Ageless Aging: Believe it or Not?

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What are you waiting for? Good night.

Do you have any idea the value of your mindset when it comes to aging and to actually helping you live longer and stronger?

My guest is going to tease for you just exactly how much attitude about aging impacts Your longevity. And of course, you and I, either one of us, are talking about the desire to live longer unless we're also living better. And we give you a lot of juicy little habits so you can do that too.

My next podcast, the episode you're about to hear, is very unique and special.

This was the interview that Maddie Dykewald did with me for the What, When, and Why to Exercise for Women 40 and Over.

And it's such a special episode.

And Maddie, in celebration of her brand new book publishing this coming week, I promised that I would promote this episode for you.

She's done decades worth of work about aging, about women in particular, and about menopause.

And some of the things that we shared in this episode will shock you.

And by the way, if you have not watched the whole What, When, and Why to Exercise for Women 40 and Over, It's not too late.

You can still get your hands on the recordings. Welcome back, everybody. I'm so glad you're here. My next guest is a brand new book author. Maddie Dykewald is the award-winning author and co-founder of Age Wave, recognized by Forbes as one of the top 50 female futurists globally.

For nearly 40 years, Maddie Dykewald has been deeply involved in exploring all aspects of the age wave and how it's fundamentally transforming our lives and the world at large.

And this has led her to become an award-winning author, acclaimed public speaker, and thought leader on longevity and aging, health, wellness, and the new retirement. Maddie co-founded Age Wave, the world's leader in understanding and addressing far-reaching impacts of longevity and our aging population. With women at the forefront of the longevity revolution, Maddie's dug deep into their specific longevity-related wants, needs, and challenges, as well as opportunities.

She's a co-founder of the nonprofit Women Against Alzheimer's. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. And it's not just about you, but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made for menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.

Thanks so much for being here, Maddie.

Thanks, Debra. It's a pleasure.

And congrats. I have to say this because it is like right now, you know, your book is coming out very soon, Ageless Aging: A Woman's Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan. What was it that prompted you to, to write this book? I mean, you've been in it for so long and have already written a back of books. Why this book?

Yeah, good question. Longevity itself is kind of bubbling up as being a really hot topic, and that's because we are really in the midst of a longevity revolution. And I mean, think about it, even just 100 years ago, the average life expectancy was only about 47, and it has skyrocketed all the way up to on average 77. That's like a huge jump. That's 30 years of extra longevity, which I like to think of as a longevity bonus. Now, here's the really cool part for women. We have won the longevity lottery. We live on average 6 years longer than men. And that is really because of the estrogen in our bodies. We get an extra 10 years of protection from things like cardiovascular disease. And yeah, so women are leading this longevity revolution. And yet, if you go and look at all the books by all the really well-known biohackers and longevity experts, they're all written by men, or most of them are written by men. And I thought, well, what— something's wrong with this picture, right? And I want to change that. I believe personally, because we are leading this longevity revolution in terms of living longer, we women have gotta change the narrative of aging. We've gotta make it a, put a little more positive spin on it and make it something that we don't dread. Because for millions and millions of years, humans have tried to grow long-lived people. Now that we're doing it, we ought to celebrate it. So yeah, that's part of why I'm doing it.

So good. And you really did such a great capsule for this last day of the summit and for releasing this as a podcast right now before the book comes out, because this is really— we're looking at both sides here. And so everyone who is back with me from last year, you know, the first What, When, and Why to Exercise for Women last year delved deep into brain and muscle and bone health and looking at protocols and how-to and We talked a little bit about mindset, so we do want to talk about exercise, but I think it is the mindset because we have to think, I can still do that. It's not too late and it's not new. We can gain strength. And yet we still seemingly have this hard time believing it because maybe I'm Maddie, I think we're it. We'll be the first who's lifted weights until I hope until tomorrow is my last day. Right. Talk a little bit about one What were some of the biggest surprises as you researched for this book?

Yeah. Well, Debra, that is a big question to unpack. So let me try to unpack the various pieces of it. First, there were a lot of surprises. I've been in the field of aging and longevity for almost 40 years. So you do the math. I am— I just turned 74 myself. And I've had the great honor—

and I think every— everybody is saying, I'll have what she's having right now.

