Well, hello and welcome to the hey Boomer Show. The

show for those of us who believe that we are never too old

to set another goal or dream a new dream. My name

is Wendy Green and I am your host for hey

Boomer, and it's a good

we have a doctor on the show today. I

had a little accident this past Thursday.

I caught my finger in a car door and

not only did I cut it badly, I also broke

it. And the pain was more than I

can describe. I was going into

costco at the time and ended up on the floor

in costco because of the pain. And,

yeah, it's not something that I would recommend. And

so now I am learning to do things one handed.

And I also am grateful for my friends who have

come by and helped, particularly

Doris, who brought me coffee and scones and kept me company

for a little while so that I could not think about the

pain. But

things change in a second, right? We

get distracted, we take our mind off what we're doing,

and that's when an accident happens. And yes, it's called an

accident. But as we age,

we don't process quite as fast. And so

it's more likely that we're going to have accidents. And we're going to

talk to Dr. David Bernstein about that, as well

as many other things. He has written several books

that we'll talk about and get his perspectives on how

to live a long and healthy and

fulfilling life. But before we

get to Dr. Bernstein, I always like to talk

to you about Rhodes Scholar. You know, Rhodes Scholar is my

favorite way to travel. And Rhodes

Scholar has trips to over

well, to over 100 countries around the world and to all 50

states in the United States. It is the not

for profit leader in educational travel for boomers and

beyond and for grandparents and grandchildren. So

go ahead if you are thinking about travel and check out

their website. Go to

roadroadscholar.org

hayboomer and please use the slash hey Boomer because it

lets them know that you heard about Road Scholar

travel from the hey Boomer Show.

And while you're here, I also want to encourage you to

download the Life Vitality Assessment from

the hey Boomer website, heyboomer Biz.

It will give you some insight into how vital

you are feeling at this stage of your life. Maybe

you're feeling fully vitalized, like you're ready to take on

anything. Maybe you have sustained energy that you're getting

from some of the work and activities that you're involved in.

Or maybe your cup is kind of half empty and

there's things that you want to do, but you just can't seem to get up

and do them. Or maybe it's time to take

stock and think about what it is that you

need to change or to add to get back that

feeling of vitality that is so important to us as we

age. So download the vitality assessment.

It's on the homepage of heyboomer, Biz. And if you'd like to

talk further about it, you can schedule some time with me

on my Calendly link. I will put that in the show notes

and let's talk. So with

that, let me bring on Dr.

Bernstein. Hi, David. Hi, Wendy.

Thanks for inviting me. It's wonderful to see you today, all

intact and ready to go, fingers and

all. Glad to have you here. Let me give them a brief

overview, a short bio about you.

So, Dr. Bernstein is an award winning physician

and author who is board certified in

both internal medicine and geriatrics.

He retired about three years ago from his practice in Clearwater,

Florida. But as we talk about here on hey Boomer,

retirement doesn't mean that he stopped. So his

40 years of experience have provided him with opportunities to

observe and empathize with thousands of adults as they

age. He's integrated his experience

with them and in his practice and

written several books. One book that

I read is called I've Got Some Good News and Bad News.

You're Old. These are tales of a

geriatrician. What to expect in

your beyond.

And then he has written something called The Power of Five.

The ultimate formula for longevity and remaining

youthful. And there's also a journal that goes along with that.

Dr. Bernstein is a graduate of Albany Medical

College, an associate clinical professor of the

Department of Medicine at the University of South Florida College of

Medicine, and he is our guest. So glad to have

you today. So let's start

by talking about accidents and safety. When I

did the technology check with you, you talked to

me about the way we process things differently

as we age and why

accidents are more likely to happen and how to stay

safe. Well, I'm glad you asked that question

because I think there

are some things that we can do to make our lives longer

and healthier, and I'm sure we'll get a chance to talk about it. But

something that often goes unspoken is the impact

of being responsible for our safety. And that

means driving safety. It means after

65, avoiding ladders, don't go up on the roof. Hire

someone to clean your gutters. Because you can change your

life in a snap with an accident like that. All

the plans that you have to take a road scholar trip and drive with your

grandparent grandkids and do some of those fun things really

get disrupted if you break your leg, if you break your arm.

