Learn How To Rid Yourself Of Dry Eye And Help The Less Fortunate with Dr. Travis Zigler

Dr. Travis Zigler graduated in 2010 from The Ohio State University College of Optometry with Magna Cum Laude honors. He is the founder of Eye Love, https://eyelovethesun.com, whose mission is to heal 1,000,000 dry eye sufferers naturally. Dr. Travis and his wife, Dr. Jenna Zigler, use the profits from Eye Love to fund free and low cost clinics in Jamaica and in the US.  They also started a charity called the Eye Love Cares Foundation, https://eyelovecares.org, which provides exams, glasses and sunglasses for those in need, free education, and scholarships for students that align with their mission.  

Previously, Dr. Travis and Dr. Jenna owned two optometry practices, which they sold in 2017 to focus on their online efforts. Dr. Travis enjoys reading to his son, Jude, traveling to Jamaica, and playing the ukulele while he drinks his morning coffee.

Travis's favorite quote: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” - Ghandi

Drs. Travis Zigler and Jenna Zigler, optometrists and co-founders of Eye Love, the makers of Heyedrate.

We want you to know exactly what we, at Eye Love, believe in. 

We believe that all dry eye sufferers should be treated equally.

We believe that more research should go into dry eyes.

We believe that your body has the capability to heal itself.

We believe that we will help 1,000,000 dry eye sufferers naturally by 2030. 

As our bus pulled into the community center where we would be holding our eye clinic for the day, we noticed an older gentleman a few yards back from the front of the long waiting line. His eyes were turned down and he appeared to be in tremendous pain. As our bus came to a stop & we all filed out, ready to begin another clinic day in rural Ecuador, we could not stop thinking about this man as we set up. In countries without proper access to eye care, patients will wait in line for hours, and it was clear that this man had been on his feet for some time.

Shortly after the first patient entered our clinic, Travis went out to the line and guided the man to the very front, putting him ahead of everyone else that day. After examination, it was found that this farmer was not only going blind from Glaucoma he was unaware he had, but he was also in pain due to sky-high eye pressure.

As patients continued to move through the clinic, Travis treated this man for hours to lower his eye pressure and make him comfortable. After not saying a word all day, the farmer started crying and said “Estoy libre de dolor. ¡Dios te bendiga! ¡Dios te bendiga!”, which translates to “I am pain-free. God bless you! God bless you!” The farmer then embraced Travis in a hug. As they parted ways, tears were shed and lives were forever changed that day.

It is stories like this that we’ve realized are not few and far between in countries that have no access to quality eye care. There is so much need in the world. We are a husband and wife duo that is looking to change the world and provide for those that need.

We started Eye Love in May of 2015 with our ultimate goal being to build permanent clinics in areas that have no access to quality eye care. As active members of Great Shape, Inc, and more specifically the iCARE project, we travel to Jamaica every year to give eye examinations and dispense eyeglasses. With proper help and funding, Great Shape Inc. is working to develop more permanent clinics, and our ultimate goal is to be able to work in those clinics more often.

As a company, we want you to feel good about your purchase and who you do business with. Our passion is to provide a better quality of life through better vision — locally and globally. Locally we do this by helping you see the clearest that you can. Globally by giving a portion of profits back to someone in need of an eye examination and glasses in Jamaica.

www.eyelovecares.org

(1) The Dry Eye Show | Facebook

(1) Dry Eye Syndrome Support Community | Facebook

The Dry Eye Show with Drs. Jenna & Travis Zigler - YouTube

www.ageucational.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - AGEUcational (00:02):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of educational. This is Roy. This is Terry. So, uh, this is a fairly new show. We're going to just let the audience know, you know, our, our target audience is going to be, of course, the aging, uh, caregivers, family members, and those of us that are approaching aging. We want to, you know, give a lot of information on not only, uh, you know, what can we do if we are, you know, when we get to some certain ages, but what also can we do to maybe help us, uh, age better? And then also, um, look at how we can help caregivers and provide them support and information to help them provide better care. Uh, w what our, I guess our format is basically going to be, you know, mine and Terry's journey on how we get through this, how we deal with our parents and our situations. But, uh, we also going to have guests on from time to time to, um, you know, bring us some good information professionals in their field and, uh, uh, other informational expert. So, uh, today we've got an awesome guests. We've been excited looking forward to, uh, having them on it's, uh, Dr. Travis Ziegler. He is, uh, a doctor of optometry is that I know there's a couple of designation, so I want to make sure to get that one right.

Dr. Travis (01:19):

You are a hundred percent spot on optometry.

Roy - AGEUcational (01:22):

Okay. So, um, Dr. Travis and his wife, they used to have some, um, clinics that they ran and they've since gotten out and they have formed, um, uh, I guess it's a foundation and I'll let you talk a lot more about this, but it's, uh, I, Eye Love is that correct?

Dr. Travis (01:42):

Eye Love is our overall brand name. Yep. And the hydrate is our specific product line.

Roy - AGEUcational (01:46):

Yeah. And so, but you've also the great thing about that. So you've taken the profits profits from, Eye Love, and you've used those to fund, uh, low cost clinics in Jamaica and the U S so, uh, you know, it's awesome that you're helping out those that really need the help the most. And, um, I think in some of your information, like y'all's mission is to heal a million dry suffers naturally. So I guess without, uh, Terry, do you want to talk a little bit about the,

Terry - AGEUcational (02:16):

Well, I was just gonna, um, reiterate, uh, you know, the, Eye Love foundation it's, it's, it's such a worthy cause and y'all have helped what, like 50,000 people so far, is that correct? And your goal is to,

Dr. Travis (02:34):

I couldn't give you an exact number, but our, our goal, the goal with the foundation is to heal 1 billion or not, excuse me, to end the 1 billion people that are blinded due to lack of glasses. And so, um, to put an exact number on that, I would say we've seen a lot. Um, we usually see close to, to four to 6,000 per year, and we've been doing it for almost 13 years now. And so it's something that we've been doing for a long, long time. So to put an exact number, it's almost impossible because we see so many people in a week, but, um, the goal of the foundation is sustainability. And we want to make sure that these people, we don't just get them glasses one time, but then we can continue to serve them over and over again, instead of just giving them a pair of glasses, as you guys know, glasses, get lost, broken, stolen, everything. So trying to create more of a sustainability model around that.

Roy - AGEUcational (03:22):

Well, yeah, we kind of got ahead of ourselves, but first thank you for taking time out of your day to be with us, be with the show. It's awesome. Uh, if you don't mind, just, you know, we've gone into a little fragmented, but give us a little bit about the background. I know that you graduated from the Ohio state university and, uh, you know, found your way to Texas finally, but yeah. Talk a little bit about your, you know, being, I guess, working more at the clinic level and then making the decision to, uh, take on this chair.

Dr. Travis (03:53):

Yeah. Also some of my whole journey in about less than, less than three minutes. So we graduated my wife and I graduated. We're both doctors of optometry. We graduated in 2010 and 2011 from the Ohio state optometry college, or the highest state university college of optometry. You gotta get that right. And, um, we practice from my uncle, my uncle had a practice and we practiced with him until about 2014. Um, around 2013, I started feeling this itch to do something else. And we actually ended up quitting our jobs. And we moved from Ohio to South Carolina and we opened up two businesses, two practices, and we wanted to open up a pediatric practice, but God had other plans and he threw a geriatric practice at us. So we started seeing an aging population and we notice a lot of dry eyes. And so with a lot of dry eyes, we were treating it just like you normally do, giving them Restasis and steroid drops and doing everything we could, that was in our medication tool belt.

Dr. Travis (04:51):

And during this time of building our practices, we also started an online company called I love, and we make our brand line for more dry eye products. It's called hydrate. And so when we were seeing patients and just living life, building this online company with the two practices, we were battling fertility and we were told we could not get pregnant. And this was three years of battling fertility, and we were told we couldn't get pregnant. So we switched to Eastern medicine and when we switched to Eastern medicine, so we're three months into Eastern medicine, we got pregnant and we're, we're having our third son in about a month. So congratulations, thank you. But the shift happened like we were Western medicine trained and we'd been doing everything Western medicine way, but then we were healed with Eastern medicine after battling with Western medicine for three years.

Dr. Travis (05:41):

And it just kind of shifted our brain. Like why can't we take this to people with eye problems? And so we started teaching people, the switches that you can make to heal your body naturally, which will then in turn, heal your eyes naturally. And we've sent thousands of people through our dry bootcamp challenge, and it's free. It's that dry bootcamp challenge.com. It's an eight week program that just teaches you very simple things that you can change in your daily, in your daily ritual or your habits to make your life better, to decrease your inflammation, to decrease your dry eye, to decrease your lines on medications. And it works. And so if you stick to it, it works and we've had so many people go through. And it's amazing just to see the results of that. And so fast forward to around 2017 is when we had Jude, our first burst son, and we ended up selling one of the practices.

Dr. Travis (06:33):

And then we sold the other practice in 2018 to focus full-time on this online journey and teaching people how to heal dry naturally. And so our goal is to hit 1 million people to go through this program and to heal them naturally. And I think we're at about 50 to 75,000. That's probably where he got that number from at about 50 to 75,000 that have gone through this in the, I think we're in our, let me go back where our fourth year of doing it three, three and a half years that we've been doing it. So, um, we just, we we've built this, this audience of fans that have struggled with dry eye, they've been told everything. And then they find us online either through our show on YouTube called the dry eye show or our Facebook group called the dry eye syndrome support community. Then they go through this natural journey that they've never been educated on. And then it's just amazing to see the results. So we're getting to impact a lot more people this way versus seeing patients one-on-one. So we're loving what we're doing now, we're doing this full-time and our goal is to hit 1 million by the year 2030.

Roy - AGEUcational (07:33):

That is awesome. And just kind of a plug for the show. Uh, it's funny that we, uh, we have some Eastern medicine, uh, guests that are going to be on in the next couple of weeks. So we're looking forward to that. I think, um, you know, there seems to be a lot of shift going on from the Western medicine to the Eastern medicine. So, uh, interesting that you mentioned that, but so today, uh, you know, one, couple of things we want to talk about is I guess just the first would be basic eye health, and then of course get, uh, off to the dry eye just a little bit more. And I do like your, uh, if I'm not wrong, the product it's hydration with the, uh, eye in the middle of it. Hydrate. Yeah, yeah, yep. Hydrate. Yeah.

Terry - AGEUcational (08:17):

I have been, I signed up and got a free sample right away and have been using it for the last three days. And man, I can tell, I can tell a difference already.

Dr. Travis (08:30):

Just wait for two weeks. It's gotten better, but that's great. I love hearing those. Yeah.

Terry - AGEUcational (08:33):

Yeah. What's the difference between dry eye and maybe an allergies or w I mean, what's the difference? How do you know?

Dr. Travis (08:41):

Yeah. So the biggest difference between those two is just your symptoms. So an allergy is going to itch more and you're just going to feel like you want to dig into your eyes. So whenever I have a dry patient in my chair, I always ask, do your eyes itch more or do they burn more? And that will of indicate which way we want to go with allergies. You can have an overactive immune system caused from inflammation, caused from the foods that you're eating and everything, and that can cause your allergies. And so when you clean up your diet, that sometimes can tone down your allergies because your immune system is toned down now, too, right? But allergies, we're trying to stop the itch more. Our spray will help with that, but it's not made for that. What it's made for is actually it's called hypochlorous acid and hypochlorous acid is sounds scary.

Dr. Travis (09:26):

Cause it's nasty acid it's actually naturally made by your body. Okay? And so your, your immune system makes this to help kill bacteria and pathogens. And one of the most common causes of dry eye is a buildup of bacteria on your eyelids and in your eye. And so this hypochlorous acid helps reduce that bacteria load, which then reduces the inflammation, the redness, the pain, the irritation. And so that's how this helps in contact lens wearers, especially have a lot more bacteria. So they usually have a lot more dryness and irritation, which Terry, I know you're a contact lens wearer. So, um,

Terry - AGEUcational (09:59):

And not a very good one because I wear them. You know, I sleep in there. I I'm your worst nightmare

Dr. Travis (10:07):

Spray that spray. So make sure you're spraying that spray because the spray is going to help keep that bacteria load down. Cause most contact lens complications that we see in clinic, red eyes, ulcers, all those caused from overgrowth of bacteria. And so, and in hypoxia, which is the lack of oxygen. And so we can take care of the bacteria side with our spray. So make sure you're using that spray morning and night and take your contact lenses out at night, please.

Roy - AGEUcational (10:31):

Ben, since I spoke to you the first time I promise, well, before we get too far off into the, uh, dry, uh, can you just give us some general, uh, eye health information?

Dr. Travis (10:46):

Yeah. So what are the best things you can do is protect yourself from the sun. The sun causes a lot of problems, not really the sun, but the UV light from the sun. And so sunglasses are a great thing to wear outdoors when it's a bright sunny day and the UV index is high. I know you guys are in Texas, we're in Texas. It's a nice sunny day down here in Austin. And so UV index isn't gonna be as high in the winter, of course, but in the summer it can get up to 10. And so when you're trying to avoid that time period, but UV protection is huge. So wearing a good emphasis on the good pair of sunglasses. So most sunglasses that you buy the gas station, cheapies that you buy the $10 to $5, you can actually like clean off the UV protection that are on those.

Dr. Travis (11:27):

And so you want to get a pair of, that's actually got the UV protection embedded into it. And so I love Maui. Jim that's like my favorite sunglass brand. They are a little pricier Ray-Ban as much as I don't like the parent company of Ray-Ban, Ray-Ban actually makes a good lens that is very protected from the sun. Just make sure you invest in sunglasses because it's going to protect your eyes from the UV light. That's kind of one of the most basic ones that you hear, but it is important. But one of my favorite ones is if you decrease the inflammation in your body, you're going to heal your eyes and keep your eyes healthy. And so this will go we'll, we'll probably get into this a little bit more on the dry side, but the first thing we recommend anybody, when they ask me, what's the number one thing I can do for my health or what's the number one thing I can do for my dry eye?

Dr. Travis (12:12):

Or what's the number one thing I can do for macular degeneration is replace your breakfast with a green smoothie. I cannot emphasize the importance of this because you guys have all heard that carrots are good for your eyes. And that's because the vitamins that are in carrots, spinach is even better, but you have to have organic spinach because it has more of the nutrients. And so a green smoothie is just simply a non-dairy milk. And then you can put some spinach in there and then some fruit. So I recommend berries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, any of those. And then you can put like protein powders. We recommend plant-based protein powders as well. Just to flavor it up a little bit more, um, avoid juices, but simply replacing your breakfast with the green smoothie is going to replace one of the most inflammatory meals of the day.

Dr. Travis (13:03):

Because most people eat cereal toast, you know, meat like bacon or sausage or ham. Those are all heavily inflammatory foods for your body. And so when you get rid of those at breakfast time and replace it with an anti-inflammatory green smoothie, that's filled with greens. Greens are great because they have vitamins, a vitamin C and then also they have what are called, um, phytochemicals or phytonutrients. These are Zen theme, um, lutein and Z asses and Thien. And so those are found abundantly in your eye. And when you eat more of them, intake more of them ingest more of them. It's going to make your eye healthier. And so not only are you decreasing the inflammation in your entire body, which then decreases your risk for high blood pressure, heart attack, diabetes, dry macular degeneration, you're also making your eyes healthier and the same in the same light.

Dr. Travis (13:58):

So I'm going to go one example and then I'll, I'll see if you guys have any questions. Yeah. Okay. We were at a conference once and there's, there's this new it's called the macular pigment density measurement. And so what it does is it measures the back of your eye and how, how dense or how packed in your pigment is the more pigment you have, the healthier, the less likely you have to develop macular degeneration. My wife and I we've drank green smoothies since 2013, every single day. We were the highest by over double everybody else at the conference because we created smoothies every day that tells you how healthy our eyes are and how healthy our bodies are.

Roy - AGEUcational (14:42):

It's interesting. You bring that up because, um, uh, some things that we had discussed last week, this, you know, like for me, I do suffer from, uh, know high blood pressure and keeping our control, but that spinach is high in potassium. So I think just the other day, you know, Terry went to the grocery store and got us the, um, you know, the spinach. And I don't know if it's organic that it may be one swap we need to make, but it was, but, you know, adding that in the berries and trying to do that green smoothie. So it's also good to know, not only for the inflammatory high blood pressure, but also to help our eyes. That's awesome. Yeah. I think that's overlooked a lot,

Dr. Travis (15:19):

You know, my number one tip.