So, well, yeah, you know, I use myself frankly as a little bit of a guinea pig because I had the opportunity to not only be involved in research myself with Age Wave, because we are a think tank focused on aging, longevity, and the new retirement. And we learned so much there. I could— literally talk to you for hours about that. But in addition to which, for ageless aging, I did a lot of research with the top experts, researchers, scientists, physicians. I was really surprised. I thought that maybe 10 or 15 would be willing to talk to me, but I talked to and interviewed almost 100. Wow. And there were a few things that bubbled up to me as being surprises. Actually, there were a lot of things, but one you already alluded to. And that is the impact our attitudes and expectations have on our longevity, not only on how long we live, but our health spans or how healthy we are towards the end of our lives. What I learned was that there have been some studies, some longitudinal studies. So those are long-term studies that have been done on adults here in the United States that tell us that a positive attitude towards your own aging can add up to 10 years to your lifespan. And then think about that, especially for women who I think get the brunt of ageism thrown at us.

Yeah.

I mean, men get distinguished as they get older. Women just get old. That's not fair at all. So I think we've got to reframe it. We've got to think about it differently for ourselves and for other people as well. That aging, in fact, can be filled with resilience, experience, wisdom, opportunity to grow, to keep growing. I think that's the way I would put it. So that was a bit of a surprise. So there were some other very specific surprises that came up to me that particularly impact women. One is that sleep studies, which are so important because sleep is such an important part of the holistic recipe for long life and healthspan and brainspan, none of them have been done on adults over the age of 65.

Wow.

Zero. So, I mean, we could, in fact, have completely different needs in terms of sleep. The one thing I did learn about sleep was this whole importance of circadian rhythms and how what we do during the day really impacts how we sleep at night. So, you know, now I never used to do this. I wake up at the same time every morning if I can, and I kind of worship the sun.

I might have you repeat that because there's a thing among a lot of midlife women, you know, if I didn't sleep well, shouldn't I try to get every, every last bit, maybe sleep in? And I think this is a really important reset for everybody to make. You, you almost, correct me if I'm wrong based on your research, but you make tonight a better night's sleep if you get up at the same time, regardless of how last night went.

Yeah, that's true. And one of the sleep scientists I spoke to told me, and I won't use her name, but she probably wouldn't like that. But she did say that she'd rather get 5 hours of really deep sleep than 7 hours of really restless sleep.

Very cool. Very cool. So talk a little bit about any of the studies that you did pertaining specifically to exercise and exercise habits.

Okay. Well, the AgeWave, we haven't done work specifically on exercise at AgeWave, but we have had the great opportunity to research some of the top scientists and researchers involved with exercise. And that was really interesting to me. First, keep in mind, based on a rather old study, the MacArthur Studies on successful aging, they say that the number one thing you can do to bring your youth with you into that second and third parts of your life is to walk 30 minutes a day. I mean, that's a pretty simple exercise.

The, the bar is low.

Yeah. So we can do that very low.

But on the other hand, there are people that have never exercised before and they've gotta start somewhere. And I would suggest if you're gonna walk, what a great thing to do with a friend. And that'll double up the positive impact of it.

Yeah. So love that. And I think too, for women particularly, you're tied to the charity, the nonprofit about Alzheimer's. I mean, that's a big issue. I think. We don't always go for it. We go for, I want to look better in this dress by Saturday night, I've got a reunion, I've got a wedding. We go for the aesthetics. And here's the thing, no judgment, we don't care what motivates you because it's a two-for-one. You go for that, you get the health benefits and the disease-proof and all the rest. But I think the brain benefits are sometimes forgotten until we start missing a beat.

We start—

can't remember where I put the keys— and then realizing that exercise actually helps sharpen that tool. Can you talk a little bit about the brain benefits of exercise?

First of all, there have been many studies on this. Just to put it into a context, it used to be that science told us you can't do anything to prevent cognitive decline or Alzheimer's disease. If it's in your genes, you're gonna get it. And from research we've done at Age Wave, and we've done a lot of research on this particular issue on brain health. What we learned by talking to women and men over the age of 50, it's the number one health fear. Number one over everything else, over cardiovascular disease, strokes, heart disease, over anything, cardio— diabetes. It is the number one thing. And women were twice as likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease as men. So, you know, this is a scary situation. Science now tells us, there's been research that has been done that tells us there are things that we can do to either prevent or delay. So that is fantastic news. Now, even better, especially for this conference, the number one thing that you can start doing right now is to exercise. According to the Alzheimer's Association, Exercise, regular exercise can actually increase the size of your hippocampus, which is where memory is central, right? That's right. That's exactly right. And with people who get Alzheimer's disease, their hippocampus actually shrinks. That's not good news. There are lots of other things that are important. You talk about menopause a lot. I know hormones are a big part of the holistic recipe for brain span. It's a huge thing. But the idea that we've been so misled about hormones through science and through physicians, and, you know, they're very well-meaning, so they're not trying to mess us up. But in fact, there was this big study that was done that suggested that hormone replacement was a no-no, not good for your health, not good for you. Just suffer through. And you know what? The science now tells us much different story. But in fact, hormone replacement is in fact for most women, not all women, but for most women, it is not only relief in terms of your symptoms, but it's also something that can help your brain health. Protect your cognition. This is like such great news, right?

