's all. That's all related to vata. Constipation, gas, bloating, like, you know, that's so much more prevalent in the elder years as well. And that's all vata stuff, the vata imbalances. And that is more prevalent in those later years. But the other awesome thing about vata is that this is like the time where we no longer have so many material responsibilities, right? Like, the kids grow up, we retire, we can. We kind of have just more space in our. In our lives. And so we can actually embrace this time a lot more than most people are actually embracing it in our society. A lot of people are just. And this is a product of our. The messaging that we get in our society. But it's like, oh, once you get to a certain age, you're no longer productive, and so you're no longer a useful member of society. And that is like the worst thing that you can be is not useful. Right. In our capitalistic, consumerist society. And, you know, that doesn't actually have to have to be the case. It isn't. It hasn't been the case in a lot of different societies throughout history. Right. There was a lot more, a lot more reverence for older people in, in other societies even currently, as well as past societies as well. And it's. It wasn't so much, oh, you aren't productive anymore, so therefore we're going to relegate you to the sidelines. No, it was, it was a lot of, oh, wow, you have so much wisdom. You've lived all these years and now you can, you can kind of like consult on things rather than being, you know, trying to do all the things. You are more giving advice about the things. And so we can kind of bring a little bit of that back, or it would behoove us to bring a little bit of that back for both people who are getting older and also for the wisdom that they provide for the people who are, you know, doing the doing part, which is in the pitta phase of life as well.

So it feels like you're kind of making a case against anti aging, but rather embracing aging by embracing the aged and leaning into their wisdom and experience.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's not to say that we should just take the advice of people who are older just because they are older. You know, there's respect is earned. And so, you know, there needs to be that level of respect between people and, and, you know, we all have autonomy and we can all think for ourselves. I am not at all saying that we should just listen to our elders, like blindly. That's not a recipe for success, I don't think. But, you know, giving the, at least the respect of the humanity of our elders and not necessarily relegating them to the nursing homes and the different spaces that we've kind of created that are apart from society. So that's sort of like a whole existential thing. But we can talk a little bit about how to actually bring that into our individual lives as well.

I want to emphasize what you're saying before we talk about moving it into individual lives. And because you're speaking about a societal shift and what you're proposing has been done and it's had great outcomes. You and I were talking about Japan's Okinawa island, known as the island of Longevity, where people live to be more than 100 years old. And a part of that is attributed to having a strong sense of ikagai, which is the Japanese way of finding meaning and purpose, which is threefold, which is what are you good at? What is your sense of purpose? And passion. And then the third is what will the world pay you for? And these people really focus on attaining that. They attain their sense of purpose, passion, and what will help them financially, what the world will pay them for. And these people also live with that purpose. They're contributing, they're passionate about it. They're also in community where you have the elderly are hanging out with the kids and they're in the classroom and they're supporting each other. And so there's also this sense of seamlessness amongst ages.

Yeah.

And these people live longer, healthier, happier lives. And so I really want to emphasize and put it a pin in the map of what you're saying. And it, and it's not just like theoretical daydreaming that we've actually seen cultures exist like this and how it can contribute to a whole different way of aging.

And there are some really cool studies about this too. I remember when I was in grad school, when I was getting my master's in public health, we learned about this public health initiative that I don't remember all the details, but it was a community program where it had had older people who I believe they were in nursing homes, but they were still, you know, capable of interacting. And you know, they, they had some, some more capabilities than the people who are, who had like some more, some like later year disabilities and things like that. And, and so they were paired with children and it was essentially like daycare for the kids and also hanging out with these older adults. And the older adults did so much better in all of their cognitive tests and even their physical tests and all of that after they had this period of time where they were interacting with the younger generation. But, but also the kids had so much better outcomes than kids who were not interacting with the older generation. And so this intergenerational thing can, you know, sometimes we think, oh, if only we could go back to older societies where everyone just like lived together in communal things and it feels so far fetched. But actually we could have programs and programming where this kind of thing can happen in our current society as well. And so, you know, that's something to keep in mind for any of you out there who are, who maybe work with, with like elderly nursing homes or different things like that, or if you work with childcare in like a daycare place, you know, maybe looking into something like that and how you might be able to make something like that happen. It can be so incredibly beneficial for, you know, for all generations involved, which I think is just so cool. And we don't really think about it at all.