Roy - AGEUcational (15:21):

Yeah. So you did mention carrots, uh, is, uh, I was just going to say, is that, uh, is that all pretty much all in truth or is that a wives' tale that, you know, carrots are the best for our eyesight?

Dr. Travis (15:35):

Not the best, but they're still good. They have made a carotene in them, but like I said, kale and spinach and your green vegetables are going to be a lot better for your eyes. Okay.

Roy - AGEUcational (15:44):

Okay. Well, I guess I'll have to send it

Dr. Travis (15:49):

The carrot farmer somewhere came out with that ad.

Roy - AGEUcational (15:53):

Yeah. Okay. No, that's good. It's good stuff to know. Uh, yeah, because I think, you know, people, especially of our age group, uh, we're a little late to the party, but the more that we can do now, it will probably, um, deuce our suffering and our decreased vision, you know, 20, 25, 30 years from now, however too late to start, right. Yeah.

Dr. Travis (16:15):

Hey, I'm in my thirties. And I started when I was in my twenties. So,

Roy - AGEUcational (16:19):

Well, you're here in the early bird. You had all that information. Uh, so, uh, you know, talk to us a little bit about, uh, dry, dry, uh, because I, you know, I can tell when I eat, um, and I don't know exactly what he does. I have some kind of food allergies because would be mornings when I wake up with the more puffy eyes, more scratchy. Um, and then, you know, it'll dissipate, excuse me through the day, but I can also can easily tell his triggers of things I've eaten the day before. So I know you've explained the difference between that, but can you tell us a little bit more just about the dry eye itself?

Dr. Travis (16:58):

Yeah. So the dry eye is an interesting low list of symptoms because that most typical symptom that you're going to have is that your rotation, that dryness in your eye, that redness in your eye, but you can also feel like there's something in your eye, like a piece of sand. It feels almost gritty and you can't get it out. And so that's another common symptom is you feel like you have something in there, but it's just not, not in there. Another common symptom is your eyes are watering too much. Now this sounds crazy because you have dry eye. Why am I as watering? And I'm going to get into a little biology here and anatomical lesson. So your tears that are on the front of your eye are made to moisturize, lubricate and help you see better. So the tears have multiple layers, they have three layers and the outside layer comes from your eyelid.

Dr. Travis (17:47):

It, your eyelid has lots of glands. They're called my Bowman glands. And those glands secrete an oil onto our eye. That oil it's only a responsibility. Well, not the only, but one of its primary responsibilities is to keep your tears together. Now there's a second layer of the tears called the watery layer. And that comes from a gland called your lacquer mobile. And which is up here in your eyelid. So the meibomian glands are all around the eyelid. The LACMA gland is kind of on the outside of your eyelid. So when the, my Bowman glands, the oil glands are not functioning properly. Oil is not getting onto the eye. And what happens is those tears that they're supposed to stay together. They're now breaking up. And when they break up your brain or your eyes screaming in pain, that I don't have enough tears on my eye, I need help, which then triggers your brain to release more watery tears.

Dr. Travis (18:40):

So your eyes are watering more as a result of not having enough oil, oily layer on your tears. And so a lot of people ask me, like, why do you recommend cleaning your eyelid and eyelid hygiene as one of the first steps in treating dry eye. And it's because those oil glands, and we want to make sure that the oil glands are working properly and they work properly by decreasing the bacteria on our eyelids and decreasing the inflammation. Because if your eyelids are inflamed oil lands, aren't going to work in the oil glands can actually die off. And if they die off, it's very hard. And we haven't really had any studies that show it. It's hard to get them back. And so we want to make sure we take care of our eyelids. I actually use our spray every single day, and I don't have any problems with dry eye.

Dr. Travis (19:22):

I'm doing it as just a preventative measure. Very similar to how you brush your teeth to prevent cavities cavities, or from bacteria in your mouth. You're brushing your teeth to decrease the bacteria. I'm doing that on my eyelids to prevent future problems, you know, 30, 40 years down the line. Okay. And so watery tears or watery eyes, gritty eyes, dry irritation, redness. Those are kind of the most common symptoms. And, you know, they can happen. Like you talked about from food. So food is huge. And we have so many sensitivities to food that we don't even realize that we've just kind of normalized in our own lives. And I'll, I'll give you an example of something that happened in my life. I've gone gluten-free I am a gluten-free dairy-free vegetarian now. It sounds terrible. Doesn't it horrible 90% of the time, but the other 10%, I still eat other stuff.

Dr. Travis (20:17):

I still eat meat. I still drink a little bit here and there. And I still eat a little bit of gluten, but the 90% that I control, I am very strict with my diet, because what happens is if I start eating gluten more, gluten is actually something that almost every single person is sensitive to. They just don't realize it. Every single person almost. I realize it. So when I eat gluten too much, I get eczema all over my hands, all over my face. I get rosacea. So my whole face will flush. And then I get arthritis. I can't even do one pushup if I eat too much gluten, but this morning I did a hundred pushups. Cause I haven't had gluten in a while. So I can do a lot of pushups. I do pushups every morning, but I can't even do one if I've had gluten too much.

Dr. Travis (20:57):

So that's the effect is arthritis, high blood pressure, you know, irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea, constipation, gas, acid, reflux. Those are all signs of a food sensitivity. And so you, if you have any of those problems, then you need to watch what you're eating easiest way to, to, to figure it out is eliminating gluten and dairy. First. I didn't even say meat. They're gluten and dairy. If you can eliminate those two, try gluten first and then dairy second, you'd be shocked by how many symptoms will go away as a result of eliminating gluten and dairy. Wow. I kind of went off on a whole body tangent. Now you asked about dry eyes.

Roy - AGEUcational (21:36):

That's that's, that's good to know because I, you know, like I said, I've, that's something I've found that with me. It's and it's more than it does. It does affect my eyes, but it can affect I'll be so congested in the mornings. When I wake up that it may take me two or three hours to clear my head and finally, you know, be able to carry on normally. So, um, definitely something worth checking out. I, I guess kind of backing up just a minute would be the why, why would, um, what causes the dry eyes? Is it environmental? Is it body chemistry? I mean, we talked a little bit about diet, but uh, you know, what are some of the other things that can be factored in that?

Dr. Travis (22:20):

Yeah, so you, you nailed it. It's it's it's environment. It's what we eat. It's what we do. It's, it's a lot of things. So it's a very multifactorial disease and what can cause it is your tears can just be off. We talked about those oil glands earlier. If the oil glands aren't working properly, that will cause dry eye, your eyelids could be off. So you could have problems with your eyelids that are, you know, stuck to the eye, as much as they're supposed to be, or you're not blinking properly, or you're not blinking fully close. So that's another cause of it. Now it can be caused because th th the chemical imbalance of your tears is off. It tends to be more salty and dry eye patients versus more non salty for normal patients. And so that saltiness is a sign of dry eye as well.

Dr. Travis (23:03):

It can be from innovation, from your nerves. So your nerves might have something off and that's causing your dry eye. Okay. But most of the time, almost 95% of the time, it is that inflammation. And so this person's whole body is inflamed, and that inflammation is causing the dry eye. Some other things can cause it to you. You mentioned environment. So we'll get into that a little bit. Of course, like if you're in a desert type environment or a winter, those are going to be drier environments than a Texas summer, which is humid and, or, or an Ohio summer, which is even more humid. So a hundred percent humidity and 95 degree day is going to be better for dry eye than a negative 20 degree with 0% humidity. And so putting a humidifier by your bed can sometimes help with that. And then also an air purifier by your bed might help with that congestion as well.

Dr. Travis (23:52):

Just to go back to that. Yeah, but then let's stick with environment, computers, phones, all of this stuff is causing problems with your eyes. You're not blinking as much when you're on a computer. And so when you're not blinking as much, your, your oil blends, aren't releasing as much oil and therefore your eyes are getting dryer. We're starting to see dry eye in younger and younger demographics because they're on their computers, eight to 10 to 12 to 14 hours a day, which is absurd and they don't blink as much. And so if they're not blinking, they're not playing outside. It's causing more problems with dryness. And so sticking with the environment. What I recommend with computer work with phone work is the 20, 20, 20 rule. Every 20 minutes of computer or phone work, just take 20 seconds or five minutes even, and just look at something 20 feet away or further, that's going to relax your eyes. It's going to decrease your dryness. It's going to make you blink. And the second thing about, about phones and computer use is stop using them one to two hours before you go to bed because all of these devices have balloons.

Roy - AGEUcational (24:58):

Wait, I'm sorry. I don't think Terry heard you on that. Could you say that? Just repeat that one more time.

Dr. Travis (25:07):

I will definitely repeat it one more time for the listeners as well, because get off your phone, get off your computer, get off the TV. One to two hours before you go to bed, because the blue light emitted from these devices is actually preventing you from getting into your deep restful sleep because blue light is made by the sun. Uh, obviously the sky is blue, but blue light is made from the sun to tell you to wake up. And so when blue lights out, your melatonin drops and melatonin is your sleep, sleep. Hormone. Melatonin drops when blue lights out and when blue light goes away, the sun goes down. Your melatonin increases. Well, the problem we have right now is we're on our devices. So we're constantly being exposed to blue light. And that concept exposure is then causing your melatonin not to increase. Therefore, if you, this is my challenge to your listeners. Okay. Do what you normally do. And then try this an hour before bed, shut off all electronics, watch how fat much faster you fall asleep. Yes. And then watch how much better you feel when you wake up in the morning, because you get into that deep restful sleep stage four sleep REM sleep is harder to get to that when your melatonin's not increased in production because of that blue light on your phone. Right?

Roy - AGEUcational (26:22):

Yeah. And that's a shift that we've tried to make, uh, you know, for myself, even, you know, watching TV, going to sleep, but, you know, try to read a book and, uh, try to at least take that that hour. So I don't think I've done good on the timeframe, but, you know, I will work on trying to stretch that to, you know, an hour to two hours out. So yeah. That's great advice for a lot of reasons, not only for our eyes, but just for our general health overall being healthy. So yeah,

Dr. Travis (26:49):

The bedroom is for sleep and sex only. That's what I always thought.

Roy - AGEUcational (26:53):

Right? So what, what are some future implications of dry eye and not taking care of that? Uh, you know, as early as we can, once we get to our seventies and eighties, you, I assume that they're just, it's like anything else, it, it kinda manifest into something probably worse after a while.

Dr. Travis (27:14):

Yeah. Not, not to scare listeners or scary or scare you too. But like, I haven't seen the worst case of dry eyes where people can't even function anymore. And so a lot of these people are just miserable. They can't even open their eyes long enough to really function life. They can't drive anymore as a result of the dry eyes severity. Now, with that being said, that is less than 1% of the cases. And, and I don't know if it's fortunately or unfortunately that's the people that usually find us online because they've tried everything nothing's working. And so they they're looking for answers. So that's very rare. That's like I said, less than 1%, what my fear with the future is, is if we're not taking care of our eyelids, now all those, my bombing lands that screed that oil and this younger generation they're going to be gone.

Dr. Travis (28:00):

And the problem is once my Bowman glands are gone and you have no more oily layer on your tears, that's where the severe dry eye kicks in. And so we don't know the impact. We don't know what's going to happen to the generation below me. I didn't grow up with smartphones. I got my first cell phone when I think it was a freshmen in college. So, and it was just a flip, flip phone that was like Greenstreet. So that shows like where my demographic is. I'm 36 years old below me though, is the generation that I fear because they're the ones that grew up with smartphones, grew up with computers. I didn't even have a computer in my house until I was like in high school. And so they're on it all the time. School's on it. Everything's on it, especially now with the COVID environment in that virtual learning, they're on it all the time.

Dr. Travis (28:43):

And so what's going to happen to that generation in 40 years when they're in their forties and fifties. And they're, my Boeing lands are completely gone as a result of all this computer work. And so we don't know, we don't know what's going to happen. I think it's the same thing. That's going to happen to that same generation with their hearing, because they always have earphones in or headphones in or iPad. Um, I can't even think the word iPod earbuds. That's the word. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's scary to think about, but the easiest thing you can do is clean your eyelids. So you don't even have to buy any of my products. You have face wash at home, use a natural face wash, make sure it doesn't have bad ingredients in it. So more natural, organic face wash, wash your face, but then spend a specific, a little bit time, just kind of gently rubbing your eyelids.

Dr. Travis (29:32):

You don't need all the fancy eyelid washes that we sell eyelid scrubs or anything like that. Um, but the easiest thing to add is the spray that we sell. And so after wash your face, you can just spray your eyelids and just leave it on and that's it. And so that's the easiest thing you can do. It's like brushing your teeth, but it only takes about five seconds versus two minutes. And so that's the easiest thing you can do right now to just maintain the health of your eyelids. And I think you'll start to see that coming up in the next 10 to 20 years is that's going to be discussed more, brush your teeth, wash your eyelids, brush your teeth, wash your eyelids. Because I mean, I can live without my teeth, but I don't want to live without my eyes. Right.

Roy - AGEUcational (30:09):

Right. Exactly. So this is a little bit off topic, but something related to computer. So one thing I noticed about me is if I'm in front of a computer all day, or especially an iPhone, you know, something, cause I'm, you know, basically in front of a screen 10 hours a day, and then I get out in the car and start driving, you know, it's like, I've been focused, I guess, up close for so long, then there's that transition. Sometimes it doesn't even happen. But you know, it's like trying to get my focus back for that longer distances. I guess we can relate that back to that 20, 20, 20 exercise that you said earlier, is there, what can we do to help that? Cause I, I just think about how dangerous that is, especially, you know, in the dusky hours to get out and driving, you know, you can't vote. You're not really focused and being able to see a far clear.

Dr. Travis (31:05):

Yeah. So let's go into that. This is, this is where I'm going to debunk the myth of Terry blaming her dad for everything. So we talked about that before. So whatever reading you got anything up. Yeah, no, no, it's fine. Um, so whenever we're reading or looking at anything up close, what we're doing is our eyes are focusing. So we have a muscle inside our eye and it bends the lens inside our eye to be able to see up close. Okay. And it's actively working. That's when we're reading, when we look at something far away, everything is relaxed. The muscles relaxed, the lens is relaxed. It's in its natural state. So that's why when you're reading for a long period of time, your eyes are tired. What I like to relate it to is you have a 10 pound weight, not too heavy and you start curling it, you do bicep curls.

Dr. Travis (31:59):

And you know, it's not bad. It's only 10 pounds, but imagine do that for an hour and then two hours and then three hours. That's what we're doing to our eyes when we're reading and on computer all the time. Okay. And so when you look at something far away, it's like putting that bicep curl or that, that dumbbell down, giving your arm a break. And so what's happening with you and this is the unfortunate thing of hitting your forties and into your fifties, right? And so we have that lens, that lenses flexible when we're born, but starting at age six months to two years, we start to add layers that lens every single day. And as we add layers to anything, it gets thicker and as anything gets thicker, it gets less and less flexible. And so the ability for you to bend your lens, to see up close and then relax it to see far away, just takes a longer time period than it did when you were in your twenties and then in your teens.

Dr. Travis (32:52):

And so what happens with that as that lens continues to get more and more rigid and less flexible. That's when we start to lose the ability to read. And that's when we need reading glasses. Okay. And then furthermore, once we hit our fifties and into our sixties, as that lens gets thicker and thicker and thicker, it actually changes our whole prescription. So then we have trouble seeing not only up close for reading, but now we need them for far away as well. And so that's a completely normal process that happens to the lens inside our eye. And then what happens next is that lens becomes cloudy and that's a cataract. Everybody thinks a cataract is a disease. It's not, it's just a normal degeneration and clouding of the lens inside your eye. And it happens to a hundred percent of us if we live long enough.

Dr. Travis (33:39):

And so once that happens, we take out that rigid, cloudy, inflexible lens out of the eye, and we put a brand new plastic, one in the eye, this new plastic one, you can have it made for just distance only. You can have a made for just computers. You can have it made for both. You can have it made for everything. So you get rid of your glasses after cataract surgery, not full time, you get rid of your glasses having to work full time, but you can kind of customize that whole experience for yourself. Yeah. And so I hope that made sense with the transition of your entire life. You're probably thinking back like, yep. Yep. I remember. Yep. Okay. I got my reading glasses and then I got my full-time glasses.

Roy - AGEUcational (34:20):

Yeah. My big wake up. And I hate to even say this but years ago, you know, a few years ago went to the, uh, get my driver's license renewed. And the, it was all, this is a little exaggerated, but was almost as bad as she said, can you look at the letters in this machine? I'm like, well, what machine, when I'm glad that bad, but you know, that was a definite wake up for me that like one side was just nothing but lines across of it. So anyway, I, you know, went out and got that taken care of back to the cataract for just a second. I know we could make a whole episode from that, but that is something that is very gradual. So, um, what is a key or what's something that we can look forward to say really now is the time to get that taken care of before we get in a really bad position.