Especially men who do some of these things,

they try to stabilize themselves of putting out their right

arm and they break their arm. Which means some of the

daily functions that we do, some of the things that, Wendy, you've found out

about breaking a finger on your right hand, you can't do as well.

You can't bathe and groom. And some of those things get really

difficult and they're preventable. And I think the

other point that you raise is that we need to take our

time to be conscious of what we're doing all the time and being and living

in the present. So thinking about I'm going to

Costco, I have my list, it's in my pocket. I'm not

thinking about who I got to call later. And the next podcast is just

being in the moment will often help prevent some of those

unfortunate accidents, as you call them.

Yeah, and I told you this, I was

surprised at how wiped out I was. I mean, it was just

a finger and it took me two days of

being exhausted and tired and nauseous to get over it. Like,

what was that about? Well, there's

the pain associated with that and the draining process and the release

of adrenaline and cortisol things that

are advantageous if you need to fight a saber

toothed tiger, but disadvantageous if you have to

deal with all. The repercussions of slamming your finger in the

door and breaking your finger and Balsing your nail and oh, my

goodness, it's this day of the week, and how am I going to get it

taken care of? And all of that just drains the energy

out of you. So another reason for preventing those

kind of events and there's other people who have something

similar will spend 6 hours in an emergency room and they'll be

among people who might come in with respiratory infections and things that are

contagious. So there's all kinds of reasons why being

safe and avoiding what you went through

is helpful. Yeah. So slow down. Be

present with what you're doing. So

David, what do you think is one of the

biggest health issues that faces us as

we age? Well,

everything I did in my writing when I would sit down

would always be directed at baby boomers, my high school

classmates. So this is right in my

wheelhouse about things that affect us and what

we can do. And we have control over

our lifetime and life expectancies and our health span.

It's all within the palm of our hand and we just have to recognize

and do it. And that's where my power of five S's

come in. If I'm addressing your question properly. It's things we have control

over. So we have control over what we eat, how much we

exercise, how much we sleep, how we address

stress and how we connect with people.

And they're all things that

take intention, they take understanding and they

take the fact that it's never too late to start

doing these things. I like that. It's never too

late. So you have an acronym, aging with

Grace. And I think

the G that you have in Grace is probably my favorite.

So why don't we start by unpacking that acronym and let's start with

G. Sure. And I really didn't

consider them focus groups, but I was invited to speak in our community

many times. And between those events and my

patients, I asked them what were the secrets to

their longer life and their happiness and their success in life.

And people would raise their hands, and I would hear

sort of the same things over and over again. And

I identified five. And I like the number five, because people like the

number five things. Five fingers in your hand,

fingers well. Four and a half in your case, but five

fingers in your hand. And five family members and five players on my favorite

sport, basketball. And one of my professors said,

you know, even doctors can only remember five things, so

don't give people any more instructions than five. Come back tomorrow and give five more

if you want. So that had a major impact

on what I put together. And then I

said, I want to make an acronym. So I came up with those

things. And the first letter of

G was Goals. Grace starts with

G. So having goals or a purpose in life

is one of the things that's just uniformly

present in people who had those long, healthy, happy lives. And

it doesn't mean that just because you retire

that you hang everything up and don't do anything, but you could always

set new goals or have a purpose in your lives. And there were

people who I evaluated as my patients who just were these great

examples. And one of my favorites was a

gentleman who managed some real estate in New York City and moved to

Florida. And I said, what are you doing? He says, Well,

I work as a security guard at the historic Clearwater

Hotel. And I said, oh, really? Why do you do that? He says,

well, it's enjoyable. I meet friends. I meet

people that I work with that are very enjoyable to be

with. I have this very beautiful drive to and from the

hotel. It's about 20 minutes, and I see palm trees, I see the

sunrise or the sunset, and it gives me something to

get up and do. In addition, he

said, if I had to spend my whole day with Edna,

one of us would end up in a grave, and the other one would end

up in prison, meaning they'd kill each other.