We did that when I was in elementary school. I remember I was assigned an elderly woman who. She had polio as a kid.

Oh, wow.

It was so interesting spending time with her. And, you know, there's so many things that I've forgotten over the years, but that woman, I will remember. And I. I probably only met with her a couple times. And I think we would write little letters back and forth in our little classroom, but I'll always remember her. And so we could be making these incredible memories for the kid and for the elderly person. I was also thinking while you were talking that you have these juicy little puffball Kapha kids, and then you have these vata. These people in their vata stage. And I imagine it can be kind of balancing and pacifying to be combining those energies, like, very grounded with very airy.

Yes, yes, absolutely, yes. And, you know, if you think about grandparents with their grandkids, right? Like, even. Even if you think about back when you were a kid, your grandparents, if you had, like, a healthy relationship with your grandparents, you likely remember them as these, like, sweet, like, grounded people. And they were probably more like that when you were around than any other time in their life, because you were that. The Kapha energy for them, right? And you. You brought that. That youthfulness and the kind of, like, glow and stuff, and. And they fed off of. Off of that energy. And you probably also got a lot of really good out of the. The vata energy as well. The. The creativity. I remember my. My nana would do crafts with us all the time, and she didn't have Pinterest back then. I was just talking about that with my sister. We were like, how did you think of all of those things? And creativity is a big piece of the vata component. And so being able to kind of do that is just a really cool, really lovely thing. And. And yeah, bringing those generations together can be so healing. It's really cool.

I wanted to take a pause here in this conversation, and if you're listening to this conversation and this happens to be your first meeting with Hadley and I, I just want to welcome you to this podcast, welcome you to this conversation, and just ask that if you do vibe with this, if you do like it, then hit the subscribe button and be sure to pop over to find us on Instagram and our social media sites so you'll find the links to those in the bio because we're so glad that you're here. And, you know, having you be a part of this conversation is what gives us our sense of ikagai. It's what helps ground us in our purpose of spreading this message. And so if you're also loving learning from Hadley and I about all of this kind of stuff, we have a whole quiz on how to figure out which dosha state you may predominate in right now. And so no matter what stage of life you're in, if you're in the ka, well, you're probably not a kapha listening to this in the kapha stage of life. But no matter what stage of life you're in, you could be in a particular dosha. So even if you're in your pitta state of life, 20s to menopause, you could be in a state of avata imbalance. That.

That's me.

I'm raising my hand. I'm like vata imbalance all the time. And I'm not menopausal yet, y'. All. But take the quiz. It's free. So then when you listen to these next podcasts and, like, go back into our history, that you can get more richness out of it because you'll be able to apply it to yourself. So I just wanted to throw that in there. So please like and subscribe and share and all of that. So smash that button is what I hear the kids saying these days.

And leave us a review if you love it.

Oh, yeah, that would make us so happy. We actually read those and then we, like, smile and our hearts get big like the Grinch.

Our hearts increase three sizes that day. Three sizes.

At least we have cardiomegaly from your love. So I want to circle back to. So we're talking about Fogo. And the statistics are that you are not alone if you have a fear of getting older. 80% of Americans have a fear of getting older. And the fears, they're actually broken down into the Pfizer Permanente study report. And so can you guess, Hadley, of the concerns, what the number one concern is of getting old for people.

It'S got to be, ah, one of. Okay, I'm thinking of two different things. One is how you look, and then the other is memory. Those would be the two ones that I would guess.

That's me saying, yeah, I totally give you that. I was smacking my pen against my cup of tea. Yeah. So how you look, I would say that that fits into physical decline.

Yeah.

Because that's number one. That's 23% of respondents were afraid of physical decline. And so that is huge. A lot of people are worried about my Body breaking down, getting wrinkles, not being able to do the things that I want, like hiking or boating or whatever it is. And then the second is memory loss. And so people are really concerned about memory loss. That's 15% of respondents. And then chronic disease was third and tied with running out of money, which is 12%. And then, interestingly, the fear of dying was the last, the least activating factor of fogo at only 10%, which for me is like number one. But apparently I'm a little bit unique in that.