Dr. Travis (35:05):

Yeah. Cataracts and cataract surgery is all about one thing and it's all about you. And so it's all about how much it's affecting your daily life. And so I know patients that have cataracts and they don't do anything about it because they're buying and they can see, they can pass the driver's test. Doesn't really bother them. And I have other patients that they have the smallest littlest, tiniest cataract that you wouldn't think affects anything and they can't stand it. And so we had them get surgery very soon in the process. Now from Medicare standards, Medicare says you have to see worse than 20, 40, or worse with correction in order to have surgery. Okay. And so 2040, isn't that bad a vision. So 2020 line is the bottom line and there's 2025, 2030, 2040. So it's only four lines worse than that. 2020 line. Okay. When we're measuring to give you an idea, when we're on mission trips, we correct to the 2040 line because they're used to not seeing anything. And so to correct them just to that 2040 line, which is considered medically necessary here in the U S that just shows you kind of, it just depends on the patient. So once you certain noticing that daily life being affected, right. That's when we have it done. Okay. Okay.

Terry - AGEUcational (36:18):

And does everything get blurry? I mean, I know I today's, I day for me, so I have an appointment after this to get, uh, my, uh, with my optometrist. But the last few, I guess the last five years that I've gone in, you know, he said, you're, you're starting to get some cataract and we can see some cataract things going on. And, um, I, I have noticed really, especially the last two years, everything is blurrier. Now I know that's because I'm, um, one of those, you know, that where's my contacts all the time. And, um, I'm sure that has a lot to do with it as well. But is that a sign of Canberra? I mean, is there a sign that you're having cataracts? Can you, yeah.

Dr. Travis (37:04):

Yeah. So blurriness is the number one sign learn. This is the number one sign, but you're also, you're just judging by your symptoms. I'm guessing you're bar sided. Yep. Plus you need reading glasses. And so having both of those gradually gets worse over time. Therefore it could be that as well. Okay. And so you, when, when I hear doctors say that they have, you have a small cataract, I actually never really talked to my patients when they had that small cataract quote, unquote, small cataract, because I always saw that it caused too much anxiety in the patient and it's really nothing it's subclinical. It's just something that everybody has. So why do you tell your patient? Because unless it's causing them problems. Right. And so if I see a small cataract and I think it's going to cause them problems within the next year, then I educate them on it. But for the most part, I never really educated those small cataracts that almost everybody over the age of 55, as I never educated on that, just because it sent worth the anxiety that the patient caused because you as a patient, you're cataract and you're like, wait, what? I have a cataract, but also his doctor didn't, she was better. What's the big deal. Right. Okay.

Roy - AGEUcational (38:14):

All right. Well, we're going to have to start wrapping up. We appreciate you giving so generously of your time, but a couple of things before we go, number one is, you know, I think our eyes are, you know, we always want to go to the doctor, get our checkup to the dentist, get our cleaning every six months. But I'm one to say that, you know, probably don't take care of my eyes as good as I should because you know, right now I can see, but I think, um, so tell us what is a good schedule for us to be on to, uh, you know, go get our examinations.

Dr. Travis (38:50):

So this will be the official schedule from the AOA, which is the American optometric association. And so the first time we ever want to see you for an exam nine months old, nine months, wow. Everything's normal. At nine months, we go every two years until you're six years old. And then from age six years old until about the age of 20, we'd like to see you every year. Cause a lot can change every year when you're growing like that. So up to 20, we like to see every year, if everything is completely normal, you don't want glasses. Everything's healthy. Every other year is good after that until you're about 40. And so after 40, then we like to see you every year because it's not just about glasses and contacts. It's about everything else we can find. Glaucoma is not a condition that you will notice anything, any problems until it's too late macular degeneration, you will not notice many problems until it's too late.

Dr. Travis (39:45):

Those are, those are, those are diseases that are harder to reverse. And we don't have a simple cataract surgery that can fix them. Okay. And so I've, I've detected five patients with brain tumors from an eye exam. When we caught the brain tumor fast enough that they were able to get treatment and they survived. I remember I was in clinic one day and a patient came in, knocked on my door and said, he just gave me a hug. And I didn't remember him right off the top of my head, but he's like, you sent me out for a brain scan and MRI and they found a brain tumor and they said they caught it early enough. And they removed it. And I am cancer-free because of what you found on the eye exam. Wow. And so that is the importance of an eye exam. Cause we can catch those things before they become before you'll notice any problems.

Dr. Travis (40:29):

Cause he didn't have any symptoms. But a test that I did in my office made me believe that he might have a brain tumor. So I sent him out for further testing and he did. And so that's the power of an eye exam. Your eyes are the windows to your entire body. We can see live blood vessels in the back of the eye and detect diabetes and high blood pressure before you even know you have it. And before your doctors and sometimes detect it's because we see live blood vessels and you don't see that anywhere else in the body, unless you get cut open. Yeah. And so the eyes are powerful and that's, I recommend an exam every year. So if you want to don't remember any of them about all the things I just said, just remember go every year, that's it?

Roy - AGEUcational (41:11):

Yeah. And that's a good point. You make, especially people that suffer from high blood pressure and diabetes, that they can have a tremendous effect on our eyesight. And from my understanding, that's something that's not reversible, is that damage. So you end up basically having to live with that.

Dr. Travis (41:28):

Yeah. It can be, the scarring can be pretty horrific. Um, but if we catch the diabetes soon we can reverse. But if it gets bad enough, the scarring is really bad. Yeah.

Terry - AGEUcational (41:37):

Oh my goodness. Can you tell us, um, tell us about your, I love cares foundation little bit and, and uh, if somebody wants to get more information about that and, and what your purpose and all of that.

Dr. Travis (41:53):

Yeah. So the other cares foundation was started because my wife and I went on a mission trip back in 2006. So I said 13 years ago, it's actually been 15 years. Wow. So 2006, we went on our first mission trip in Ecuador and fell in love with it. There's nothing like giving somebody a vision for the first time. And they're like 16 years old or even 40 years old or even 70 years old. They never had great vision. You put a pair of glasses on them. A pair of simple readers can make a huge difference in somebody's life. You and I can pick up readers at the drug store for a dollar and they have no access to this. So a six-year-old thinks they're blind because they can no longer read, put a pair of readers on them. They burst in tears because they can read again.

Dr. Travis (42:34):

Um, another story that we've seen is a fishermen fishermen need to line their hook and they can no longer line their hooks. So they become beggars on the street because middle class in these countries that we serve is $2,000 a year. And so every little bit counts. And if they are making $2,000 a year for their family of five and all of a sudden their income gets cut off because they can no longer fish their hook. That's a big deal. And so we're not just giving glasses. We're, we're stimulating the economy in these countries because these people can get back to work and serve other people instead of just begging on the streets. And so that's kind of the, the foundation of our foundation is just healing. These people that don't have access to eyecare and don't have access to glasses and giving it to them for free. And if you ever want to come with us, our, our websites, I love cares.org. Um, but if you ever want to come with us, just reach out to me and I'll give some other places that you can reach out to me here in just a little bit, but okay. Reach out to me. And if you want to volunteer, you do not have to be a doctor. You didn't have to be an eyecare. You can just come with us and enjoy and be humbled by serving and serving humanity in a completely different light.

Terry - AGEUcational (43:44):

Wow. That's awesome. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (43:47):

Okay. Yeah. And tell, uh, give everybody, uh, you know, basically talk a little bit about your product. What, you know, we've talked a little bit, but you can go ahead and say, you know, how that's can help people. And also if you have a tip, uh, you know, one thing I like to ask is what is something? And we can, uh, do the eyecare is what is something that you do every day, I guess, besides cleaning your eyelids that you know is, uh, perpetuates the, your eyecare.

Dr. Travis (44:18):

So we talked about green smoothies. That's one of my favorites. Yeah. Hydration is another one of my favorites. Just making sure you drink enough water. Okay. Um, organic foods. We've talked about that. And then the phones we already, we've pretty covered my whole bootcamp and I've upset, but you're tracing your phone use to sleep better. But another big part is stress as well. And so stress chronic stress that we're all under increases inflammation in your body and causes a lot of disease. And so doing things to just de-stress your life. Some of my favorites are I write three things that I'm grateful for every night before I go to bed, three things that are grateful for that happened that day. Another thing is meditation. When I wake up in the morning, I spend my first five to 30 minutes in meditation and prayer because it sets the mood for the day.

Dr. Travis (45:05):

It sets, it keeps you calmer and it will decrease your stress because you're connecting with a higher purpose. And those are kind of stresses. Another big thing that you just really need to maintain and take time out to just breathe. You don't have to be rushing. This is your life, your life, you control it. And a lot of people let life control them. And that's why you're so stressed out. But if you take control of life, then you'll be a lot less stressed out and you'll have a lot more fun. Yeah. So that's kind of the other tips. Cause we already went through all my other tests.

Roy - AGEUcational (45:37):

All right. Well, we do appreciate you taking time out of your day. So again, let everybody know if they'd like to be a part of your trip, uh, are just get some more information. Uh, how can we reach out and either connect with you or get to your website?

Dr. Travis (45:52):

Yeah. So the easiest way to find us is on Facebook. Our, our support community called the dry eye syndrome, support community, dry eye syndrome, support community, just type in dry eye on Facebook. And we're the first group to pop up. Okay. We're really active in that. We go live in that once a week with either an interview with an expert, or we just go live talking about a subject. We also go live a lot on our YouTube channel, which is called The Dry Eye Show. And you're going to get specific advice, but you're also going to get overall health advice too. So The Dry Eye show on YouTube or the dry eye syndrome support community on Facebook. And then if you want to try our spray or hydrate lid and lash cleanser, few you're suffering from dry eye, or you just want to start that eyelid maintenance routine. Yes. You can get it at freehydratedotcomfreehydrate.com. It's free. Your first bottle is free. It's a month supply. You just have to pay for shipping and handling and that's it.

Roy - AGEUcational (46:41):

Okay. Yeah. And it's easy, Terry, like she said, she reached out, signed up for it already. God is already using it. So yeah.

Terry - AGEUcational (46:49):

Yeah. It's made a big difference and the end, you're never going to stop hearing from us. That's right. I will have gotten lots of emails, but I'm, I'm trying to read them all. Um, but the proceeds for what you sell, go toward these trips and, and helping people in Jamaica and beyond.

Dr. Travis (47:08):

Yep. So we donate a portion of all profits, not profits, actually, we, we donate a portion of all top line revenue to the foundation. And I think just in 2020, we were able to donate close to $60,000 to the foundation, which helped give sunglasses to sunglasses and glasses to a ton of people. Even though we weren't able to go on our mission trips in 2020, we still sent sunglasses. We actually, Jamaica is our main hub. That's where we go. Every October, we actually were able to donate over. I think it was like 10,000 meals this year in Jamaica. And so it was cool to see because one of our friends is down there. He was actually hand delivering just bags of groceries to these families. And it was just really rewarding, not our typical, you know, eyesight mission, but we kind of adjust to what's in need and during COVID glasses are great, but nobody's working so you don't really need to see that. Well, um, but food was more important than the year 2020 to get people food that they needed.

Terry - AGEUcational (48:04):

That's that's great. And also I wanted to mention that you and your lovely wife, Jenna, are expanding your family this year, correct? March 24th. So congratulations.

Dr. Travis (48:17):

Yeah. We're, we're excited and anxious and all sorts of life changes in 2021 happened. Right?

Roy - AGEUcational (48:24):

Right. Well, my advice to everybody is to, uh, you know, get that appointment if you haven't made one in a while, because I think I saw it more than anything else. Uh, you don't realize how lucky you are to have it, and we need to take better care of it to make it last. Uh, you know, we, don't definitely don't want to outlive our, uh, side. It can really, you know, just debilitate our quality of life among other things. So reach out to Dr. Travis, if you got some dry eye issues, they can help you and also, um, make those appointments, get out there and get it taken care of. So, uh, for today, that's gonna do it for this episode of educational. We appreciate it. Uh, you can find us on all the major pod podcast platforms, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and a lot of other ones.

Roy - AGEUcational (49:14):

If we're not on a service that you use, please reach out. We'd be glad to get it added. You can also find us at www.ageucaional.com. This, um, we will post this episode there with the transcript of the podcast. Also find us on YouTube at educational. We do have a channel that this interview, uh, once it goes live, then the video will be posted of it as well. Uh, also since we are new, we asked that if you are a professional, that is, uh, you know, targets aging with some kind of service or product we'd love to hear from you. If you are a senior that has made it through something or would like to share your journey with us caregivers, uh, we'd be glad to hear from you. You can either write me at or Terry at, you know, Roy or Terry with a Y at ageucational.com. So until next time, thank you very much and take care of your loved ones.

Terry - AGEUcational (50:13):

Thank you, Dr. Travis. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for having me on.

www.eyelovecares.org

www.ageucational.com

       

Don’t Outlive Your Wellness, Know These 8 Foundations Of Health with Dr. Carol Shwery

Dr. Carol Shwery (DrCarolShwery.com) has been a dedicated healthcare practitioner for more than 40 years. She is deeply committed to helping people who struggle with feeling sick, tired, and in pain, find the root causes of their health challenges. She helps them reset their body and health so they can wake up feeling vibrant, full of energy, and ready for each day, no matter their age.

Through targeted lab testing, Dr. Shwery can assess how each system is working and design an individualized program to rebalance your body. Creating an individualized diet plan, a scientifically based supplement program, stress reduction, and exercise, a person’s health can improve dramatically – not only physically, but emotionally.

With an ongoing wellness plan, many health problems can be avoided, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, female, adrenal, thyroid, and insulin hormone imbalances. Her clients are finding a vitality that has given them a new lease on life!

Her personal goal is to transform our broken health care system as well as our broken health and empower people to achieve optimal health so they experience the joy and freedom of a life without limits.

www.drcarolshwery.com

www.ageucational.com

 

Full Transcript Below

Roy - AGEUcational (00:02):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of educational. This is Roy. So this is a fairly, relatively new podcast. And, uh, what we're, what we aim to do is we want to put information out there for not only the aging, but caregivers and, uh, those that are, uh, maybe getting closer to, you know, being seniors, that all kinds we're going to have, uh, you know, we're going to Chronicle our journey, mine and Terry's, uh, family, our parents, what we're going through. And then we're also going to bring professionals on. And, uh, we'd also like to hear stories of others that are going through things that have made it through things. You know, we want to be a good support group and I put some information out there for everybody just to make this aging process for yourself or your loved one, a much easier and a lot less stressful. So with that said, I'm going to turn it over to Terry. If you could introduce our guest.

Terry - AGEUcational (01:02):

Yes. We would like to welcome Dr. Carol Shwery for the second time. This is, this is the first time on this podcast. Um, but she was a guest on one of our other ones and we wanted to have her back. She is a dedicated health care practitioner for over 40 years, deeply committed to helping people who struggle with feeling sick, tired, and in pain. She likes to find the root causes of their health challenges helps them reset their day, no matter what their age, um, through targeted testing, Dr. Sherry can assess how each system is working and design an individualized wellness program to rebalance your body. Dr. Schwartz, thank you so much for coming and talking to us. Um, we'd like to welcome you to share the show and, and find out everything that we need to know about aging.

Dr. Carol (01:58):

Golly G [inaudible]. Well, thanks for having me back. You guys are wonderful and I so appreciate being able to share what I can with you guys in the, in a short and limited amount of time. And I know you wanted to talk about aging, correct? Yes, we do. So, all right. Yes. Terry, do you have a something you look like you want to say, well, I just want,

Terry - AGEUcational (02:25):

Hi. I wanted to say that you are a functional medicine practitioner, so maybe we can start there and just kind of tell a little bit what the, what the difference between functional and regular. What is it traditional? Thank you, regular. Um, let's go there.

Dr. Carol (02:46):

Okay. All right. So the difference in a brief way is the difference between conventional medicine and functional medicine is when you go to see a conventional medical doctor, they're listening to your symptoms, they're looking at you from what I call the top-down hi, I've got this symptom. And so what their, their approach is to go, okay, I want to eradicate the symptom. So we're going to give you their, their main, main emo or modus operandi is through medication and surgery. They're going to eliminate that as their, their orientation, functional medicine, we are going from the bottom up. So we're trying to find out why do you have that symptom what's wrong with you? So we're looking at trying to find root causes of why somebody has the problem and treat those rather than simply treating the symptom. So that's a difference of orientation. Um, and it, it, it provides different type of treatment modalities. So what we're trying to do is understand, um, in terms of functional medicine, we have many what I call foundations of health. And we're going to talk about those more today as we talk about aging and what we need to do does that

Speaker 4 (04:09):

Well. Yes, yes. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. Everybody jump right in.