So having a purpose, having something to do

was an important part of his life. And he made himself

responsible for things at the hotel where he was a security

guard. And I remember him telling me, he said he caught some

people trying to steal things and to

report things that might have been stolen from their room,

but they weren't. So he felt that he was making a

difference, and that was incredibly important. And he lived

well into his ninety s, and he was still alive and kicking

when I retired. Yeah, I think that is

ultimately an important part of living

a fulfilling and healthy life. I think that

the other day I was out for my walk and I ran into a neighbor

who is 83 and he had a

remarkable recovery from cancer. And he said

one of his main things that he think

kept him going was to feel like every morning he had a reason to get

up out of bed. So having that purpose

unquestionably and even before that, going through chemotherapy

or whatever treatments he had to go through, he had to know that there

was life after all of those treatments. And that's

something that gets people going, because if people don't have a purpose in

life, they give up. Yeah,

and we talk about that a lot on the show. So the

R is probably my least favorite because it seems

like the one that we have less control over. And you talked

about control. So how do you explain R

for your roots? I explain it in two different

ways. One is your DNA and your roots. And

there are two things you can do with your roots. By the way,

your DNA contributes only 20% to

25% of your life expectancy. The

other 75% to 80% is up to you. So

it's only a small part, but it is an important part. And

if you have bad genes and you

know it, do something about it. If you know that

obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease run in your family,

then don't wait until you're 50 and 60 and 70 to do

something about it, when all they can do is put in stents and

bypasses. But start doing things early. And I

did start writing my books when I was in my

addressing my high school classmates and baby boomers was

appropriate at the time. But it's never too early, it's never

too late to start making those changes. The other part of

roots, and maybe I'm digressing a bit and maybe it has to do with the

leaves on the tree, but it's your family. It's how you

interact and how you know what your family tree is all

about and that's connections within your family.

But truly, it's what you can do to make your health

better. And the opposite of having bad

genes is when you have good genes. If you have good genes, take

care of them. Don't be going to fast food and eating

processed foods and not exercising and sitting on the couch and taking

advantage of your good genes because they'll let you down.

And the other thing about it is that we can always

make some changes. And getting back to the

safety issue, if you know you have good genes,

don't take advantage of them. Don't go doing

things that put you at risk, like slamming your finger in the door,

like going on the roof and going on ladders. I've seen enough

accidents happen in people's homes that have major impact on

them by doing foolish things and not thinking of safety.

It's interesting that you say that because I think

as boomers, our children don't quite

accept the fact that we are aging yet. I had a

very high bathroom ceiling that needed the light

changed, and I didn't want to go on the ladder being here by myself. So

I called my son and they thought that was ridiculous, that I should call them

to change a light bulb. Yeah, but if I fall, it's going

to be a whole lot worse.

It's a transition for them to accept us as getting older too, I

think. Sure. We're in

different generations and there's a lot of things different between

our generation and theirs. And the boomer generation is

we can do everything generation, and we've always done that and we can get

it done. That other generation

is I'll call someone, I'll do a fiver,

and I'll have a fiver come by and change my lights in my

house and then not learn how to do it.

And in necessity, they may not know how to do it. Now, this

doesn't apply to everybody, but I think you can

relate to that. Oh, yeah.

I think it goes both ways. Like, we haven't completely accepted the fact

that we're vulnerable. Also,

I'll say one other thing that I experienced

in my life and in my practice is

that those people who were my age and a little bit

older, meaning they were born a little bit before

me, had different experiences in life

and had to be creative and had to solve problems.

So problem solving for my staff members who were older than

me was really great. And I don't think that exists as

much today. And my best example

was we ordered a new refrigerator, small refrigerator for

our sample cabinet in our office. And one

of my nurses was changing the way the door open, change the

hinge. Now, I didn't even know you could do that, but she got out

the directions and changed the way the door opens so that it didn't

block the swinging door that we go into the room with.

So there's a lot of ingenuity and creativity and problem

solving that our generation had that I don't think

exists after us. Not as much, for

sure. All right, so we

did goals and we did roots. So now

A is for attitude.

And in my mind, I'm kind of relating that

to Roots because you talked about it's. Only

25% of our health impact and

our attitude towards our DNA is

going to have a bigger impact, I would imagine.