I love it. I think a lot of people look at getting older as like, there's so many years before you die of, like, being quote, unquote old, that it's probably like, well, you know, I've talked to people who are like, I would rather just die young and not not be old, which I think is so sad. That's like such a sad thing. So let's talk a little bit about how to actually increase our, you know, we. We have this, like, you end of life, we have death, but then we also have this. This stage where we talk about, in public health, we're trying to increase the quality of life for as long as we possibly can. And this is the. This is the Q, O L quality of life. And so the. We want to be able to stay young and become as old as possible is what. What one of my teachers said one time, and I just loved that. That was actually the teacher that got me into public health and wanting to do what I do. And so. So we basically, we want to. We want to be able to get. Be as old as possible, but feel. Feel like we are, you know, thriving in our bodies, still thriving in our bodies and our minds and. And embrace. Embrace our current age. So how do we do that? How do we actually embrace the stage of life that we're in, whether that is Kapha Pitta or fata? So young, middle, and older. And how do we do that while at the same time not just being like, oh, well, screw it, we're just gonna get older, our bodies are gonna fall apart, and it's just sort of a lost cause, right? Because that's what I hear a lot.

I hear that, like, I have a family member. I won't call them out because maybe they'll listen and they'll call themselves out. But they say, like, I don't like feeling pain, and when I walk really far, I'm in pain, so I just don't walk. And she's like, it's because I'm old and I'M like, it's not because you're old. It's because you haven't pursued fitness to help you be able to walk as far as you want to walk.

And what I would say to that is kaizen, which is another Japanese word. Funny that we're. That we're pulling on a lot of Japanese words. They live a long time. And so kaizen is basically. It just means small incremental change over time. And essentially it's baby steps. And so if she walks for a long time and she is, you know, know, in pain, what I would say is walk a short amount of time, just walk a little bit, and then you. And then build upon that. Which is like the least sexy advice ever. Right. Like, no one wants the advice to just, like, take a little step at a time. Right. It's like, no, I want to overhaul my entire life or I don't want to do anything at all.

Can I just tell you, there's this. This claymation movie.

Oh, my gosh.

And it's. Has anybody heard this? It's like the. The Heat Miser and the Winter Warlock.

Yes. Yes. I love that. It's like with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and all of the Rankin Bass. Yeah. Yep.

So he's like. And put one foot in front of the other and then he's like. He walks fine in, like, previous scenes, but then in this scene he's like, staggering. Like, his legs are made of two by fours. And so that song as you're talking about this, like, really unsexy advice is like, small steps.

Yes.

I'm like singing, like, put one step in front of the other. Soon you'll be walking out the door.

See, I knew we were gonna sing on this podcast episode.

You did.

You were singing.

I'm singing Rankin Bass.

Oh, my gosh, it's so good. I actually shared that with my clients last Christmas.

Of course you did.

Because I was watching that movie. Yes. I was like, you guys, it's kaizen. It's the small steps. It's Kaizen. So. Yes. Put one foot in front of the other and go watch that clip. It's the Winter Warlock.

It's the Winter Warlock. The song would be in your head. I'm sorry.

Yes. So, yeah, so. So taking those small, incremental steps is huge. Especially when we're getting older. And if we haven't done some of these things in the past. Right. A lot of times we have these, what in Ayurveda we call samskaras, which are these. These grooves, these patterns, these old Patterns that are well worn. And they're the things that we have been doing for a really long time. And the older we are, we maybe have been doing them for an even longer time. And so it's hard to break out of those things. But the best thing to do for that is those small steps. And it's so interesting, like, even talking about exercise, because there have been so many studies where it's like, just walk. Walking is like the best thing for older people because it's, you know, low impact, but it also gets your heart rate up a little bit. And it. It's basically what humans are designed to do every single day of their lives, is to walk. And so if you can just do that, you don't need to have like a workout regimen. You know, if you go from not walking every day to walking every day, even if it's just like 10 steps, walk out your door, go one block, something like that. Or if it's the dead of winter and you don't want to slip and fall, maybe you walk up and down your stairs or walk around your house or whatever it might be, but just doing that one little thing increases your longevity just by so, so, so, so much. And so. And that is one of the tips that we have is the. Is movement. Movement is of course, one of the best things that we can do as we get older. Walking, swimming is another really great one as well as. And this is for all of us, you know, even if we're not in an older stage of life, the vata stage of life. Strength training is really, really, hugely important, especially for women, because, well, first of all, women tend to not do it as much as men. And our bone density tends to decrease more than it does for men after menopause for us. And so strength training to build up that the strength of our bones is hugely, hugely important. And now I'm not saying that you need to go do like a ton of deadlifts with really heavy weights, though. I do that and I love that you don't have to do that. But doing some sort of strength, even if it's a low weight, strength training is really, really helpful too.