Dr. Carol (04:21):

Obviously we're all aging. That is a statement of fact. We, and we want to get healthy aging at no matter what age we are. I mean, so for some people, they think of aging as once they had, you know, 65, you know, other people say I'm starting to age at 35, 40, whatever, but we want that same principle. Okay. And so why, why is this important for us? What is the reason we want to be healthy? And I asked you, and I asked your listeners that my wife, um, I just turned 66 Yahoo, uh, two to three weeks.

Speaker 4 (04:58):

I can't believe it happened. You collated birthday.

Dr. Carol (05:03):

So my why is, and probably yours. We have loved ones. We have grandchildren, we have people in our lives. We want to be there for, we want to live a life of, uh, joy and purpose. Um, my, one of my main choices, I love gardening. I'm a, I'm a master gardener. I want to spend hours a day out in my garden and I want to be healthy enough to do it. And so what's your reasons for wanting to stay healthy. That's really important. And so what today, really the idea is the best defense is a good offense. Okay. That's what we're really trying to achieve here. And so 90% of all illness is due to lifestyle 90%. And so 90% of all illness can be fixed with lifestyle. That's a big statement.

Speaker 4 (06:05):

Say that again, say that again. Let's do it. And while it's complete, you know,

Dr. Carol (06:11):

Hmm, 90% of all illness is due to lifestyle and 90% of all illness can be fixed with lifestyle. So that's a huge statement. So if you go to conventional wisdom, medical doctors, that's not necessarily the direction they're going to be looking at. So we had, so the point is we have an opportunity to control our health in far bigger ways than we ever thought. So we have this sense. There's a, there's a curve, a curve, a life's a life. Uh, I have to, I got to see, um, I can't remember the name of my curve. Uh, it's, it's chronicling the health and decline of health. And there is a, basically a curve that around 40, our health starts to decline rapidly. And that's the traditional trajectory of health in our country. We hit a certain point in all of a sudden things start to fall apart.

Dr. Carol (07:16):

And what we're trying to do in functional medicine is what I call rectangular rise their curve. So instead of going like this, and then we want to bring the health and just keep it sort of in a, in a rectangle until the very end, because we know we're all going to die at some point, but we don't want to have that trajectory really rapidly going downhill once we hit the forties and beyond. So that's really what we're doing today. And we have, um, ways which we want to, uh, make that happen. And so my goal is to try and fix our health and fix our healthcare system so that we can do that. And we talked last time and I want to talk again about that, that eight foundations of our health. Okay, we've got nutrition, we've got hydration, we've got stress reduction. We've got exercise, we've got a toxic environment.

Dr. Carol (08:16):

We live around 85,000 different chemicals every week we can encounter. And they do affect us. Um, we've got relationship is choosing. This is something we're going to talk about. Well, we can talk about it right now, seniors, in this time of COVID do you think isolation has, is become a giant problem for seniors? Oh my God, it's horrible. It is. And that's a foundation of health. Um, if we're not getting enough sleep, if we're too stressed out or simply where, you know, aging, uh, people when they age, especially if they're not living, uh, uh, you know, their health, their, their self care is not the best sleep can be a problem. The nervous system can be ramped up and out of balance. And then are people getting as much joy in life? We're, especially right now, these are the foundations of health and it doesn't matter how old you are, but as we age, these things become older.

Dr. Carol (09:14):

I wanted to just say one thing you guys know I have had, um, when I turned 50, I ended up with, uh, with, uh, with brain surgery. I had a tumor 14 hours. Surgery came out in Tacoma, came out of the coma, totally paralyzed on one side, completely and had to relearn. And I learned what it meant at 50 years old to be old because I was in a wheelchair with half a head of hair and an eyepatch over my eye. And I got to experience life as an old person. And it was, um, highly revealing from many points of view. And so I got a preemptive view of what it could be like, but it doesn't have to be like that. So it made my passion for wanting to help people even more important and real and real, because I've really got a sense of this. Um, and so I want to talk to you about things that you guys and your people can do today. That matters. Now I'm going to ask both your question. You guys, I'm sorry. What do you believe, or either of you or your listeners is the most feared situation about aging health wise?

Roy - AGEUcational (10:41):

Well, I'll go first. I think it's, um, it's outliving our wellness and being a burden on our family or just, um, you know, being trapped, being, having a, a good, fresh mind, but a body that like you were saying that maybe can't get out and garden anymore. If that was your passion or, you know, like me, I like to get out and hike. So if I couldn't go do that, that would not be, uh, good. So I, you know, I think it's, uh, it's kind two fold for me is I want to remain active until the end, but I also don't want to be a burden on anybody else. They, they, um, because, you know, we talk about that eventually is that, uh, that's a huge stressor to, to have to be a caregiver, to somebody who is in a mess. And then I guess the, um, just taking that a little further in, you think about it being self-inflicted. I mean, if you have an accident or something that happens to you is one thing, but as you began to get to a certain age, you start thinking about, well, am I self-inflicting, you know, future trauma on myself. So now's a good time to think about, you know, getting my lifestyle cleaned up. I can say that for sure.

Terry - AGEUcational (11:55):

My answer is getting Alzheimer's. I mean, definitely. And, you know, I joke, I joke about it all the time. It's not just because I have a sick twisted sense of humor and that's the only way that I can get through. Um, but my dad had Alzheimer's for at least a dozen years that we know of, for sure. And he's, he's, he passed away about five years ago, but, um, I mean, it was a long, it was just a long suffering and just to see his suffering and, and our, and you know, part of it's selfish. Cause we, he wasn't there. We just didn't see the twinkle in his eye on Alzheimer's for sure. But I joke about me, you know? Yeah. That's my Alzheimer's is kicking in, you know, I shouldn't do that. I gotta stop doing that.

Dr. Carol (12:40):

Oh yeah. But, but 50, but, but it's, it's, it's increasing in a really quick and rapid way. Alzheimer's and dementia are the number one concern of people who are aging. That is it. You hit it right on the head. So that's kind of wanted to talk about that today, but step back from that a little bit and go, well, why is that what's happening here? Because that is the number one fear everyone. Yep. Yes, it is. It is. It is definitely number one. So with that, I want to say, well again, going back to the functional medicine model, why is what is happening happening by the D 2050? Um, there, I mean, the numbers are going to be triple and quadruple what they are now for Alzheimer's it's, it's re it's rapidly increasing. Oh, so I want to just talk about a few things. We have a short period of time.

Dr. Carol (13:38):

So I wanted to kind of just get, give you a sense. The first thing is all timers, uh, dementia. These are functions of inflammation, inflammation. Okay. So if we need to deal with getting the inflammation in our bodies under control, okay. Uh, inflammation is the number one cause of degenerative disease all over our bodies. And it's not just arthritis or the itises cardiovascular disease, um, diabetes. These are all pro inflammatory diseases. So we need to get our inflammation under control. Okay. Things like Alzheimer's diabetes, arthritis, auto-immune diseases, which are hugely on the rise, neurologic diseases, cancers, pulmonary, they're all inflammation. And what's another little secret side. You know, side little information is belly fat. Okay. We think of belly fat is the belly fat. You can see on the outside, but I'm talking about the belly fat that's underneath that fat that sending out pro inflammatory signals in a big way.

Dr. Carol (14:55):

So we need to be able to go in the same diseases, including Alzheimer's can be triggered through the inflammation pathway through that excess belly fat. So we need to be able to go, wow, what do we need to do to manage this? So for your listeners, I just want to say, okay, what's these are, this is a driving force for aging inflammation. And so what can we do to limit the inflammation? What can we do today? We can decrease inflammatory foods okay. That we can do today. Um, these are, these are common pro-inflammatory foods. You've got gluten, gluten containing foods. Uh, you've got corn, soy products, dairy sugar, eggs peanuts. These are super common pro-inflammatory foods for these are things that anybody can manage right now. And it's just as an aside, gluten has been shown to be dramatically problematic for the Alzheimer's and dementia patients.

Dr. Carol (16:10):

So do you, do you know what I mean by that? I like my gluten. That's terrible. I know we all like our gluten, so yeah, we do. Yes. No, go ahead. I was going to say so what, so what types of foods? So, uh, breads, breads, breads pastas. Um, I mean, this is a large co LA LA uh, much longer everything I'm saying could be another two hours, but you can, what's valuable right now is, I don't know your, I asked you this the last time. I mean, you've got a whole foods where you live, but you got health food stores. You can go get non-gluten grain. Non-gluten breads. You want to stay away from gluten. And I'll tell you when I go ahead, when I get in heavy into gluten brain fog is my immediate response. And it's not, this is not just, um, it does, Oh little brain fog.

Dr. Carol (17:10):

You know, it leads somewhere. It has physiological ramifications. So these are things you can do to help yourself with fighting aging, by changing the diet that you have, you want an anti-inflammatory diet. You can also take omega-3 fatty acids. Okay. Because they are, every cell in our body is made up of fatty acids, every cell memory. So, and if you are, if you're deficient in Omega threes, then your pro inflammatory potential is higher. Okay. So that's another thing you do to fight off inflammation. And another little thing that you might want to consider is, um, you want, you want to, um, eat, um, nine to 11 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. That's tremendous amount. That's two, two giant dinner. Platefuls a day. So I encourage people to drink their fruits and vegetables. And, and especially for Alzheimer's we say the term go blue.

Dr. Carol (18:19):

Okay. Cause blue, like berries, these things are super pro anti-inflammatory. So if you make yourself a drink, you put some berries in it. This is going to be really anti-inflammatory, which is going to be really, really good. Okay. Um, good stuff. I want to also talk about your guts, your guts, and your brain are linked. So with you have a situation in your gut where your gut is something called leaky. Again, we could talk for hours about what leaky gut means, but it means that the cell, the membrane of your guts are so permeable that things can get through into your body that are not supposed to be there. Toxins, um, infections, uh, all sorts of particles that are not supposed to be in your body and guess where they can migrate to, they can migrate to your brain. So leaky gut oftentimes means leaky brain.

Dr. Carol (19:19):

Hmm. Interesting. So yeah, this is super important when it comes to as aging folks, our brain function, leaky brain. Oh my gosh. This is a big problem. For those of us who are in the aging process, we want to make sure that we don't have that situation. So the other thing about the gut, one of the main problems with, um, aging, especially now is people are depressed. Okay. There's a lot of depression in the world. Well, believe it or not, 70% of all our neurotransmitters serotonin, you've heard of that. Okay. And the gods it's in the gut, 70% is in the gut, none in the brain, in the gut. So if our guts aren't working well, then our moods can be greatly diminished. So again, how aging, it's not about, uh, go to the doctor and say, Hey, this COVID is knocking me for a loop.

Dr. Carol (20:34):

I need some antidepressants, well, that's an option, but the other, other option is, well, why is this becomes so bad besides the fact that we're living isolated, what physiological activity is place that can make this worse. So we want to think about the gut. Um, and, uh, and so again, the anti-inflammatory diet, the Omega threes, and if you take some probiotics or probiotic, rich foods, these are going to help with your leaky gut. If you have it, then most of us do. Um, and I just wanted, I'm going kind of quick. I don't know where we are. Kim was this good? Can we, can we talk a little bit about the probiotics? I mean, are, are, are there certain ones that are better? I mean, just a little view. Well, um, this is a very large topic. This is a large topic, but, um, I would say, I mean, if you want to go to the store, I believe probiotics is a very there. The, the topic is, is really the research on it is really growing right now a lot, but to get, uh, acidophilus, lactobacillus, acidophilus and or bifidus is pretty basic, um, all purpose probiotic, uh, for most people. And, um, you want to, at least in my opinion yet, try and get closer to 50 billion per dose. Okay. Um, not million billion. That would be just the night. That would be a way to start the plugging of the holes if they're there. Okay.

Roy - AGEUcational (22:21):

Okay. And I know we could talk about this for a couple hours on its own, but just two quick questions is, uh, you know, we, we had have a previous guest on that. We kind of got off on this and, uh, they were saying that there is a, uh, a prebiotic that you, it's probably a good idea to do a prebiotic, to make sure you have the bacteria for the probiotics to eat. And then the other thing that she did mention was that it's better to get it out of a refrigerated case than off the shelf, just because of shelf life issues.

Dr. Carol (22:56):

Well, prebiotics are different probiotics. You have to, well, this is the problem with this conversation. One of the things I heard you to do is that when you go to the health food store, you can always get these from me. Should you decide to, because I spend a lot of time researching the companies that provide these things. And part of the problem with probiotics is if they have not been tested to get through the bile and the gallbladder, you're just, it's like, you're, you're spending a lot of money for nothing. And so if you go to the healthy store, you say, what ha what has there been independent lab testing on your probiotics? And that, cause if they happen, you don't know what you're getting. Okay. Now prebiotics are not are what, the probiotics, which are really bacteria it's they feed on. Right. Okay. So you can get prebiotics, you don't have to refrigerate prebiotics. And the way that certain probiotics are being created now, not all need refrigeration. Okay. Um, but you need to go to the store and take due diligence and say, prove to me that you know, that what's on the label is in the body. Where's the, where's the independent lab testing on this product. And if they look at you like you're crazy, then I wouldn't

Roy - AGEUcational (24:13):

Good. Okay. Then you're done your job.

Dr. Carol (24:17):

Well, I just feel you got to go. I go in there just to see, and they go, what do you mean? I go, well, why would I do something if I don't really know that what's on the label is true. Right. Exactly. That's important to me. But I do want to say about attics, prebiotics are foods. Okay. So you can get, um, uh, uh, unripe, bananas, asparagus. Um, there are a list of foods, but you can also that you can eat, which are prebiotic in nature. But the other thing you can do is you can get a prebiotic resistant starch formula, which helped you. You do not have to refrigerate that. You can go in and say, I'd like a prebiotic formula, which are just a conglomeration of foods. Um, inulin. These are things that you can get to support the, make the, the production of the probiotic. Okay. So you can go to the store and say, I want, I want a prebiotic powder prebiotic formula, or you can get the foods artichoke or the chokes beliefs. These are, these are prebiotic foods. Okay. So does that make sense?

Roy - AGEUcational (25:31):

Thank you. And we'll invite you back to do a whole whole show on PR on probiotics and prebiotics. I know there's a lot to cover so we can, we can move on. I just had those questions,

Dr. Carol (25:42):

This last idea I really want you to, cause I decided since, since dementia and Alzheimer's is the number one concern. We really need to get to that. So the things that help promote that problem, diet, insulin, infections, stress, not getting the right kind of fats, exercise, sleep, um, social isolation. What does this sound like? This sounds like the foundations of health, but I want you to hear this one most important piece. What do you think Alzheimer's the other title for Alzheimer's disease. There's another title you weren't going to know. So I'm going to tell you and Roy, you're not going to like it. So

Roy - AGEUcational (26:26):

Don't, don't make me mute, mute, mute you.

Dr. Carol (26:31):

Other title of Alzheimer's is diabetes too. So it's called a diabetes too. Okay. Because insulin, when the there's a problem with insulin and how it affects blood sugar, we are, we have discovered that it is a direct correlation to the, to the, um, incidents of Alzheimer's increasing. Okay. So if somebody has a problem with their blood sugar and their insulin, which is how blood, where the problems are with, with blood sugar, you don't have a problem with a person doesn't have a problem with blood sugar. A person has a problem with how their insulin is or is not going to produce, enable where it puts the sugar in the body. So if we don't have our blood sugar handled correctly, we are prone to our potential of getting Alzheimer's is massively increased. So I really want people to hear that it's in paramount to manage our blood sugar, right? Because we don't want to go down that path if possible. So how do we do that? You know, we manage it with diet, um, and if need be altering, um, what we, you know, if we have to take nutritional supplementation to manage the blood sugar even more, cause that may be a very strong possibility.

Roy - AGEUcational (28:01):

What are some, uh, again, I know we could get way off on this, but just what are a couple of sub nutritional supplements that can help with blood sugar?