Correct. It does. And

attitude gets talked about a lot. And I

put three things as part of my attitude. It's attitude

of having a good attitude and being positive, having

an attitude of gratitude and then having an attitude of

kindness. So over the course of time, I've rolled

those three things together. But people talk a

lot nowadays about gratitude, and it's incredibly important. And some of

the physiologic things that happen in our bodies that

help us live longer happen when we express

gratitude. And my experiences with my

patients who express gratitude was quite

revealing to me. I had written a chapter in my book and it was going

to be my only chapter that was kind of about me. It was about how

I diagnosed someone's colon cancer and lung

cancer and that it made a difference in their lives.

And as I read more and understood it better,

my patients having gone through that,

having an opportunity to express their gratitude to me,

became more important than what the chapter was

about. That it was going to be about what I did. So I would watch

one of my patients who I saw every quarter come to my office

and thank me for finding his prostate cancer. To me, it

was no big deal. Prostate cancer is fairly easy to

detect. But I saw the expression on

his face when he would tell me how grateful he was

that he was still alive and he attributed it to me

and that he got so much out of that. That was impressive to

me. And I didn't understand it until this guy whose name is

Jack started doing that. And then there were other people who did the

same thing and I reflected back on some of those people from

earlier and realized that they got a great deal out of seeing

me just for that purpose. The rest of my exam with them was

fluff. Them coming in and having that opportunity

was important. And then there's this attitude

of kindness that I think gets glossed over in our

society. But being kind is just something that

we're doing something for other people. But we get so much more

out of being kind. It's like being generous and it's

about being charitable and that people will

say, well, give to you, feel good. But

that kindness part is when you're kind to other people,

you get something back in return that may be well

beyond what you've given to other people. And I

encourage people who are listening and watching to try that

out because I think you'll find that that's true.

Yeah, I think I call that the attitude

of being of service too, volunteering and

those kinds of things. But did you have experience where

the opposite happened? Like patients were so angry with you

for a diagnosis and how that

impacted their ability to recover

or to not recover?

I'll pat myself on the back a little bit and say that I

coached them well enough. I provided them

comfort in making a diagnosis and

providing the information so that they

understood. And I was always the

person that talked about reality.

So where other of the physicians may have been a little

bit more aggressive of their care or dismissive in their care,

I gave them the time to talk about those things to

prevent that. Were there people that were

angry about that? I can't think of any. There were

some diagnoses that were

challenging for people to understand how that happened.

I was so good or I didn't do this, I didn't smoke, but

they got a bad diagnosis and those were more difficult.

In my book, You're Old, I

wrote about one woman who in the

course of six months or less came

up with four diagnoses and I didn't know which one was going to kill her

first. And I had more difficulty

with the husband because he was a mean honorary

man and I had to play act and rehearse

what I was going to say to them. But she took it all

in stride pretty well and was very understanding as long

as I laid everything out for her. And I think

in this world of busy physicians and having to see large number

of patients and access to care being difficult,

sometimes the diagnosis and the conversation

gets glossed over. And I think people should make sure

they're with the right person and the right doctor to get that information

and ask for help. And even if it's not from the doctor

per se, social worker, a counselor who can help

them deal with and address some anger issues

that may be related to that. Yeah. And I think a

lot of people, particularly in the generation before us, were afraid to

question their doctors, to ask questions. And it sounds like

you were the kind of doctor that was straight with people and

if they wanted to ask you questions, you were there to give them answers.

I'm so proud of the fact that I was. And I do relate to

the fact that people didn't ask many questions

and they put physicians way up on some pedestal

that they didn't think they were able to. Nowadays we're lowered on the

pedestal, but I would still sit down

and say, look, you're not asking me enough questions. Let me give you a little

bit more information about this. I want you to have some control over the

situation because that's what anybody else would

want. And you may go and listen to

another consultant talk to you about it. Please come back and talk to me

because I'm afraid you may get

distracted and led down a path that,

knowing you, you wouldn't want to be on. Well, and I also

think, David, that when we're the

patient, many of us are so distracted with all of the

information that it's helpful to have somebody else there with us

to also hear the information because it can be overwhelming

sometimes. You are so right.

And I experienced it in two different ways. One was early

in my career when I was building my practice, I would meet with

my accountant and we would meet quarterly. And I was so

grateful for the fact that he had a legal sized piece of paper and he

gave me one and a half sheets of written material and instructions

because I just wanted to know how am I doing? How am I doing? And

I just had my focus on that.

