In a 2012 Prevention magazine article I found buried in one of my folders, Mehmet Oz predicted that his readers would live to be 90, but feel like 60!
The formula for this optimistic outcome involved the standards we have heard repeatedly: a healthy diet; regular sleep; exercise; plus morning stretching, followed by meditation.
Alas, I cannot claim adherence to all of these prescriptions at the same time, just as I cannot string together two nines to shoot an exemplary score for 18 holes of golf— as focused and well-intentioned as I may strive to be.
Neither can I claim to have cooked even a fraction of the recipes I’ve ripped out and filed over the years. Much of that recipe-collecting was directly related to my love of entertaining and being with friends—Dr. Oz also emphasized the power of social connection for stress-management—so I succeeded in that habit, at least.
But the pandemic happened.
And it changed everything.
Dr. Oz makes no mention of escapism as a health strategy, but as I reflect back on the last two years, it is clear that it has played a major factor in my life.
Never a television-watcher, I am now conflicted to report that I am almost done with seventeen seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.
I cannot even recall what I watched before this series, but this is, I suppose, the reward for successful “zoning out.”
Unsurprisingly, I have had enough of this passive time on the sofa, the watching and the reading. I want to rejoin the world, in all its messiness—and a new health club seems like a great place to start.
Yes, it is a headphone world, where people stay in their bubbles and do their own thing—but maybe I’m not ready yet for a lot of conversation.
Stepping forward and being somewhere new sounds good enough for now.
Whether I live to be 90 or not. ©