So true. And because that's the number one fear, that would— we'd lead with that. But also, it seems to be very productive for lean muscle.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there is one thing you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself, not only to get the protein but the fiber, the fruits and vegetables I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day 30 years ago. But when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want, that I don't want, hiding in most protein powders That's when I finally caved in after years of saying I will never ever ever sell supplements. Stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning after workouts by always being prepared. Look, yep, I agree, real food first, but it's just not convenient to carry a turkey sandwich. Sometimes the protein— and don't forget the fiber— They kill cravings and they boost satiety. And you've got to make it easy to do the right thing. You can use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at Flipping50.com today.

Dr. Felice Gersh also mentioned, you know, how what you're doing already with your exercise for your muscle, for your bone, optimal body composition, and for your brain health probably has greater efficacy if you're also using HRT.

One of the other people I interviewed, which this was a surprise also, was Dr. Valter Longo, who you may know is the pioneer behind intermittent fasting. He told me, and Dr. Gersh said the same thing, that it's totally misunderstood, especially for women, that these biohackers at the leading edge, mostly men, in fact, men, they're— they've decided that they're going to say, oh, intermittent fasting, what a great idea. Let's see how extreme we can take it. Let's go 16, 18 hours. And in fact, Dr. Longo told me that's not even good for you. He also told me, and this was a huge surprise, by the way, he did say 12 to 13 hours was the sweet spot. And that's pretty easy to do.

Very easy to do. We close the kitchen after dinner. We don't have anything till breakfast. Let's just do that and get more sleep. Right.

That's exactly right. And it is really good for your sleep. He said, be sure not to eat, or rather to go to sleep until 3 hours after you eat. So, you know, you want your digestion to have its opportunity to really function well.

Yeah.

And, and by the way, gut health and brain health, very related. And the science is coming out stronger and stronger on the interconnection of those two pieces.

Yes.

But I was gonna tell you one other thing that he told me that is so contrary to what we think. He said, oh yes, and the most important meal of the day, breakfast.

Yeah. And I think Felice plays right into that. So Dr. Gerish also says that, and I think this is where women get confused because, and let's face it, it's not just men, but women get on the bandwagon too. And maybe this is also somewhat what we're doing with intermittent fasting and with exercise. Caloric restriction is adding stress, a controlled hormetic stressor, but we're also doing that at a point in our lives where sometimes there are uncontrolled stressors coming at us. And it all goes into the same backpack that you're carrying. So if we have the tipping point, you know, too long of a fast may actually put you back into stress. And it is the hormones like cortisol that determines will you burn fat or store fat.

So that's exactly right.

Yes, we've got to play that game really wisely. And, you know, I think to your point of 3 hours at least between dinner and bedtime, You know, so if you want to fast and you want to make sure you're getting a little bit longer fast, it's still wiser to reset your clock, turn it so you're eating in the morning and stop earlier in the evening if you want to go a little bit longer.

If you're going to play, that's right, back to the circadian rhythm issue. Circadian rhythms play a huge role in all of this. I mean, one of the great things that I tried to do in Ageless Aging is, you know, not to just talk about stress or eating or fitness or sleep. But what I began to recognize from talking to all these experts and scientists and from the work I've done at Age Wave is that it's not just about one ingredient. It's about a holistic recipe that includes everything from purpose and social connection to sleep and hormones and exercise. They all work together. And oddly, well, maybe not oddly to me, but interestingly, they all impact each other. So as you said, if your eating is such that it can actually create stress in your system, that's not a good thing. Yeah.

And I, I'm going to say this in another way for everybody. I mean, basically what you're saying is everything works like a symphony. They all need to be tuned together to play.