Dr. Carol (28:13):

Well, a lot of them and I'm, I'm in the middle of having a total brain freeze, right? No, no, you're fine. You're fine. Um, uh, licorice, but I'm, I'm trying to think of one thing in particular. Let me keep talking. I'm totally having a mental breakdown right now. No, no, you're good. You're good. Um, gosh, darn it. Anyway. I'll think of it. Yeah, no worries. No worries. Okay. I had some thoughts that I wanted to get the final few things. BDNF brain derived neurotrophic factor BDNF is it helps increase our brain chemicals, uh, and brain connections, neurologic neuro neuron, connections, exercise vital for improving that. So if you find that you are, you know, you want to not only improve our aging process, but our brain function, we got to exercise in order to do that. That's, it's very important for the specifically for this BA B D N F increase. So because if we don't, it's not going to work well. Um,

Roy - AGEUcational (29:25):

Two things that you've mentioned so far that the brain fog definitely, you know, when I eat wrong, not what I'm supposed to be eating. I can feel that, you know, some days it take two or three hours to just, you just feel like everything is moving slow in the brain, but then the other is the exercise. It's amazing how transformative that can be to get out and take a 15 minute walk. And it's like, uh, it's just like my head clears out thinking so much better, uh, have a lot of great ideas to come back and share with Terry. And, uh,

Dr. Carol (30:01):

Well, the other thing is like, I, one of the things, since COVID, I've never sat in front of my computer, I've never sat down for my work. Right. Well, I finally just last week got a, uh, uh, a desk that raises and lowers. So I tell you it's really fabulous because on YouTube you can find all sorts of five minute, 10 minute exercise routines for a standing desk. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, I got, I dunno, do you guys have Costco out where you are, you do plain from Costco. Okay. And it just sits on top of my skin. I can raise and lower it, and it's a way to get exercise even when you're sitting in front of your computer. That's really, really important. Okay. Okay. And then I just have two other things I want to say stress and the hormones that are produced in stress, in the stress in your body, they can pull apart your gut.

Dr. Carol (31:02):

They can make it leaky. And it also, your brain shrinks from stress. So we want to manage our stress level one nurse, one non one nutritional supplement way to do that is to take, um, B five B6 and vitamin C, these things, uh, they come in formulations like that, that can really help your, uh, your adrenal glands. Cause we don't want to bring the shrink. Right. Right. Um, and so we want, we definitely want to do that. Um, and, um, shoe other supplements to help with your brain health and healthy aging. And one of them is coconut oil. Okay. Coconut oil has been shown to be directly to the reduction of the symptoms of Alzheimer's. And I encourage people to open that oil about a tablespoon as a, as a basic dose in your drink, hopefully every day.

Roy - AGEUcational (32:06):

Yeah. I, I'm going to tell a quick story about that. If I can interrupt you for a minute that, uh, this has been a couple, two, three years ago, there was a, um, uh, a researcher that came and gave a talk here in the Dallas area. And this is a very limited information. They were just starting some, uh, bigger, more wide ranging research, but there was a lady in Florida who, and if, you know, one of the tests for Alzheimer's that they give you is that you draw a clock face and then they try to get you to put the around it. Okay. So this lady in Florida did it for her husband and he piled all the numbers down around five and six. And you could definitely tell, you know, he, um, he was in some stage of Alzheimer's or dementia. Well, uh, she started giving him three tablespoons of coconut oil every day.

Roy - AGEUcational (33:00):

And within about six months, he was able to almost properly align all the numbers. Now I'm gonna, you know, kind of bookmark that with saying that was one person. And she said that, you know, they had started some bigger studies, but, uh, you know, cause I used to take it and put it in my, uh, you know, my drinks that I may yeah, my smoothies, the one thing you just w you know, I think you have to Mark to be careful with is that it's very high caloric. And so I think it's like 130, 120, 140 calories per tablespoon. So just, you know, you have to be aware not to go overboard with it, but other things, coconut oil has a lot of other good uses. Like I've heard, uh, uh, dental practitioners say that, you know, rinse your mouth out with it. People use it for conditioner. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of good things, anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Dr. Carol (33:56):

In functional medicine, we're not worried about calories is calories in calories out is not going to get you healthy or, or gain weight if you're eating the correct foods. Right. Um, so we tend to not think about that. We want the physiology to be correct. And so if you're doing all of it correctly, that's not an area that we, um, we are going to be thought about. Oh, I came up, I couldn't remember my, my blood sugar stuff. So I remember it now. Okay. So chromium, okay. Chromium is sort of the main, the main thing, chromium cinnamon. I don't know if I said that or not. Uh, and, um, Burberry, um, you can go out and get formulas for blood sugar support, just basic blood sugar support. There are other things that are helpful, but those are sort of the basics. Okay. Okay. Awesome. Yeah.

Dr. Carol (34:52):

Thank you for that. Okay. Yeah. I just was like, I was having a complete brain fog. That's my whole day. It just wouldn't, you know, you got an idea of what you want to say and all of a sudden there's somebody says, well, what about this? And like, wait, wait, I didn't have the light in thought about that. Um, so I said, I wanted you to do the coconut oil and, uh, sleeping is you've got to try and get an asleep to, in order to have your health. It's a foundation. If you don't get enough sleep, that's going to be one of those broken foundations and it's not going to work well. So that's a quick rundown, in my opinion of things that relate to healthy aging, you know, that you mentioned

Roy - AGEUcational (35:38):

That. No, no, it was perfect. Uh, I was just thinking about, you know, for me, the sleep component is so important because what I noticed less sleep tends to make me want to eat more, tends to make me not want to go out and exercise and tends to probably make me be more prone to stress. So it, for me that, you know, one of the key things I have to watch is just getting enough sleep for sure.

Dr. Carol (36:04):

Right. And if you don't get enough sleep, it's gonna throw off, uh, insulin and growth Mormon. If you don't get enough sleep, which is going to Ang mess with your, um, uh, blood sugar. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to mess with your ability to lose weight. So especially sleeping before midnight and then making sure that you, um, cause that's when, uh, one of the things he thinks I like to say is insulin is out to play growth. Hormone goes away. Okay. So if you eat a carb, if you eat a carb meal late, like you want to, you don't want to eat any time within three hours of going to bed, you don't want to, okay. You do not. And if you eat a carb meal or a bigger carb meal, you want it to be five hours. Okay. Because it will mess with your growth hormone and it will mess with your sleep and it will mess with your ability to have a good, a good metabolism.

Roy - AGEUcational (37:04):

Okay. Okay. Well, that's a lot of great information. No. And I realized that we could do, uh, you know, we could do an entire episode on each, each one of those topics and then sub components of that as well. It's just a lot of, a lot of information, but I think you've given us a lot of good things to think about. And, uh, you know, cause that, again, I think you've hit some of the major points that I typically I've got on my list that, uh, above my desk is sleep hydration, you know, drink enough water, which I do not do, but, uh, eat right. And then, you know, exercise, move, do something. And, you know, it's, uh, all the news reports now are saying that, you know, sitting is the new smoking. So definitely the, um, I'm going to have to look into the standing desk. Never been okay. Yeah. I've seen them, but I wasn't really sure if, you know, I didn't know about standing up to do work, but, uh, it may be something worth giving a try. Yeah.

Dr. Carol (38:09):

Well, you know what I about it, but I don't know about you, but, but I never stopped before in my life. So, um, my hips and my back are like going, what are you doing? So this thing, I mean, I don't know if you can tell, I I'm, I'm, I'm rising up right now. You guys are not ignoring you, but, um, it's really this desk at Costco, I have to say was the, for the, for the price, it was big. So I could put my papers on it. I, you could put multiple screens on it if you need. Um, you know, so it was, it was quite, quite for the price. It was good. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (38:47):

Interesting. Okay. Check one of those out. Well, uh, I think we, uh, we've taken about as much time from you as we can today. We appreciate it. And, you know, as, as always with you, we want to, we will make the invitation that we would love to have you come back on and, you know, start unpacking a lot of these, uh, foundations kind of a little bit deeper. Maybe we take one or two at a time and just see where we go with that. But, um, thank you so much for taking time out of your day, if you don't mind. Uh, you know, one question we usually ask is, so what is something that you do during the day? Um, and it could be an app or a habit, something that you use that kind of adds value to that health healthiness or wellness factor for you?

Dr. Carol (39:34):

Well, um, right now, um, well I said right now that the standing desk is like my real, my, my number, my excitement also, it's just hard. This is hard for all of us taking time to go. I'm going to take a certain amount of time to get off my butt and do something every day. Okay. So I have a friend, a physician friend of mine, and every morning at seven 30, we're meeting on zoom and we're exercising for 20 minutes. Awesome. Okay. Um, because doing it on your own, maybe harder. And so we both look at each other, our hair's all messed up and we're like, but we're doing yeah. So honestly it's like, when it's over, it's like, okay, I did it. Yeah. Okay. And the other thing, and Roy, you said it too. I have bottles or glasses of water wherever I go. I have, I always have, I have, you know, this is about holds about 20 ounces. I want to make sure I got water everywhere cause I want to hydrate. Right? Yep.

Roy - AGEUcational (40:56):

It's important. And the exercise portion, of course, you know, we always tell everybody, be sure and check with your doctor for your individual plan or what you can and can't do. But, um, I think there are so many options out there. You know, chair aerobics, there are things geared to most, any situation. And you know, another thing that I just got that I'll share this weekend was a, um, it's a TRX band. So basically, you know, you can do different body, weight, resistance training on it. And so, you know, what it's, what it has allowed me to do is, you know, in the middle of the day, when I'm feeling like that, like I need to stand up. I can get up, just walk over there, you know, maybe do five minutes worth of stuff, nothing heavy, but it is movement and it is getting me out of the chair. So, you know, there's a lot of great things out there.

Dr. Carol (41:48):

There's a lot of new, I think the world has finally discovered the largest population growth is seniors. There's if you go to Facebook, there is so many senior exercise programs right now. Lots of them. Yeah.

Terry - AGEUcational (42:02):

Oh, I have been getting those ads popping up left and right. I I'm a little offended that they think I'm old enough for these ages, but

Dr. Carol (42:13):

They're not all easy by a long shot,

Terry - AGEUcational (42:15):

But they're cool. I mean, who would have thought of some of these things?

Dr. Carol (42:19):

Yeah. So we've been experimenting with various ones. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (42:23):

Yeah. And, you know, it's just good to get up and move in. Not only for me like the weight loss portion, but just for our health and mental wellbeing, it's good to, you know, get up and move during the day throughout the day, plus it. Plus it leads to me sleeping better as well. Yeah,

Dr. Carol (42:39):

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So I also want him to say for anybody who's interested, I am offering a free 15 minute consult. If you want to try and find out some of why you may be having health challenges or trying to prevent yourself from having health challenges as we age, I'm offering a free consult.

Roy - AGEUcational (43:00):

Okay. That's awesome. We appreciate that. And I was just fixing to ask you, if you could, you know, tell people who you work with, what you can do for them, and then of course, how they can reach out and get a hold of you to work with you.

Dr. Carol (43:15):

Well, um, I work with people of all ages, um, but as I am aging, uh, the people I'm drawing are often also aging. So I would say between 40, from 45 up, you know, I have 90 plus year old patients as well, but the people who are trying to say, I want to, uh, I want to address my health from a different point of view, right. They want to go deeper. And that's really the kind of person who says I've tried these things and I'm not really getting the results I want. Let's try something different. Okay. Those are the people who are drawn to me. Okay, great. So if you want to reach me, you can call my office and I can give you the phone number, which is (831) 476-6906. And let my staff know that you heard this podcast and are wanting your 15 minute consultation, we're going to find out what have you done for your health. What's worked, what hasn't worked, talk to you about what I do and see if you to, if this might be something you want to investigate further, or you can reach me through my website, which is drcarolshwery.com, D R C a R O L S H w E R y.com. You can reach me through that portal.

Roy - AGEUcational (44:53):

Yeah. And we will be sure and put all that information on the show notes where people can find that as well. So. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. We certainly do appreciate it. Uh, of course we appreciate, uh, all those listeners as well. If, uh, please share with your friends and relatives, this is, uh, you know, some great information that everybody of all ages needs to hear. It's never too early to start taking care of our health, to help us live better through those latter years. So also you can find us on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, all the major platforms. Uh, you can find us on our website at www dot age, UK national.com. And of course this, um, the video of this interview will go up on YouTube, uh, as soon as the episode goes live. So until next time, Dr. Carol, again, thank you so much. We appreciate all of it. Uh, good information. And we can actually gave us some actionable items. We can take action on to start helping ourselves.

Terry - AGEUcational (45:55):

No, and right now I'm cracking my whip.

Dr. Carol (45:59):

Right. Thank you so much for having

Terry - AGEUcational (46:02):

Me. Thank you so much for coming back and sharing all that information. Yeah, that's awesome.

Roy - AGEUcational (46:08):

All right. Until next time y'all take care of yourself and take care of you.

www.drcarolshwery.com

www.ageucational.com

           

Assisting Aging Parents with Teresa Moerer

My name is Teresa Moerer and I published, The Art of Assisting Aging Parents, based on my 35-year career as a physical therapist and experience caring for my aging parents. From my research on aging and the recent Alzheimer's and dementia statistics, I know that if we do not master our midlife, we cannot expect to have a healthy end-life. My recent work focuses on how to help caregivers live a joyful and vibrant life while assisting aging parents.

Caregivers around the world face the challenge of keeping their parents healthy and aging in place while maintaining their personal life and commitments, which have changed drastically in the last few months. I found out years ago during my multidisciplinary group therapy efforts that there is a method of building the body, brain, and spirit to achieve the highest level of function in mobility and personal life. The research that backs this up is increasing daily.

Now I am sharing this information with the public to help them start their parents on a proactive aging process, keep their parents out of a nursing home as they age in place, while not giving up their personal life.

The four-step method I formatted called Experi-Age, helps people of all ages find their strengths and life vision, set goals, target concrete activities to reach their goals, and build the body, brain, and spirit to the highest level. 

I want to help caregivers to not only be confident in their caregiving skills, but also to continue living a full life. I believe that Experi-Age works as a proactive aging process to ward off or reverse chronic illness and age related brain changes for those in midlife and the aging.

I am a wife and mother of three grown children. In addition to spending time with my family, I love to cook, garden and oil paint.

Teresa Moerer

www.ageucational.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - AGEUcational (00:03):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of educational. This is Roy. So we are a podcast we've, uh, we've had a website around for quite some time where we did some writing and some original content, some curated content on the aging process, how we can, uh, you know, help those around the setter, aging, how we can help caregivers and also how we can help ourselves through this aging process. So, uh, we're excited. We're going to Chronicle our journey. Uh, both myself and Terry have aging parents. So we've always got, uh, the thrills and excitement of new things coming up from day to day. Uh, luckily, uh, you know, my parents and Terry's mother both in good health, uh, relatively for their age. And so the, the issues are minor, but sometimes even the minor things, if you just know somebody else's going through it, how to navigate it, those are things that we're going to hopefully talk about.

Roy - AGEUcational (01:01):

Just instances that come up in our life. But also we do want to extend invitations because we want professionals in the aging field to come on here. Uh, we do want to get, uh, people that are going through the process, either aging or as caregivers to come on and tell us their story. Uh, we just feel like that, uh, there are a lot of people going through some struggle to do with aging at this point. And we want to let you know, you're not there alone, and we want to reach out and help you. Uh, you know, a little bit about my professional background. I have consulted in the senior living industry for the last 20 years. Uh, I am a gerontologist by, uh, education and, um, have worked as a volunteer long-term care ombudsman here in Tarrant County, uh, in the past. So I've been kind of in the aging field for quite some time. And so this is a passion for me, for sure. And, um, anyway, today we're going to get on with the show today. Uh, we have an awesome guest to recent. I'm going to let, uh, Terry introduce her.

Terry - AGEUcational (02:11):

Yeah, welcome Teresa. She is an author coach and a speaker who helps individuals and organizations find their strengths, realize their life, vision, and build exceptional experiences to become empowered and live life to the fullest. She is a creative transformational life artist and was a physical therapist for about 35 years, I believe. And the, she is an author of a book called the art of assisting aging parents. So welcome Teresa. We are so happy to have you. We appreciate you coming on. Thank you, Terry and rides. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah. If you don't mind telling, just tell us a little bit about how you, um, how you got to the book process, but you know, just a little of your background and how you got there.

Teresa (03:07):

Sure. Yes. Um, yeah, I started in physical therapy at thirty-five years ago and I noticed for myself, although I love the profession and I can't imagine my life without it, but, um, I have a creative side to me. And, um, so what happened during my physical therapy years was that I was introduced to multidisciplinary group therapy. And at that point I was really able to bring my creativity to my therapy and I loved it because the patients were thriving in this, um, in these group approaches that we did to bring, you know, therapeutic activities. We brought a lot of fun, a lot of challenge. And, um, we also brought, you know, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy and, and as, as needed. So it was a wonderful experience, not only for the patients, but also for me, you know, and it really helped me grow as a therapist.