Meanwhile, I had to pay this tax in this form

and I had to make this deposit and I had to pay this bonus. And

whatever those things were, I couldn't capture the information

he was telling me because I was so

flustered by all that information and

kind of the thought of am I doing okay financially? Am I not?

And so providing written information and

having another person there to hear what someone else said was always

really important. And I would encourage people to bring their spouses.

And the flip side, if we ever dealt with Alzheimer's

disease, I always wanted some backup and someone to hear what

I was saying so as not to

give any mixed messages and that everybody heard the same

thing and that they didn't go talk to this one and that

one and have different family members call me. I'd rather have them all

in the room at the same time hearing the same presentation than someone hearing

some nuance and something different. So it's a really good point.

Yeah. So thanks for

that. Now, we've talked about GRA

goals, roots and attitude. The

C is for companionship, right?

Companionship. And talk to me about that.

Well, when I wrote old

companionship to me was really important. And since that

time, I've learned even greater information. But as it pertains to

companionship, that's someone in your life that may be a spouse,

it may be your children, it may be a friend or

others, but the companion is that person who will do two

things. Number one will hear you cough or see that you're

ill and say you're ill. Go to the doctor, I'm taking you now.

I'm not taking no for an answer. That's what companions

do. But the other thing is that

interaction, that relationship, the

stress reduction component of having a loved one.

And research is really pretty clear that people who are in

relationships and are married live longer than people who don't.

So that there's a longevity factor along with that.

But that companionship is important. And if it's an

intimate relationship, that's incredibly important. And I talk in my

other book about five levels of companionship,

but it would be your intimate relationship, your family, your

BFF, some people you know from a club that you belong to and

then in the community, they all contribute to

your well being. And the

opposite of intimacy is loneliness.

And loneliness is a health hazard. And

we can't gloss over the fact that baby boomers

are part of a component of our society

who become lonely, they become detached, they lose a spouse,

they move away, they move with their kids, they move to a kid's city

and they lose their friends in a snap and

so they retreat. Men in particular

are not joiners of groups. They stay to

themselves partly because that was their upbringing, partly

because that was their job, even for myself.

I worked in a silo as a doctor. It was like, me and the

patient, me and the next patient. I tried to interact

with my staff. I tried to interact with people in the hospital, but it's mainly

a one person show, so that I was not as

attuned to doing that. And now that I am, it's like I'll recommend

to people to learn a new hobby like

photography or join a chess club or a bowling group

or a golf club or tennis. Do things that will put you

in a situation where you'll develop friends and companions

and people you can do things with. Because 24

hours a day by yourself, or 24 hours a day

looking at television or 24 hours a day with one person, your

spouse may not suffice.

Yeah. So if I was your patient, you'd probably tell me

I spend too much time by myself and I'm too

fiercely independent, but I do join. I am a member of

a couple of organizations, and I do have several girlfriends that I

get out with. But, yeah, nobody's here telling me if

I'm coughing, I'm taking you to the doctor.

Your friends would, they'd hear your cough on the phone.

But just like any of the things I talk about

in our conversation today, they require intention.

You're connecting with people, and you're getting a lot back from

doing these podcasts, and you're connecting with people and

they're connecting with you, so don't beat yourself. Up about oh,

and in fact, I even saw somebody in comments today, mary

Beth. She says if I need help because of my finger, just

to give her a call. So. Thank you, Mary Beth. They are there

for.

It'S. It's been an interesting and enjoyable experience

for me in retirement to connect with people and say, let's go have

coffee, let's go have lunch. People that I've known in my community for a long

time, but they worked and I worked. And one is a new person

who's moved in recently, and one was an old guy

who I met up with when I was doing part of a bicycle club, and

we became friends until he moved to San Diego. So there

are people that I've gone after, and I tell them, I'll say, this

is about me and my health, because my health will be better if I have

companionship and so will yours. And if we hit it off

and we're going to get together every couple of weeks and have

coffee and talk about life and talk about our

childhood, if that was it. One of the guys,

his family was in the same business as my dad, so

we really had something to relate to. Politically, we're different,

but we were able to relate to some of those family things that we did,

and we always have things to talk about. What a fun way to approach

somebody. This is. Good for my health and yours, too. Let's be

friends. Exactly what I did.