I think that's a really good point to make, Debra. I mean, we all think we have to be perfect. I mean, that's part of our challenge as women is we want to get it really right. And we show up that way, like in the workplace, at home with our kids. We feel like, oh my God, if I didn't get it right, I'm screwing them up forever. But in fact, If we move in the right direction and when we fall off the wagon, if we course correct and get back up and try again the next day, that's okay.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I love that you've said that. And I, you make me think about in this contemporary moment we're in, you know, almost a year ago, the Barbie movie came out, right? And the, the 2 or 3 minutes of that movie that I most identified with was where she's crying and saying, but I'm not a rocket scientist and I haven't gone to the moon and I haven't been—

are you kidding?

But that is kind of the amplification of what most of us do with our own expectations. We don't put that on anyone else, but we tend to think we have to juggle it. And asking for help, I think, is one of the hardest things that women do.

I know I struggle with it. And yeah, I don't know about you, but yeah, it is hard.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So coming back to the book, so tease some chapters out, or as you were interviewing people. Oh yeah.

Wow. That's a big question. First, let me tease out some of the chapters. I really try to create a context by talking about this longevity revolution and The fact is that in the past, we really thought that what we were born with, our genetics, were sort of our destiny, that we had no control over it. But through the most recent scientific discoveries at places like Calico, we've learned that not only is that not true, it's almost the opposite. Up to 90% of our health and wellness is through lifestyle changes and environment. So that's putting a lot of control on us. And to me, that's a really important point. And I talk about that in depth in my first chapter. And then I go into something that very few people talked about, and that is what are the upsides of aging? Like, what are the things? What are the gains? What do you get? By living a longer life. And there are just variety of different things, like for instance, resilience. We all gain, we've gone through a lot. And then I try to break down the physical, the emotional, and then the social kinds of transformations that we can make in our lives that can actually help us to live better, longer. And at, in each chapter I offer some tips, techniques, and hacks. And, you know, one of the challenges I had was trying to cover a lot of territory. Mm-hmm. And I wanted to be able to talk to the sort of neophyte, someone who's really just starting out on their health and wellness journey. Mm-hmm. Because you can make changes at any age. Mm-hmm. And I also wanted to be able to talk to the more, the veteran. The health and wellness veteran like your listeners are probably falling into that category. Love it.

I love it. Okay. You know, all of your, you know, 40 years, I wanna talk kind of broadly, you know, in looking at all of our audience members potentially, but how have you found exercise needs morph as we live longer? What have you seen? 'Cause I think these next, 20 and 30 years will tell a lot. It'll tell an entirely different story, don't you think?

Oh yeah.

We're, we're a generation unlike, very unlike the one before us.

Yes. And from studies that we've done at Age Wave, we asked people 50 plus, how are you different from your parents and maybe your grandparents? And they said, we're more active, we're more vibrant, we're more youthful. And were even more purposeful. Here's the thing. I think exercise is really important for people of all ages. There's no doubt to me. It's kind of a silver bullet. Kind of said that before, and I feel it's really true. However, it's a nice to have when you're young. When you start hitting 50 and when you're young, you can just, I'm going to do cardio all day and all night, or I'm really into building muscle. You know, you can get away with that. But as you get older, you begin to recognize the fact, or maybe you should recognize the fact that there's about 6 different elements to exercise that you need to include in your life. Cardio for sure. There's also muscle building, and you really talked about that a little, strength building.

Yeah.

Because at the age of 50, you start to lose muscle mass. That's called sarcopenia. Unless you do strength training. And then there's also balance. I mean, how many stories have we heard about people falling? And breaking a hip because they're like out of balance. There's also flexibility. We want to remain flexible. So you want to do yoga or stretching or somehow integrate some flexibility into your life. Another element is relaxation. Now, we don't think of relaxation as being part of exercise, but it is. It's really important. I think it's different for everyone how they get there, but For me, I do these breathing exercises that really do help me relax, and I also meditate. And if you can combine them, like doing a HIIT workout is a great way to get cardio a little faster. I do Pilates because it combines so many of these elements, and that makes me feel really good that I can get it all in without it taking me the entire day.

Yeah.