Teresa (04:06):

And, um, about, it took about 13 years before I decided I was going to write a book about it. And I thought I would dedicate this first book to caregivers in the aging because, you know, I saw the problems that were happening, you know, not only in the therapy world, but I started, um, helping my own aging parents and just to see the challenges. And there were so many people coming up to me and my sisters saying, what do I do with my aging parents? You know? So it's not just one person it's multitude of people that just don't know, you know, how to solve problems. And sometimes they don't even know the problems associated with aging. Yeah. Where

Terry - AGEUcational (04:44):

To go, where to start.

Roy - AGEUcational (04:47):

Yeah. Yeah. And that was, uh, kind of why the educational started to, especially, you know, for me, is that Pete, when people find out that you're in any part of the field to do with aging, it's a ton of questions, you know, how to navigate Medicare or how to navigate the, getting the insurance to get the physical therapy, to stay at home, move to a facility. I mean, there's just so many questions that revolve around that.

Teresa (05:15):

Yes. Yes. And, you know, I take the approach, um, it's like a proactive approach, you know, instead of reacting to the aging and having to come up with those solutions, um, I take a proactive approach where I put in my book, all the tools that you need for your healthy lifestyle strategies, you know, I put in a couple educational theories so people can communicate well with their parents and with the health professionals. And you, you know, as you guys have been in the aging scene, you know, you know, how many people there are to communicate with, right, as you, as you assist your parents and you've seen other people do this, you know, multiple times. So that, and then the benefits of group, the group of interactions. And I know we're seeing this a lot right now with the COVID and the isolation. And I've actually sat in on a couple of, of, um, uh, trainings just recently, just this week.

Teresa (06:10):

And there were trainings from like the national association of rehab and, um, another, I think the other one was just a zoom training and they were kind of highlighting the telemedicine, but they both noted that caregivers and families are so needed in this process of, you know, getting through the aging process and how many people are in isolation right now. And they're suffering so much more because they can't be with their family and their caregivers, you know, so it really is a problem. And, um, I think if you hit the, you know, hit it proactively, you know, it's, it's like you get on board almost before you eat and you start this, you know, aging process and, um, yeah, you just really optimize the function of your body, brain and spirit. That's, that's my goal.

Roy - AGEUcational (07:03):

Yeah. And it's, it's so important because, uh, if as in the past we typically wait until there's an event that happens and then it's the stress of the event is usually traumatic by itself. But then we add on a little stress of, well, I need this information or I need to do this process and I needed to happen right this minute. And unfortunately just not the way that most things happen in life, but in aging, especially, it just seems like it takes forever. So I think that proactive plan, and then people like myself who are getting to, you know, it's hard to be of a certain age is, you know, there are things that we can do actively for ourself in order. Uh, you know, we kind of a term we've been thrown around lately is, you know, we don't want our, uh, lifespan to outpace our health span.

Roy - AGEUcational (08:00):

And so, you know, we want to try to match those up in some way that we can be happy and enjoy older life. And, uh, you know, I just, I'm amazed a lot when I look around at people that are in their seventies and eighties that are still popping around and, you know, getting around good, cause growing up it was, this may be a little bit, um, over, over dramaticized. But you know, when I was growing up, it seemed like when you hit 65, it was boom, you know? Yeah. You know, it was the cane and Walker and you didn't do anything. And now, you know, we've got these people that are, uh, you know, eighties and nineties that are out there driving and you see them in a restaurant, you know, when I meet people, they're like, Hey, this is my mother. She's like 95. And I'm like, wow, I can't even believe it. My mom is 86 and she is, she's still driving. She said, she'll quit at 90. We thought might send

Terry - AGEUcational (08:56):

A D a letter from the DMV saying, okay, you're 90. Can't do it anymore. This isn't, this is the cutoff. Don't say anything.

Teresa (09:07):

Yes. Yeah. I, I totally know what you mean. I, you know, starting in physical therapy, 35 years ago, it was unusual to see somebody in their nineties. Yeah. And now we're seeing active 90 year olds and, you know, into the, into the hundreds now, you know, and, and still active. And it's, it's amazing. Um, yeah. Due to some good education, I think all along the way, that's helped a lot.

Roy - AGEUcational (09:33):

Yeah. I was, uh, at a, this was a, um, an assisted living community at, in Lafayette, Louisiana that I was at, it's been a few years ago, but they were doing an opening. So we were down there helping them out, doing some tours and stuff. And, um, I was very surprised to finally add like, uh, 50 of the initial residents that had moved in, there were still 10 that were driving and working and they were still living a full life, even though, you know, they wanted a little bit more security. They, they didn't want to cook as much, but they still lived a very active life. So it's encouraging, it's encouraging, but we still have to take care of ourselves in order to make it to that point.

Teresa (10:21):

Yeah.

Terry - AGEUcational (10:22):

Yeah. Yeah. So, so the art of assisting aging parents, you have a four step method for successful aging. And what do you call that experience experiences?

Teresa (10:34):

[inaudible]

Terry - AGEUcational (10:37):

What is that about?

Teresa (10:39):

Well, um, and that the poorest step method is a it's, it gives you a sequence and it gives a caregiver like, um, kind of, uh, a method to use and a sequence. So they don't get overwhelmed. And so burst, I teach, um, like six healthy lifestyle strategies that are really non-negotiable and it's really, for all of us non-negotiable we have to have the right nutrition. We have to get the hydration. We really all need to be doing the deep breathing, the meditation, mindfulness. Yeah. I did that eight hours of sleep and, um, do the exercise for your brain and your body. So, um, those are the first things I teach and I want people to practice those. And a lot of people don't know that meditation on mindfulness actually grows your brain and it keeps your brain healthy, you know, and, you know, yeah. Just to know that, um, you know, people are like, well, yeah, I want a better brain as I age.

Teresa (11:38):

And, um, yeah, something that's, it's so simple and so easy and it's so effective, you know, and the deep breathing can change your whole body. It can change you from a state of anxiety and anxiety can lead into depression too, bringing you to a state of calm and you're able to think and make decisions. So these things are, are, are easy, but they're very, very powerful for your body. So I teach those first and then I teach, I do teach the benefits of group interaction. Um, it's so healthy to be with people, you know, face to face. And now all the research is coming out to tell us that, you know, we met hormones into our body when we're face-to-face with people. And we, we, um, we, you know, are more empathetic when we're face-to-face. And, um, also, you know, you, you can become a teacher when you're face-to-face and just think about it, the, um, the confidence and you know, that that will be, bring an aging person when they can be like a confidant to somebody or teach somebody a new skill.

Teresa (12:42):

Yeah. So being in groups is just huge, you know, for your health. So I teach that and then I teach a couple educational theories that I think are really important. Um, and I've used them in my therapy world, you know, for all these years. So I teach that and then they would go into this four step method and the first step is helping your parents find their strengths. So, um, I do this, like by conversation, you bring your parents to some conversation and they can tell you some stories about what they did in the past that, um, you know, some obstacles they overcame and, um, and what their strong points are. So you, you listen to those stories and then you pick out these words and it might be, you know, perseverance or, um, courage or, uh, generosity, you know, something like that. And then you take those words and you use some with your parents and just continue to build them up.

Teresa (13:33):

You know, we all want to work from a place of strength and we have to, you know, to get through the aging process because it's really uncharted territory for all of us, you know, and the second step is finding your life vision. And, you know, I never want anybody to lose that because that's what gets us out of bed in the morning. You know, we have to have that purpose, you know, and maybe it's your family, or maybe it's, um, maybe you had a career that was so important to you. You loved it, you had this passion for it. And so you take this, you know, or maybe you're a sports enthusiast, you take this life vision and you tweak it a little bit and say, well, what can, what can my parents do now that makes them feel good and get out of bed at night, good morning, and hit life, you know, hit the ground running every day, you know, so you work on that and I'm in that same time, step in step two, I have people set goals, you know, so they have something to work with.

Teresa (14:30):

And, um, the, the, uh, step is the concrete activities that get you to those goals. So that's where you pull in all these health tools and, um, you know, the exercise and things like that, that bring you, you know, towards your goals. And then finally, it's the assessment and the reassessment, which we all have to do on an basis, you know, and who am I, what am I making, you know, making my goals. And I working towards them, do I need to tweak them a little bit? Or, um, you know, like just, w what direction am I going in? And it's kind of a method that never ends. It's kind of a circular thing. Once you get done with it, you just kind of start over, you know, upgrading, or sometimes you have to downgrade, you know, that can happen too. So,

Roy - AGEUcational (15:18):

Yeah. And you, I'm in an interesting point that you bring up is the, you know, who we may have been in our youth or our accomplishments and our goals and things like that. Because, uh, you know, as an ombudsman, that was one thing that we worked on. And, you know, when we talk about, uh, assisting our aging parents, it could be us and it could be other caregivers. And so the kind of the message I have is that, um, a lot of staff would talk about people by their, um, affliction. Like, Hey, there's a lady in a three, a with dementia, she needs this or that, or that lady and four B uh, with incontinence, you need to go down and take her something, you know, and it came to light, um, because one of the ladies was, um, she had been a local school superintendent.

Roy - AGEUcational (16:12):

She was well-published, she had two or three books. She had magazines articles, very well accomplished lady, but we had reduced her to the lady with dementia. And, uh, you know, so that was one thing that we, um, really tried to stress with. The non-family caregiver was everybody has had a life, everybody's had a story. We need to get to know that more so we can, um, at least address them on an individual basis. I think it's so very important. It's a lot of it is just the respect and the dignity factor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Terry - AGEUcational (16:50):

I'm sorry. I wouldn't have thought I was interrupting you if you were going to say something. Um, I wa I, this may be out of left field, but I, for, for Christmas last year, I got my mom a, um, a book it's it's called story book. And what they did was they, it was a subscription and they sent her a question a week. It's kind of overkill because I'm actually doing it. But, um, a question a week and I got to pick, pick the questions. Um, and, you know, just, uh, what were you like as a child? What were your parents like? What was your best job? Um, what is your, what would you like to be remembered for? I mean, anything you want, and then at the end of the year, um, they, they make a book, a hard book, a hard cover book, and they send it to her. So I'm in the process of doing that right now, but I, you know, I'll call her, I'll ask her the questions, even though she gets the emails and I'll ask the questions and then I'll type in what she tells me. And it's been very, uh, you know, I've just learned even more about her, even, even though you hear the stories over the years, um, you know, I've just learned so much about her and that, that was something that was really cool that I wanted to

Roy - AGEUcational (18:13):

No, that's a great engagement tool. Yeah.

Teresa (18:18):

And what a great legacy to leave for the grandkids, you know, so they can know their grandmother or, you know, Greg,

Terry - AGEUcational (18:26):

You know, and at this point, I mean, she's 86 and she lives in a retirement and she lives in our apartment and, and in independent living, um, in a retirement, um, center. And, um, she, you know, she, sometimes she just feels like she's not worthy of anybody's attention. And, you know, the grandkids are all everybody's living their lives. And, you know, if, if she doesn't, if they don't call her, you know, that's a big thing. They have to call her. I'm like, mom, the phone goes both ways you need to do this. But the social interaction is just really, it's so important. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (19:06):

Yeah. And I will, yeah. I'll just chime in on that. Like my grandmother, um, you know, she wanted to stay at home because she wanted to be close to her church. She wanted to be with her friends and you know, what, we kind of convinced her over time was, well, you're not driving anymore. You know, most of your friends are gone or living elsewhere and, uh, y'all, don't ever make it to church anymore. So why don't we try this? And so once we put her in, I don't wanna say put her once she moved to an independent, that social aspect is it's so underrated, but it's so important because she flourished. I mean, you know, you'd have to call ahead when we'd go over there to see her, because she was never at home. She was, I don't know, puzzle room, somebody else's room playing dominoes or cards. I mean, those ladies were into a lot of mischief. And so, uh, you know, they were always out running around, but I, I just feel like that's, that is one thing that we give up when we age a lot. And it's still so important. Probably more important.

Terry - AGEUcational (20:10):

Yeah. Mom, mom is always, she has play in bridge, especially during COVID. I mean, they can't get together any longer, but she's doing it online. And the fact that she's figuring out how to do that is blowing my mind. So I'm just letting it go. I mean, I know nothing about bridge, so, but she is all, I mean, two, two times a day, almost every day. It's crazy.

Teresa (20:33):

Yeah. That is so nice. And I tell people, you know, get back in your groups as soon as you can, after this bend down Mackenz and back in your groups, or, and if you don't, aren't, you aren't in any groups, get in groups and try to your groups now online, if you can. Yeah. Because it really is that important.

Roy - AGEUcational (20:52):

Well, and we're lucky with technology because it's not the same. I get that, but we still have the face time on the phone. We have, you know, iPads, computers. We have a lot of ways to connect, which I think is, you know, it's really cool. Just like, uh, you know, Terry and her daughter, her daughter is, uh, lives in California and has been in Hawaii for the last six months, I guess. And, um, they get, they, you know, FaceTime all the time, which I think it's awesome because they get to see each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think we just have to adopt those, you know, we have to may have to have a little more patience with mom and dad and grandma and grandpa, you know, those are things that we can adopt for them to at least try to keep them engaged with family and then maybe their friends as well.

Terry - AGEUcational (21:44):

Yeah. Everybody should be able to take, you know, five, five minutes, you know, five, five, 10 minutes a week, just call and check on, you know, whoever, whoever your family member is, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't take that much effort to do that. Um, and it's nice to always keep in touch and find out what's going on. Cause you know, you never know when something's going to come up.

Teresa (22:12):

Right. Right. Yeah. I know a lot of people have been creative. I know one of my friends and unfortunately she lost her husband to COVID and, um, she has four children and they're just young adults, you know, so it's very devastating for all of them. But, um, for my friend's birthday, they all got on the zoom call and they did that rock painting where you paint the rocks, you know, they did that, you know, that's cute. And some people have done the pumpkin carving, um, you know, and really getting your family together. This didn't really be a multi-generational, um, just an excellent event to get the whole family together, you know, maybe at a holiday and just do some extended, like, you know, even decorating the Christmas tree is good exercise for, you know, your aging parents, I'm making that meal. Um, you know, some of the favorites, like maybe the ginger snap cookies or, you know, things that really smell things that really, um, you know, are sensory stimulating, you know, beautiful, beautiful pictures or moons or drive around and see the Christmas lights or, um, you know, have that meal, have the smells and the tastes and talk about the past reminisce because reminiscing again is good for your body and your brain.

Teresa (23:28):

And it can take out some of the anxiety and I can give you some really good positive feelings of good times in the past too, you know? So I'm never underestimate the power of even getting your family together as a group, you know, or your little bubble that you have right now that can be with, you know, during this time. Um, very, very powerful

Roy - AGEUcational (23:50):

Yeah. Need, uh, another thing that's, um, I think is taking a toll on the caregivers, especially is that stress component because, um, you know, there's some of us, some, not me, some Terry's, there's some Terry's that are, you know, kind of in that kind of in that, uh, the sandwich generation, I, her kids are a little older. She still has one, you know, in 20 young twenties, but you know, they're like you said, with your other friend, there are people that maybe still have young kids that need a lot of attention. And now all of a sudden mom or dad, or even grandma and grandpa, uh, now they're needing a lot of your attention to, and so they're going to throw a lot of things out there at you, and you can just kinda go with w w which one you would want to dive into.

Roy - AGEUcational (24:38):

But, you know, first off, especially for the, um, very high acuity, uh, patients, I guess, a better way, the, you know, people that are being cared for the caregiver will about 60 to 70 times, 70% of the time, the caregiver will pass away before the person that they're caring for. So, you know, that's one, um, a lot of times the family member has to quit work. And so now that adds that financial burden on to, you know, the already the stress and, you know, with COVID has compounded that because it's harder to bring people in. It's harder to get into communities. A lot of families don't want to, uh, you know, even look at congregate type living because of, you know, all the, the COVID ramifications right this minute. So anyway, that th the caregivers really have to learn to take care of themselves because the, the messages that they cannot give, if they're in bad health himself.

Teresa (25:48):

Yes. And that is so true. And I touch on that in my book. Um, a lot of people wonder if my book is for caregivers or the aging, and I say, well, you know, you really can't separate them. It just goes together. You know, but yes, the caregivers, I heard this statistic that caregivers are dying 60% faster than those they care for. And that is very alarming. It's very scary. And that just means we really all have to take care of ourselves, you know? And, um, I know that I teach people how to do this, how to do the self care. And one thing I would say the first thing is to delegate, you've got to delegate responsibilities. You know, you have to maybe have that family meeting and see who can help, you know, who has the resources, who's got the time, right? Who has the special talents to help mom and dad through this aging process, and then really make a list of things that, you know, all the siblings think them together.