Yeah, I love that. Builds bones, it increases libido, increases metabolism and energy, and you can do it really easy. Even if you're in a small Manhattan apartment.

Apartment.

And it's cold outside, you could get little bands. You can do resistance against the wall. Like you can use your own body. So I love that. And my guess is that you have more tips because you use the plural so this is for conscious aging. Right, as opposed to anti aging. We're not trying to resist or be against aging. You're helping us learn how to consciously age so that we can feel delicious and happy and vital.

Yeah, because the only reason people don't want to age and the only reason anti aging is. Is a thing, is because they want to be happy and vital and all of the things. But we can age while having all of those things. Right. We don't have to. We don't have to have a fear of getting older as much as the. As our, like media might suggest that that's the case. We don't necessarily need to experience that as we get older. And so what else we can do that is not necessarily, necessarily anti aging, but is conscious aging is. Is making our bodies as juicy and unctuous as possible, which, you know, I don't love either of those words, but I can't really think of anything better than them. I just don't love how they sound. It's kind of weird.

Yeah. Why is that? I feel like all women hate juicy, unctuous, and moist.

Moist. Yes, I know. I mean, we really need to embrace.

Those words because that equals.

It equals happiness and thriving happiness in our later years. And so what happens when we get older is. Is the vata stage of life. We get drier. We, you know, for lack of a better phrase, kind of like shrivel a little bit. And what we can do to help us to age into our later years without degenerating is to stay really hydrated and help our bodies to, you know, combat some of that dryness that that comes on this. In this stage of life. So what happens with that dryness is we get dry skin, we get dry sinuses. So a lot of times people think that they have allergies and really the air is just really dry or they are really dry. And so their sinuses are really dry as well. Same with. And this also correlates with our colon, how our colon is doing. So allergies and colon are very, very, very interconnected in Ayurveda and in modern science studies and stuff as well. So we have constipation, we have gas, we have bloating. All of that is super common when we get older. Just ask your grandparents or ask your parents or ask your friends if you're in the vata stage. A lot of people are experiencing that, and so. And medication a lot of times makes that even worse. So what do we want to do to actually make ourselves more juicy and unctuous? Number one is oil. So, and I don't just mean oil in our food. I also mean like rub yourself down with some oil, give yourself a self massage. You know, if you can do it daily, that would be amazing. Sometimes people like to do it for a long time. Sometimes you can just slap some oil on and call it good. But, but putting oil on your body is really, it's a very common thing in Ayurveda, it's called abhyanga and it basically the word for oil in Sanskrit, which is the language of Ayurveda is called sneha. And that word means oil. And it also means love. It's the same word for both oil and for love. And so putting that is like the ultimate self love. Practice putting that on your body into just kind of being with your body and with yourself. And that can actually help to cultivate not only, you know, making you more unctuous, but also cultivate a lot more body love, especially if you have this fear of your physical degeneration as you get older. And we know from studies that the, the more positive feelings we have toward our body, the more capable our bodies actually can be. And you know, the more we can, we can have that longevity. And so oil, that's, that's the one thing for hydration, oil on the outside of our body and then oil on the inside as well. So drizzling like olive oil on everything or ghee even, you know, even better. Which ghee is amazing for so many things, but essentially it is clarifying butter. It is something that Ayurveda has used for thousands of years and it's really helpful for the colon and for our gut microbiome and all of the other things as well. I won't go super deep into ghee, but that is like such an amazing medicine is to just drizzle it on all of, all of the foods or cook with has one of the highest smoke points as well. So it's a really, really great one for actually for cooking your food. And it won't oxidize as quickly as other oils, which can wreak havoc in your body too. So ghee, olive oil, sesame oil is another great one. But those are, those are kind of the holy trinity of creating more hydration in your body.