And that's, I think, such a great point. Never too late. Right. And we've got these fantastic stories around us. And I think that the thing we all want to consider is surround yourself with people who are doing that, either doing what you are doing or what you want to be doing, because there's a small percentage of the population right now who is actually doing that. And I'm so glad you brought up relaxation because I would also kind of carry that over into recovery is one of the most forgotten and underused components of fitness. And this is really important as we're over 40. We need more recovery time between hard bouts of exercise. And that's not to say we will have to settle for being less fit. We'll be more fit when we allow the greater recovery time. And that, that was my last question, actually. Because we talked about, we opened with the importance of mindset and attitude and the effect that it has on your longevity. And my guess is it's not just on the longevity, it's not just on that 10 years, but it's the years in the life, right?

That's exactly right.

And that's the important part. So I want to ask you about, you know, meditation and the way you think about aging, and do you employ that? Yourself, you know, thinking about what will I look and feel like when I'm, you know, maybe putting yourself a decade in front of where you are now or two, or what will my 85-year-old self, what will that be like? What will I be doing? Do you ever go there, Patty?

Yeah, in a way I do. When I was about 5 years ago, I was really suffering with terrible hip pain in both my hips and I tried like everything. I PRP and cortisone shots and everything. And I've exercised through it and took a ton of Advil. I don't know if I should brag about that one, but finally I went to see a doctor who told me that I was born with hip dysplasia. And I asked him, what should I do? He goes, well, you need to get a double hip replacement. And I decided to do it at once. And I looked into, I did a lot of research. To discover, like, well, how can I in the meantime get rid of this pain? And I found a couple of things, one being an anti-inflammatory diet. And so I tried it. I, you know, cut out— it's not that hard. I mean, I cut out gluten, I cut out dairy, I cut out sugar as well as I could. I mean, sugar's in everything, so it's really hard to cut it out. But I did. And within 6 weeks, all of the pain in my hips went away.. And that's part of what motivated me to make a change. And I think in many ways, that's what motivated me together with all the knowledge I've accumulated over the years to write this book for the millions and millions of women who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond, and who are dealing with like aches and pains and maybe diabetes, and maybe they wanna lose a little weight. You know, there are answers to this. We can live better, longer.

So good. So good. Everybody's going to want to run out and get the book. And I think they are also going to want to follow you, Maddie. So where can they, number one, find you? And I'm assuming they can probably get the book wherever books are sold. But where's the best place for them to follow you and learn more?

I'm on all social media. I'm Maddie_Dykewald. Pretty easy to find me. I also have a website, same thing. The hard part is spelling my name.

And that'll be right under the interview, everyone. So we've got you covered.

Yeah. And I'd love it. I'd love to interact with as many people as possible. And yeah, I hope this was helpful for people.

This was fantastic, very uplifting and everybody. So if you go and you connect with any of our speakers, especially Maddie, let her know. That you're coming, and you're coming over from the What, When, and Why to Exercise for Women 40 and Over. Thank you so much, Debra.

This was great. Thank you.

Thank you for listening. To listen to a decade of episodes and to get the show notes, visit flipping50.com, where you'll be able to find all the previous episodes and I made it super easy to make the most of your listening time and get exactly what you want to listen to as top priority by getting the top 10 episodes in the areas you most care about, like how much protein do you need, weight loss, and other 3 ultra-important topics we've identified as our community's top 5. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife woman. So go and listen right now. So there you have it.

In this episode, indeed, we talked about the value of your attitude about aging.

And I would have to say your attitude about exercise and your attitude about menopause, and the beliefs we have and hold about those can positively or negatively—

and there generally is no neutral— going to influence how we go through those. And last, don't forget that much of the research based on any one type of health habit— exercise is one, I've reminded you for a full decade now that most exercise research is based on men or mice, not even on young women. Younger you and your hormones are not the same as any of those. You have to know to ask. But much of the research, even about habits like sleep— and women are probably struggling with sleep more than men— but we have to know to ask, is that research based on women just like me? To know really just how much influence or how much should I take that with a grain of salt to know whether it will fit or it won't. I hope you agree this was one of the most insightful episodes that we've had, and if you found it valuable, would you please share it with a friend?

Do you have a question for a podcast? A question you'd love to ask, or maybe a story you want to tell. Did you know we have a special group just for podcast question roundups and the answers? My community coaches and I provide answers daily inside of this group, but it's also where I go when I occasionally say, okay, open call for podcast questions, or tell your story. Would you like to be a guest? So if you're looking for community of women who are also interested in optimizing their health, strengthening their mindset, and looking forward to every new year. Join the Flipping 50 Insiders group. That's Flipping 50 Insiders on Facebook.