Teresa (26:48):

And do you know for mom and dad, but really all the re did not just pull on one person. You know, even if they are the primary, primary caregiver is still have to have a break. Yeah. So that's the second thing I tell them, after you delegate, you need to take breaks. You need to take breaks every day. You need to have a couple hours for yourself, you know, at least, and then you need to take, um, then, you know, it comes to about taking a weekend away, you know, just step away from caregiving. Yeah. And then get a good vacation or two in every year so that you can stay healthy. You know, you need to stay in groups, you need to take care of yourself, you know, you need to eat. Right. And so many caregivers just get into the cycle of, you know, having to help somebody that they totally ignore their own self and their own health, you know?

Teresa (27:39):

And, and I hate that with, you know, the sandwich generation, you know, when I was in, in that generation, I still had goals, you know, I'm 60 years old and I'm starting a new business right now. You know, I have, I have a lot of goals and I love how this health professional, I talked to this week. She said, you know, we all have a lot of goals until we get sick. And then we only have one goal and that is to get better, you know? So I don't want anybody to lose the goals, their life vision, you know, you really have to pay attention to yourself, you know, as you caregiver. And, um, the third thing I say too is, you know, you have to pamper yourself a little bit, pamper yourself, you know, go get the, go, get the facial, they'll get the petty here, they'll get a massage. You gotta make a wishlist. I wish I could do this. Right. But yeah. But yeah, you do have to Amper yourself and, um, do something for yourself, you know, that's really important food. So you feel good?

Roy - AGEUcational (28:47):

Yeah. Because there's the emotional aspect to it. I mean, it's draining physically and there's all that. But you know, one thing that, what we would find, especially in, um, you know, when we looked at, uh, non-related caretakers is that when they had to work longer and longer hours, if they were pulling doubles, trying to cover shifts, most of the abusive situations, and I don't mean necessarily physical, but maybe verbal. And sometimes the abuse is not as bad as what it can be as much as it's just snapping or, uh, you know, being quick or, or blowing off what they're, short-tempered, you know, there's a lot of things like that, that I think that we have to protect ourselves from, you know, by getting that respite, because we don't want to act out to, you know, the people that we're caring for sure. Acting

Terry - AGEUcational (29:42):

Kind and keep the vicious cycle going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My sisters, my sisters and I, Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Teresa (29:53):

Yeah, well, that's good. Yeah. I was just going to say, yeah, when I was working, I, I actually went to Kansas city for a couple of years to help my mom and my husband was just very generous to say, just go help your mom. And he knew I was kind of looking for a traveling job. I wanted to kind of split my time because, um, I'm always was always looking for another job in my creative creative world. But, um, so I, I actually had two physical therapy jobs in Kansas city and taking care of my mom. And we ended up moving her into assisted living and independent living. But, um, you know, I had to have patients all day for my patients at the hospitals, you know, and I gave them, you know, that's just, my nature is and give them everything, you know, at the hospital. But then like, then I would go help my mom in the evening. And sometimes I noticed I didn't have as much patience for her as I did, you know, for the ones at the hospital. And then, you know, it kind of, yeah. I mean, it made me feel bad. I was like, come on Theresa, you can have more, a little bit more patience with your mom. You know, not that it never, it never got to a bad point, but you know what I mean?

Terry - AGEUcational (31:02):

It's so common with family members and that, you know, when you, after you're out work and so much so long, all those long hours and you get home and it's like, somebody just breeds wrong and you're like, [inaudible]

Teresa (31:16):

Yeah, yeah, yes. You know, I just, um, you know, it was just one of those things where you expect a lot from your family, you know,

Terry - AGEUcational (31:26):

You just do it.

Roy - AGEUcational (31:27):

Yeah. The other thing that you brought up or wrote down was, uh, the breathing and this is such a, we actually, um, we're talking to some people, uh, they're in, um, what is it, uh, uh, like a traditional Eastern health, health, and wellness space where they do, you know, a lot of more natural type things. And, um, that was something that we got off on was the breathing. So it's good to talk about that, how important that is not only for the caregivers, but for the, um, for those that are aged as well, because I know I find myself not breathing or breathing very shallow. And so I have to really mindfully think about, and I used to have a sign over my desk that said, take a breath or breathe. And, you know, people would kind of laugh and say, well, you gotta be reminded to breathe. And I'm like, yeah, I really do. Because on more than one occasion, I've had people, you know, when I was out doing stuff that people would say it, it's okay to take a breath, you know, whenever I, and that doesn't necessarily be stressful. I could just, if I'm intent, I'll will notice I will whole my breath. But, um, I think for relieving the stress, there's so many functions of our body that we can control

Teresa (32:47):

Breathing. And you had mentioned earlier brain health, I mean, deep breathing for brain health, right? Yes. Yes. Actually your, your brain requires a fifth of the oxygen that you bring into your body, you know, so we, we know like, and your, your other organs require the oxygen too, but we know we can't live without our brain, if we don't and say, we're, we're without oxygen for what, like seven to 10 minutes, um, our brain is that dependent that it will die in that amount of time. So, um, you can think of that and you can think of the other organs in your body that require that oxygen. So yeah, deep breathing is very, uh, vital for that. And it also, it calms down your nervous system. You can take yourself from that fight and fight or flight, you know, a system down to a relaxed, um, calm system.

Teresa (33:44):

And just by just doing the deep breathing, your body will relax. And in fact, if there's a night that I can't get to sleep, I will practice the deep breathing. And sometimes in the morning I wake up and I think, gosh, I don't even remember, you know, doing that whole exercise because I fall asleep. I mean, it really is. It really is powerful. And, um, yeah, I teach people diaphragmatic breathing, which is the belly breathing. It's where your, um, you know, your belly goes, goes up. I have people put out their hand on their chest and their hand on their belly and then work on, on that belly breathing. And if anybody's interested, it's, it's on the internet, you know, I mean, you can Google it, you can do YouTube and you'll find diaphragmatic breathing. And, um, there's one that's called Foursquare where you, you inhale for the count of four, hold it for the count of four exhale for the count of four and hold it for the count of four. So if you can just think of a square and that's sometimes that's the one I'll do, uh, right before I go to S or if I'm trying to go to sleep or if I want a good night's sleep, I'll do the Foursquare. And I'd tell ya, it just, just takes your body into a different state.

Roy - AGEUcational (34:56):

Yeah. And it, it kind of goes along. I think, well, for me, I think, um, it kind of leads me into mindfulness and maybe even the meditation, because I know when, you know, when I can make myself stop and do meditation, that breathing is an important part for me too. Uh, because I guarantee, I'll say, okay, I'm going to meditate. And then I'm thinking of five things that I need to do or want to do or should be doing. And the way that I can bring myself back into that mind listening, or, you know, my neutralness is just breathe in and really concentrate. Like you were saying on taking it in, making it go down into your stomach. And then the release of it when I can concentrate on that, I am much more able to meditate like I should, but the mindfulness, uh, you know, Terry brought up a great point.

Roy - AGEUcational (35:47):

The other day, we were eating breakfast and I'm in front of the computer with the, you know, she had made a nice little breakfast casserole and unlike bar, you know, shoveling it down. And, uh, she's like, you know, we need to practice mindfulness when we eat really, when we do a lot of things. But at this point it was just an eating don't think about all the other things, concentrate on, we're eating this. It's good. What are my, yeah. What are all my senses doing? My taste buds, my smells and all that. And, um, I think it's a good way to slow us to try to slow us down a little bit too.

Teresa (36:25):

Yes, yes. Um, yeah. You know, and you, you brought up the meditation and the breathing, and that happens for me too, when I start meditating and I've been meditating for a long time. But, um, when I do that, um, I actually, I go back into my childhood when I, when I third, my thoughts, and then I might even bring in a thought from my childhood and it relaxes me self much. Cause we didn't back in the 1960s, there wasn't really an agenda to the day, you know? So, you know, it was just, um, it was the freedom, the, you know, uh, the creativity that we can express because we didn't have any schedules. We could just do what they were, you know? So it brings me back into that. Yeah. And then I just start deep breathing and I'm like, wow. You know, I mean, my rib cage just opens up and, and I love it because I know I'm just like, Oh my gosh, I'm getting this, you know, with the meditation, I'm getting it as deep breathing, which my body is craving, you know? Cause we all live this busy lifestyle. I know you guys do. I do

Roy - AGEUcational (37:33):

Well in that. Um, you bring up another good point that there was a study. I think it was more based on children that, because we're over-scheduled and they have so much stimulation. They never get that downtime, which is important for the creative part. And I, you know, I try to talk about that and I've got a business podcast that I try to talk about that a lot is that even as adults, we still need that mindless time to be creative. And for myself, uh, what that is, is when I get out and go for a walk, either around the neighborhood here, or if I go to the gym, you know, it scares Terry. When I come home bounding with energy, cause she knows I've got 25 ideals. I'm fixing to throw at her. She's like, Oh yeah. Like last night I, I didn't get to the gym till late. And when I came home I'm like, Oh my God,

Teresa (38:31):

Sorry. Hey,

Speaker 4 (38:36):

Oh my God, they're doing their jobs. Thank you for doing your job.

Teresa (38:46):

Sweet puppy. Hope your ears are okay.

Roy - AGEUcational (38:49):

Yeah. We live on a dead end street. We don't get much traffic. So when somebody does he, the no outlet sign there

Speaker 4 (38:56):

To come down here and turn it around and everybody can go a little crazy, no outlet.

Roy - AGEUcational (39:02):

The exciting thing about COVID though, we got all the, all those things going

Speaker 4 (39:07):

On with Horst. Oh my goodness.

Teresa (39:09):

I like zoom hat. We have pets. It's just the way it is. The pets and kids zoom together.

Roy - AGEUcational (39:19):

Yeah. There's one there that's ADA. Oh my gosh. They, they want to be stars. They can't stand to be left out. Wondering why we're not paying them attention for 10 or 15 anyway, I'm sorry. Oh my gosh. We're coming back for a second trip.

Speaker 4 (39:33):

Um,

Roy - AGEUcational (39:37):

They distracted now [inaudible] we were just talking about mindfulness and going back to when we were a kid and uh, you know, I was just thinking that, um, you know, talking about the research and that even as adults to be creative, we need to take that time for ourselves and not have all that sensory overload that we're used to.

Speaker 4 (39:57):

Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (40:00):

Well I think, uh, we have run quite long. It's been a good conversation and uh, we do appreciate your time very much. Uh, if you could tell us what is a, uh, what's a tool that you use in your life, either personal or professional that you just don't feel like you could do without, and it could be a habit or ritual, something like that?

Teresa (40:23):

Well, um, I think for me, my spiritual life is important. So I would say it's that, that meditation and prayer time, that really grounds me, you know, because, because I look at my life and I know, you know, I'm not really in control and a lot of things are happening now in the world. And sometimes you just can't make sense out of them, you know, you try. But, um, there's, there's just a lot of stuff going on. So I, I get grounded in my spiritual life. Okay.

Roy - AGEUcational (40:56):

That's awesome. Well, so Theresa tell everybody, um, you know, how they could reach out, get ahold of you, how you could help them out either through the aging process or, uh, helping a loved ones through that process.

Teresa (41:11):

Okay. Yes. And, uh, my book is called, um, the art of assisting aging parents and that is on amazon.com and Barnes and noble.com. And I have a website and I'll just spell it out and you have to put the www right now. It's not working if you don't, but yeah, www Teresa it's, T E R E S a murderer, M O E R E r.com. And you can find me there and I do have my email on there. I do like to reach out to me. I do have a 20 minute free strategy call all about 23 calls a month. So if you would like to have a free strategy call for 20 minutes, if you have a challenge that you're facing during the caregiving, um, let me know about it and I can help you do some problem solving. So I love to do that.

Teresa (42:09):

And I do have a course, um, online on my website and I basically teach you the, um, my book and like six weeks. So you can learn all the methods and practice, you know, I, um, you know, recommend that you, uh, you know, have a week between each module, there's like six modules and practice these activities, and then you can put it all together at the end. And, um, I really think it's worth it because there's just so much, you know, overwhelmed with caregiving that you might as well go into it, knowing, knowing what to do and knowing your yeah. And if you know, you're doing everything that you can, then you can kind of walk away and say, you know, I am, I'm doing everything I can. Yeah. I don't take any guilt with you. This is not a time to pack on a lot of guilt. They just don't need it. You know, you need to have a full night

Terry - AGEUcational (43:05):

Just to be able to have a roadmap for sure. The art of assisted aging parents, that that's such a great tool. I encourage everybody to go and check it out. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (43:17):

All right. Well, again, Theresa, thanks so much for your time for coming on the show. We'll be glad to revisit with you in the future to, you know, see what's going on. And, uh, we want to thank everybody for listening. You can find us, of course, at www dot age, you [inaudible] dot com. We're also on, uh, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and we'd love to, you know, start some discussions on our Facebook page. We're getting that ramped up to where, uh, you know, we can talk a lot about these things and have comments, what other people are going through, uh, what they've done for that, you know, try to help each other out as a community here. Uh, also we are going to be on all the major, uh, uh, podcast platforms, Apple podcast, Google podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, and Pandora. I think even on Amazon, a lot of places, if we're not on one where you listen, please reach out. We'd be glad to get you added. And then, um, also, like I said, in the beginning, we're looking for other professionals that can add value. We're looking for people to tell us their story, uh, you know, both from the caregiver and the aging perspective. So, uh, reach out. We'd love to talk to you about that. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your family. This is Roy.

Terry - AGEUcational (44:36):

This is Terry Theresa. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Teresa Moerer

www.ageucational.com

   

The Wellth Factor with Stevyn Guinnip

I'm the Founder & CEO of Grow Wellthy™ and the creator of the Wellth Academy™. As a financial advisor's daughter who became an exercise physiologist & certified wellness coach, I help financial professionals earn back their health so they can retire wellthy.

I grew up as a financial advisor's daughter. For over 30 years my father helped a lot of people build financial portfolios to protect their wealth and prepare for retirement. I worked in his office growing up and always wondered why some of his clients would save and work hard their entire lives only to get sick or die prematurely.

It seemed like such a waste to me!

What bothered me even more was watching financial advisors, who know how to plan for the future, ignore their own health for decades. I kept asking myself, “What good is wealth if you don’t have your health?”

Fast forward....I became an exercise physiologist, a certified health & wellness coach, and founder of Grow Wellthy.

Now I help successful money managers use their financial expertise to recession-proof their health so they can live a life of wellness, freedom, happiness, and a body oozing with confidence. I work with financial sector professionals, their firms, and their clients. I help them create a game plan that applies sound financial principles to their pursuit of health so they can thrive physically, both now and in the future.

I have a master's degree in exercise physiology, and I'm also a certified wellness coach. For 20 years, I searched for answers - trying to figure out why the US was in the middle of a health crisis that the people in my industry couldn’t fix.

In the name of health & wellness, I've done it all.

I did research for the NIH (National Institutes of Health) on exercise and high blood pressure. I was an in-home personal trainer for wealthy clients. I ran corporate wellness programs, cardiac rehab programs, and group fitness programs. It all works so well on paper. It all works so well in the lab.  All the certifications, degrees, and conferences say the same thing. Get to the gym. Work out in your target heart rate zone. Eat a certain number of calories. Lift weights with sets and reps 3 times a week. You get the picture.

But I know from my experiences in the real world that that we can throw most of that out the window. Thankfully research has caught up to this idea in the last couple of years, too. So believe me when I say that you don't need to do any of that stuff to get healthy, lose weight, and protect yourself from chronic disease in the future.

My own struggle & revelation...

I had always been active, thin, and fit when I was young. My lifestyle...or body chemistry...or genetics - or maybe all 3 - made it seem.

But, then I turned 40. I got a stressful desk job. And I had an emergency hysterectomy all around the same time. (read more on that here)

BOOM! The body I once knew was no longer the same.

My hormones disappeared literally overnight. My desk job pinned me behind a computer all day, so it was no longer easy to stay active, and I was under constant stress trying to build a business in a foreign country.

Also, around 40 is a common age for people to notice a significant decline in health - metabolism slows down, muscle mass decreases, and risk of chronic disease increases, etc.

I was hit with a quadruple whammy - age, hormones, a desk job, and high stress.