Can I add something about giving?

Yes, please.

As somebody who's mostly plant based and has sensitivity to dairy, I was always nervous about ghee. And I want to mention that ghee is the fat and the problem with most people who are sensitive to dairy. It's the casein and the way. These are the proteins which has been taken out in the processing. So if it has casein or some proteins, it's very trace amounts. So, of course, talk to your doctor first. But for those whose immediate thought is, oh, I want to try this ghee, but it's butter, and I can't have dairy, you'll probably be okay with it. The other thing is it could be lactose intolerance. And so, you know, just, you know, take your own health into consideration with that. But generally speaking, ghee is really good for.

Even if you have dairy. Yeah, generally speaking, it is. A lot of times people can have it even if they don't eat dairy. And so, yeah, it's, you know, definitely talk with your doctor, but it's. It might be something that you can still do. And so. And yeah, and even when you. If you make ghee, you kind of see the. The white. The white part kind of comes out. You boil it on the stove, and the white part kind of comes to the surface, and you scrape that part off, and then you filter it out, and then you have just like this, like, golden oil from the butter, which is. It's actually really pretty and it smells really good. So, yeah, ghee is wonderful. And then the other piece of hydration is obviously water. Right. And so notice that I didn't start with water, because a lot of times we think, oh, we just need to drink more water, and that is what is going to keep us hydrated. But if we don't have enough oil in our foods, in our, you know, in our bodies, we actually won't be able to keep hold of that hydration. We'll kind of just pee it all out. And so we need that oleation as well. And a lot of times people just think, oh, just. Just drink more water. And a lot of times they're drinking ice water as well, which is harder for our body to assimilate and to. To take in. And so if you're really wanting to optimize for hydration, drinking warm water throughout the day is really, really helpful as well. We've talked about that in the travel podcast. But if we want to pass the Vita, which most of us do, then warm water is the way to go, rather than cold water. Yeah.

Yeah. I was thinking about you when I was out. I asked for warm water when I was at a restaurant the other day.

Yes.

The lady asked me three times what I meant, but I wanted warm water.

I love it. I love that you stuck to it.

I stuck to my Warm water, yes.

Sometimes you can also ask for tea and just not put the tea bag in. Like, sometimes if they're like, I don't understand what your question is, but often if you ask for warm water, they're not going to charge you for anything. So that's kind of nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing is for staying, like, hydrated and unctuous and juicy is cooking your foods. And so a lot of times we think that eating salads and smoothies and all this, these raw vegetables, is how we are. We stay healthy. And those things are great for certain people at certain times, if you have a lot of pitta and it's in the middle of summer, like, those are awesome. But if you're going into your later years, a lot of times if you've got a lot of vata going on, it can actually be harder to digest than just cooking your food, having like a grain bowl or, you know, some sort of cooked. Cooked greens, just cooked vegetables, cooked root vegetables, whatever it might be. And so I'm not saying don't eat vegetables because please do, but cooking them can be really helpful for your digestion and for not getting constipated or gas or bloating or all of that kind of thing as well. So those are the, the, the things to stay hydrated. And then the, the two other pieces, one of them we've already talked about, which is that community. And bonus points if it is an intergenerational community, bonus, bonus points if it is a service community, because we get a lot of satisfaction out of being, serving others rather than just like the, The Pitta stage of life is kind of. Well, the Kapha stage of life is a very selfish stage of life, which is fine, we've demonized the word selfish, but it doesn't need to be selfish. It doesn't need to be a bad thing. Like, we, we have to learn to survive and take care of ourselves and all these things. And then pitta, you know, we start to be of service to others, but we're also getting paid for those things. And, and so we kind of are transitioning. And then the vata stage, if we want to really embrace the vata stage, it's, it's. We want to start to give of ourselves without expecting, you know, a reciprocal, a completely reciprocal exchange and rather, you know, just feeling really good about ourselves for giving. Right. And so that, that is, is a really, really important piece of embracing the vata stage. And then the last one that I'll say is having a spirituality practice. So if we want to embrace the Vata stage, having this spirituality practice is, is so, so huge. We have this opportunity to disengage a little bit from the material world because we're no longer in the workforce, we're no longer taking care of little children. We have this, this place where we can, you know, we have more space and we have more of this ability to find, you know, whether you want to call it God or the universe or your soul or your higher self, whatever it might be, this is a really amazing time to be able to do that. And I see that a lot of people don't have that right now. And I think that that's a big piece of the dissatisfaction for getting older because we do have some degeneration in our bodies, but that we can look at that as an opportunity for no longer, you know, being so attached to our bodies and what our bodies can do and start to open up a little bit more to the less tangible. Right. The vata stage is all about air and ether, and we don't have as much of that material, tangible, earth element. Right. And it's, it's. We're starting to get a little bit more into the ethers and so embracing that can be hugely fulfilling. From what I have seen and from what I've learned from the elder people in sort of like Ayurveda communities and stuff. So those are the, those are the biggest things I would say, which is.