All right, so we're down to e is for your

environment. How does your environment impact your

longevity and your health and fulfillment in

life? Well, I talk about environment in a couple of different

ways. When I speak in front of an audience, I put up a slide

of a lush garden and a stream,

and it also has a picture of some smokestacks in a city

putting out pollution. So it's that part

outside of us. And I talk about the

importance of being with nature. And I'm lucky enough

that there are some gardens in my yard, and I make sure to go out

in my garden every day. And look at my amaryllis

bulb my mom gave me about ten years ago, and

I've propagated it. Now it's all over my garden. And I'm really proud

of the pink flowers that pop up around

sometime in April every year. I only see them for a few

weeks, but being out there, I put feed in my

bird feeder just so I can see that nature is abound us

and it gives a calming effect to our

bodies. And then the other part is the environment

inside of us, what we put in our bodies and how we take care

of this temple of ours. That's just so important.

And it did motivate me to

write my second book, The Power of Five. So we'll

talk a little bit about the fact that there are five things in that

environment that we have control over. So what we do with

our body and how we take care of us ourselves is

incredibly important. And that's something we have

control over. So I thought you were going to say

it's not just the food we put in our bodies, but it's the thoughts we

put in our heads, too, and how we sometimes have to reframe

that if we're thinking negative thoughts. Goes back to attitude. I

guess it gets back to attitude.

My five S's are sweets, sugar,

carbohydrates, processed foods, unhealthy

foods, eating too much, being addicted to sweets.

That's one of them

sweat, which is exercise. How much exercise we do, and

it doesn't take much. It's 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Or I

just read an article very recently that you can consolidate it all to a

weekend and get your 150 minutes in on a weekend might

be satisfactory. Certainly 450 minutes a week

is sort of the optimal. Beyond that, you don't get much more

benefit. And when you talked about

what you have control over, you have control over your thoughts. And so

that's the stress mindfulness component of

how we can take care of ourselves and make ourselves healthier. And

it does the chemical things in our body

to reduce inflammation. This is the meditation part

and the self talk part that you do the meditation,

you do the mindfulness, you talk to yourself and you'll lower

your stress levels, lower your cortisol levels, or

improve your release of endorphins and

you'll have a better outlook and there's a lot of mental talk with

that too. But it's incredibly important and we

have control over that and that has an

impact on our health and our longevity. And people who are less

stressed have less illness. It's been proven in article after article

and study after study so that there's a lot of literature that supports

that. In our

growing up as baby boomers, I think it was poo pooed

quite a bit and we thought it was just a little too much

spirituality, but it's been found to be

beneficial. And now that we have a little bit more

time on our hands to learn how to do some of the

meditation stuff that people talk about can be really beneficial.

I was listening to a podcast about it today that we do have

control over. It really does make a difference.

Yeah, I think you're right that it really does make a difference. And

I'm wondering of all of these things, your five

S's. Grace, if we're

at a point now, like a few weeks from now, I'll be

70 and I think I've been living a healthy

life. But thank you. But if there was

one thing that you wanted to say to me like Wendy, this is the thing

you really should focus on for the next because

changing habits are hard. What would be that one thing that you think

would have the biggest impact on my health?

Well, probably would figure which one of those

S's you had the greatest deficiency in and

focus on that.

At the moment I retired, I didn't think my stress levels were

high, but they were high enough. And there are

certain things that happen in the world and in medicine

that bother me and disturb me.

And I had a great relationship and yeah, maybe I was lacking on

friends, but you heard what I said about what I'm doing about that.

I had difficulty with sleep. So that was

my sort of Achilles heel that for 40 years of

practicing, either there was a rotary dial phone or a touch

tone phone or one of these next to my bed

and it could ring at any time and it disrupted my

sleep and I wasn't getting as much sleep. I'm a night

owl in a job that required me to be up earlier

in the day than I wanted to be. And so there were some

limitations in my sleep and I set some goals of

enhancing that and doing a better job. And it's taken two or three

years for me to get to that point, but that was

what I would say is the one area for me that was weak. But everybody

has their weakness. And I know my

wife and I were in a store about a month

ago and the woman who was helping

us was overweight that's being

generous and kind. And we talked about what we do, that

we write. My wife publishes a cookbook, a healthy eating cookbook,

and I talk about avoiding sweets

and processed foods. And she said, oh, but

I'm addicted to sweets. It's like, okay, well,

you wouldn't know which one of those s's that you really need

to approach. And don't rely on the

fact that you're addicted to sugar and the addiction to sugar,

processed foods,

carbohydrates is similar to addiction to

drugs and sex and exercise

and alcohol. They all seem to have an

effect on your dopamine levels in your brain. And you get a

real experience, a pleasure

sensation from those things. And that's dopamine.