It really echoes what psychology talks about. You know, every student taking psychology 101 will learn about Erikson's developmental stages. And the final, the eighth and final stage that Erik Erikson talks about of psychosocial development, which he said started around age 65, through the rest of life, is integrity versus determination, despair. And in this stage of life, the major question is, did I have a meaningful life and how do I create meaning? The basic virtue being wisdom and the important events is to look back and to look at what gives you joy, what gives you purpose, what gives you wholeness, what gives you peace, what are you pursuing to cultivate those things as opposed to accomplishment and taking care of all of the kids. And then whatever these feelings of acceptance, these feelings of connectedness, he talks about an integrity that the person is able to lean into, a sense of wholeness and wisdom and just despair, on the other hand, is more ruminating over our mistakes and feeling like our life was wasted. And he teaches about that spiritual connection connecting to your greater purpose, your greater meaning. And so it's really lovely how again, Ayurveda Teaches about things that many, many years later, great thought leaders explained in their own language. And so what I kind of hear you saying that Ayurveda is teaching us in these four tips of pursuing vitality throughout the lifespan by aging consciously, is to ground yourself in the spirituality and embrace that directionality that vata may be pulling you into, which is that higher purpose and that higher meaning and higher connectedness. But then also. Also allowing yourself to really sink into community, that lack of isolation. But what they're doing, that Okinawa island that we were talking about, is serving others and living a life without regret by having those intergenerational connections. And then you gave us some really practical solutions for the body in terms of movement and strength. And then that unctuousness of hydration. Self love. I love that word that you used, the ultimate self love in Sanskrit, which is also the same word as oil. What was that again?

Sneha.

Yeah, Sneha.

Yeah. So oil and love.

Oil and love. My favorite thing, which is such a great way to imagine stepping into our later years, is just like, how can I just love on the deliciousness of a life well lived. And as we're finishing up here, there is this quote from Jeffrey Love, and he's the research director at the aarp, and he says that old age is always a bit older than you are, and so it's never too late. It's never too. Never too late to start. So no matter how old you are, as you're listening to this conversation, if you're in your 20s or your 90s, that it's never too late to start, that old age is always just a little bit older than you, and that you can start to make these small, actionable changes so that you can live the rest of your years with a sense of integrity and joy and connectedness.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you are in your 20s or your 30s and you're like, well, you know, I'm not there yet, all of these things apply to you, too, and they're all great ways to be able to, you know, age gracefully, go into those later years and have more of that unctuousness, that juiciness, that fulfillment throughout your life that is not so attached to what you are doing in the world, but you know who you are, you know the fulfillment that you want to have, and those are all great ways to do that.

So awesome. Thank you so much for giving me this pep Talk for my 40th year on this earth. It was a success, y'.

All.

I just said 40.

Yes. Hey, there.

You go raising the roof.

I'm so excited for you. It's gonna be another amazing more than 40 years left. So, you know, we're gonna embrace it consciously.

We're gonna embrace it consciously. So let's do this together. My friends. We love you. We're grateful for you. Thank you for listening.

Thanks everyone.

The recording you just listened to consists of consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in clinical psychology, and Happy Healthy Hadley, an Ayurveda expert with a master's in health, behavior and health education. While these opinions are based upon literature, counseling education, medical training, and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on the subject. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological or other form of treatment. If you are in a Crisis, please call 911-OR call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. If you are in need of counseling.

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