And the other emotion a person can have

is happiness. So, Wendy, I'd say my interaction with you, you're a

pretty happy person. And happiness is a serotonin chemical

that makes you happy. So you can do things that make you

happy, and you release your serotonin. But if you do things

that release dopamine, you're doing it for pleasure. And so

this woman couldn't break her habit of needing to get

pleasure from eating sugar and sweet foods,

which is. Bad for her health. Yeah. And

my wife and I put together a journal

to support the power of five. So I know

that every day I wake up, I look at my pentagon and

I make sure that I'm able to put a check mark next to each one

of my five s's, which means I work on my eating, I work

on my exercise, I look at how much sleep I got and try to make

it better. I work on my stress

and my relationship and companionship with my wife.

So those are things that we can all kind of adapt in a big way

or little way and just do it a little bit at a time. And as

you've mentioned, Wendy, pick on one and start from there.

And if you're 70, I'm making this up a little bit.

It's the new 40. If you're healthy other than your

finger at age 70, then

you 70 is. The new 70 is what I like to say,

because we used to think 70 was old and

70 is still we're still going strong. We're still

creating new things. Like, you you retired three years

ago, and look at you. You're not really retired. You're still

going strong. But

if anybody in your audience is 70 and they're

healthy, their life expectancy, like yours, is at least 20

years. You're going to live longer, longer than my

93 year old mother in law. And you may even eclipse my Aunt

Flow, who lived to be 102. And there's

lots of data to support everything that I talk about. And there's

scientific discoveries looking at some of

the cellular level of things that go

on that will all be adapting to our lives. But

for what we can do now, it's my power of five, my five S's.

And those things have an impact on Mitochondria. Now I'm getting into

the weeds for your audience. Yeah. But there are

things that science is showing us where we can make

a difference in our lives. And the whole idea

is to have a long, health span. Lifespan is

not really great if you're disabled from the age of

70, but you live to be 90. You want to be like

you and meanie and vibrant and healthy and doing all the things we

want to do up until our last breath. Right?

So follow the grace formula of

setting goals, taking care of your DNA,

having a positive attitude,

intentionally building companionship and

having a healthy environment internally and externally. And

then look at David's Power of Five book, which

we don't have behind you, but it is also a

book about the five S's that are important in life

that he was mentioning stress and sleep and exercise, which

is not. An S. I like my little pentagon that I have up there.

Sweat, sweat, sweet, sex, stress and

sleep. There you go. Thank you.

All right, so thank you, David. You

gave us a lot of good information and I really appreciate

it. If people wanted to email you with any additional

follow up questions, they can reach out to you at david at

powerofivethenumber

fivelife.com. Or they can go to

your website,

powerofive.com. I

will put both of those into the show notes.

I also want to remind you about Road

Scholar. Check out slash

Heyboomer when you are planning your next trip.

And check out our vitality assessment

on Heyboomer Biz. We talked a lot about living a

fully vital and healthy life, so see where you're

at. This is more about emotionally, where you're at, but it's

on Heyboomer Biz

next week. Next week, my guest has

definitely redefined retirement. Her name is Melissa

Davies and she had a big corporate career working in

the managed care, an executive in managed care. And at

65, she asked herself, is this what I want to do

for the next X number of years? And her answer

was no. She decided that she wanted to be a

filmmaker. She had never been a filmmaker,

right? So she made a film.

It was called beyond 60. She's now working on her

next film. But beyond 60 is about women over the age of

60 and it's

available for general

consumption. And it's a fascinating,

very brave story. So be sure and join us

next week for that. And I like to leave you

all with the belief that we can live with curiosity,

live with relevance and live with courage. And remember

that you are never too old to set another goal

or dream a new dream. Thanks so much, David.

Thank you. Enjoyed it. Wendy my name is Wendy