During the year following my surgery, I was on a negative spiral downward in my health. My weight climbed. My waist thickened. My energy plummeted. I was in adrenal fatigue. My blood sugar crept out of the normal ranges, and I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes.

My frustration and fear grew. I kept thinking to myself…”I have a master’s degree in exercise physiology. I earned the most sought-after certification in my industry (American College of Sports Medicine). I’ve been coaching other people for years. How can I not figure this out for myself?!”

I beat myself up because the things that used to work for me to maintain my weight didn’t work anymore.

Yes, my life-threatening surgery changed my body forever. Yes, I got a desk job and had an intimate knowledge of stress. Yes, I was over 40 now. But that is how I figured out the answer. I now see those things as a gift.

Because, at a time when I needed help, conventional health and wellness 'wisdom' failed me.

But I found the solution and would love to show it to you, too.

My pre-diabetes is gone. A1C and fasting blood sugar are normal! I lost 20 lbs in 10 weeks and my waist shrunk 4 inches. I can't tell you how incredible it feels to have my peace of mind back. I know I'm no longer on the road to chronic disease.

Interestingly enough, I realized along the way that people in the financial industry are uniquely equipped to win at their health. (Remember, I’m a financial advisor’s daughter. I have 30 years of second-hand FA knowledge under my belt.)

That’s why I founded Grow Wellthy and why I only work people who understand financial principles. They will get it, and when they are ready, they will be successful.

Stevyn Guinnip, MS, CWC

Wellth Advisor, Founder & CEO

www.growwellthy.com

www.ageucational.com

Full Transcript Below 

Terry - AGEUcational (00:02):

Hello, and welcome

Roy - AGEUcational (00:02):

To another episode of educational. Uh, this is Roy I'm Terry. So, uh, this show, you know, we are, uh, a brand new podcast and, uh, just what we want to do is strive to bring a lot of topics surrounding aging, healthy aging, things that we can do to age better things that we can do once we age. And also some things that we can do better to, uh, you know, help slow down that aging process. So we'll be, uh, talking about our journey, monetary with our parents, as well as you know, in our life. And then we also bring, um, want to bring on subject matter experts and professionals in different fields in order to give us some good commentary on, uh, you know, other diverse topics. So with that, I'll turn it over to

Terry - AGEUcational (00:53):

Yeah, today we're very excited to have Steven Guinnip. She is an exercise physiologist, a certified health and wellness coach, and she is also the founder of grow wealthy, w E L L T H Y. She grew up as a financial advisor's daughter and for over 30 years, she watched her father helped many people grow their wealth and their portfolios portfolios, excuse me, to protect their wealth and perfect prepare for retirement. She worked in his office while she was growing up and often wondered why people would save and work hard their entire lives only to get sick or die prematurely. Um, and ask the question what good as well. If you don't have your health, Steven, welcome to the show. We're so glad that you decided to join us today.

Stevyn (01:49):                                                                                                              

Thank you so much, Terry and Roy, I'm so happy to be here.

Terry - AGEUcational (01:53):

Yeah. If you, if you don't mind, um, you, if you can kind of go through your, um, your background, your professional background, as well as we'll talk about your personal journey and why you are where you are today.

Stevyn (02:11):

Of course, yes. I was an athlete in school. I'm five 10, but I was a gymnast. I never should have been a gymnast. Yes, I was too tall and I was a swimmer also. And so I was always very active. And like you said, I grew up in the house of a financial advisor. So I have what I call second hand knowledge of the financial industry, kind of like secondhand smoke, but it's all, all good for you. And, um, I considered my dad to be in a helping industry. He really helped people with their peace of mind as they were aging and taking care of their family members and making sure that they had enough. And I decided to go into a helping industry as well, but on the flip side, which was health as opposed to wealth. And I started out with a master's degree in exercise, science, kinesiology, and physiology.

Stevyn (03:06):

And I S I actually, my first job out of my master's work was working for the NIH, the national institutes of health, looking at high blood pressure and the effects of exercise on women, if you could actually exercise your way out of medication. Wow. And what was really interesting, I'll just take one second to explain this is that the same study was done on men, and it was enough with men to exercise three times a week for 45 minutes in your target heart rate zone. And that would reduce blood pressure enough to get off of medication many times, but with women, it was not true. And that sparked my curiosity. Why, why could people respond so differently even across from gender to gender, um, to the same type of engagement. So I began a career of an exercise physiologist from that point forward, working with all kinds of clients.

Stevyn (03:57):

Um, I, I think I've counted and tried to calculate over 5,000 client hours of all kinds of people with different diseases, disabilities, you know, goals, helping people lose a hundred pounds to helping people who have bleeding disorders to still stay healthy and, uh, corporate wellness and cardiac rehab. So I did that for 20 years and then I moved to Australia and I was, uh, I was there in the fitness capacity to launch a kettlebell program. My family and I went, my kids were four and eight at the time. And we left our family here, extended family, and moved to down under and there. So I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (04:39):

No, I said, wow. That's Oh yeah. Culture shock. Yeah. So

Stevyn (04:45):

Many great things about Australia. And one of them is that people seem happier. They seem less stressed, and that was palpable to us coming from the States as we stay there about a year and a half. And then when we moved back, it felt like this heavy blanket of stress kind of fell over us. And, you know, just like the American kind of striving for more all the time and just working harder. And it made me really reassess what it is that I do, because as I said, I worked on everything from the exercise side of things, and then understanding that there are lifestyle factors that affect your health outside of exercise. And there are what I call the low-hanging fruit. It's the stuff that everybody can work on. And it doesn't require a lot of activity or effort. And, um, those are the first three steps that in my four step step plan, I guess, is doing the things that don't involve exercise.

Stevyn (05:40):

Um, and so because of that, about five years ago, I did a complete one 80 on what I do. And instead of getting, trying to get people to move and go to the gym, I now get, try to get people to just, um, I guess, address in a really proactive way, the lifestyle diseases, what causes those lifestyle style diseases. And according to the CDC, there's seven of them that are the most common, and maybe we can link to that link or something, but the seven most common have to do with brain diseases, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, those kinds of things that we're all pretty comfortable with or familiar with. Um, but there are lifestyle diseases and we can do so much in the workplace at home, um, with our loved ones to help protect us from going there. So that's why I do what I do now.

Roy - AGEUcational (06:27):

Well, nice. Yeah. And that was, I'm glad you said that about, uh, other things we can do besides the gym. Cause I was fixing to have to cut this interview short so I could go get my 45 minutes in and get my blood pressure back down. So we'll take a breather on that. And uh, so yeah, and you know, it's funny you talk about diabetes and I was just looking the other day, um, cause we have another podcast where we talk about some health eating and things like that. And um, you know, diabetes is kind of double edge because not only is it, I think number seven on the list of things that will kill you, but it also is a heavy contributor to number nine. We know which is I think the renal failure. And so between that and the high blood pressure, um, you know, those are things that we all need to pay more attention to. And you know, a lot of us, me I'll be, I'll throw myself under the bus and say, you know, sometimes we know we have it, but if we don't, uh, actually take our readings or go to the doctor, then everything's okay because it's not, you know, in the forefront of our mind, which you don't know exactly. Exactly.

Stevyn (07:34):

Yeah. It's easy to kind of ignore it that way. Isn't it? Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (07:38):

But you know, the, in this show, I think one thing that really stuck out one reason why I wanted to reach out to you is because I, I really enjoyed your play on, uh, wealth, wealth. See, Oh my gosh, we've had this conversation. Well, wealth, wealth, wealth, and wellness. Oh my gosh. Well grow wealthy so well, yeah. Well wealth advisor, w E L L. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's, you know, it's, it's a really a cool play on words and it goes along with, um, you know, something we were thinking about is that, like you said, is that we, um, we try very hard to save enough money where we don't outlive that. But unfortunately, um, nowadays we tend to outlive our wellness, uh, probably a very higher rates than we do run out of money.

Stevyn (08:33):

Yeah. And I think that what you're referring to is what I, I, um, teach about the health span versus the lifespan. So we might be living longer, but we're not living well longer. And so it's kind of what, what I've heard said is, is we, we live short and we die along. And so it's a long, slow, painful, uncomfortable, expensive, um, kind of meeting toward the end of our lives when it would really, if we could just kind of correct some of these things in our lives, like our, our low-level movement and sedentary penis and our stress and what we're putting into our bodies, as far as food goes, we could kind of earn back some of that quality of life and we could live long and then we could die short, which is much more appealing to more people. And so I see wealth as being twofold. Wealth is your money, which is kind of like, like if you were in a car, your, your wealth, your money would be the gas in the car. How far can it get you? And then that car, your wealth, like w E L L your wellness would be the actual physical structure of the car itself. So do you have flat tires? Is your oil leaking, you know, is your engine overheating because without one or the other, you're not going to make it that far. Right. Right.

Roy - AGEUcational (10:00):

Yeah. And, you know, we, the, as we age that, um, you know, things just start happening and, and, you know, that's a concern I'm getting to that point that it's like, well, you know, what's it going to be like in 20 years? And so I need to, you know, it's been kind of an awakening to start taking better care, getting in better health because, uh, I mean, you know, um, you see these guys and well, we'll just, uh, hate to get political, but, you know, we were actually watching the, uh, today, we were actually watching the inauguration. I'm thinking, you know, by, in the 78 years old and he gets around good. I mean, you know, it hasn't been that many years ago that when you were 65 or 70, you know, you were in the rocking chair and on the cane. And so just to see the people of age and the way they're out there moving. And, um, I think it's, um, but it's probably a tribute to the way that they've lived their life up to that point. I don't think you wake up at 75 and say today, I'm going to get in shape and do all these things yet. You can have some effect, but the, the real big effect is probably, uh, you know, uh, a life, uh, uh, life of committed to that lifestyle.

Stevyn (11:16):

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I call that the wellness window, and it's roughly speaking between 40 and 60 years old ish, that if you really make wellness a focus, then, um, it's called your next 8,000 days. So wife can basically be, be chopped up into four sets of 8,000 days or 22 years. And that middle range, the four, uh, 40 to 60, your, your range is really like, if you do that one, well, then your next 8,000 days, which is, you know, your seventies and eighties, um, you're going to be a lot more spry, healthier on less medications. And, um, so what I teach clients to do is to prepare now for your next 8,000 days.

Terry - AGEUcational (12:07):

That's a great analogy. I mean, I that's, that's awesome. And, you know, we're, we're talking to our, um, audiences, all it's educational, so it's for older, more mature people. Um, but it's also for their caretakers as well. So this was a great, um, great time to have you on and talk about this. Um, can you talk a little bit about your, um, your personal health issue that made you do do a little bit of what you're doing?

Stevyn (12:46):

Of course, yes. Yeah. I was actually, when I was living in Australia, we were, um, on our way headed back in about eight weeks. And I ended up with an emergency hysterectomy in Australia in the middle of the night on a holiday. And it was like this big dramatic, almost die kind of thing. Cause I got septic. And because of that experience, I had to go through six weeks of recovery and really strong antibiotics. So immediately kind of overnight, all my hormones were taken away and all of my gut bacteria was destroyed. And if you know much about health and follow, what's kind of happening right now, your gut health really predicts your physical health and long-term chronic disease prevention, um, on how much good bacteria you've got in mind was just completely destroyed. And so over the next year I gained weight. Like I've never gained before.

Stevyn (13:42):

And that's very indicative of a lot of people who are going through menopause or they they're beyond menopause and their hormones are changing or maybe men, their testosterone is dropping. All of a sudden, you kind of find yourself like, Oh, this isn't the body I had before. It's not responding the way that I'm used to it responding. And so it's kind of like, um, you know, you have life events, like maybe you have a child or there's a death in the family, or you get married. There are those points in your life. When you reassess your financial security, it's the same for your health. There are points in your health when you want to reassess and you just want to say, okay, what's changed. How is my body different or unique at this point in life? And what can I do to help, um, help it along and, and, and make sure that I'm not getting sicker faster than I need to be.

Stevyn (14:32):

And one of the main things that I run across is that, especially for caretakers or even people who are in a care situation, they're being cared for is that stress goes up. It just skyrockets. And when you've got the cortisol and the stress hormones running around your body, it's almost like they're kind of just pinging and touching everything and damaging cells. And you end up in a worse place than you could have. So sometimes that self-assessment is as simple as like I'm in a really stressful situation. I'm not super happy about what can I do to reframe that, to create a different mindset, shift my paradigm, or create some things that are going to bring some happiness and joy either to me, my caregiver, my parents, whatever that is. That's a valid reason for your health to take a, take a nosedive and people just kind of brush it off and say, Oh, it's okay. I'll just, that's not that big of a deal, but it is. Yeah. And, and it's important to, to assess that early and often daily.

Terry - AGEUcational (15:31):

Yeah. Caretakers, you know, they, well, everybody, they don't think about themselves and you got to take care of yourself in order to be able to take care of somebody else. So that it's just so important to do that. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (15:46):

And you have to think about, um, the other part is if you don't take care of yourself and you're not there to provide the care for your loved one who is going to do that. Cause you know, a lot of times it may, you may be the person of last resort. There may not be a backup. So, you know, we have to think of that for sure. I've got some more questions on the caregiver aspect, but one thing you mentioned was our gut health. And so, um, you know, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but there's a, I've seen a lot of information about probiotics. And even for men, I think it's a generally more used to be more suggested for women. But now they're saying, you know what, this gut health, that it's important. So, um, you know, I, I found one and was taking it for a while, but then I read some research and said, well, if you take it every day, you're defeating the purpose because man, it's been a while since I read that. But anyway, it's so finally I was just like, all right, I don't know what to take it or not to take it. I'm just quitting. So, so what's kind of the, uh, what's the science behind the probiotics.

Stevyn (16:51):

There's two things to keep in mind when you want a healthy gut. Um, one is probiotics, which are the actual bugs themselves, you know, the living organisms. And then there's the prebiotics and prebiotics are the food for the probiotics. So if you're going to have a healthy colony of this bacteria in your gut biome, then they need to have something to eat that they like to eat. And so you could have the bacteria in your system from a probiotic, but if you're not feeding it well with things like asparagus or apples or onions, you know, those kinds of things that are prebiotics, um, if you're feeding it with cookies and cakes and packaged, who knows what, they're not going to like that food and they're going to die out anyway. So you can be taking a probiotic, but if your diet doesn't support it, it's really not going to do that much for you.

Stevyn (17:44):

The second part of that is there's so many colonies, so many different strains of probiotics that you don't want to stick with the same one. So, you know, finding a bottle that's in the refrigerator section of the health food store, not on the shelf because they might not be surviving the shelf life. So the refrigerator section, then when that bottle is gone, then get a different kind. That's got a different strain because the health comes in the variety or the diversification, if we want to use money terms of your gut. And so having both sides of that is important.

Roy - AGEUcational (18:20):

The other thing that happened, I guess I got in on this, right when the craze started, because this is a little bit of an exaggeration, but you know, at first it would be like, the bottle would say, Oh, this contains 10 different strains. And then all of a sudden it was ones that, you know, now we contain a gazillion strains or, and I don't think, I don't think home strains, but anyway, it was just like this, uh, huge range. All of a sudden that opened up from where it was to where it went. So does the, do we need to pay attention to that, that number, if it's 10 million, 30 million or whatever,

Stevyn (18:58):

Higher the number the better. Okay. Yeah. I mean just the higher, the number, the better the, the horse is important. They, you know, that it's a reputable refrigerated source, but yes, I mean, you really do want to say stay high as high as you can on those numbers. And especially if you've had a lifestyle, a lifetime of antibiotics, um, then it's really important. And sometimes it can take, you know, two, three, four, five years even to kind of reestablish established. And it just depends on kind of what the health is. Um, one of the things I deal with with my clients a lot is something called you were talking about like the different diseases earlier, and this, this does tie in because if you don't protect your gut health, then your body doesn't absorb the same nutrients in the same way. And it actually can damage your metabolism.

Stevyn (19:49):

And by metabolism, I mean, like inside of each cell, you've got your mitochondria, that's your powerhouse that uses energy. And there's three different kinds of energy. You know, you've got caregivers and you've got people who are being cared for. They also have three kinds of energy. And it's important to know if they're working off of a blood sugar, energy, maybe they're eating and they've got good blood sugar, and then they can go and do a lot of things. But if they're, if they're eating, um, and, and have it, haven't eaten for a long period of time, they can't work off of blood sugar. They're working off of something called glycogen stores and that's in your muscle and your liver. And that's like, that's like your savings account, you know, dip into your savings account. And then there's one more account. That's like your, your certificates of deposit, you know, your CDs, which is harder to get your hands on and that's your fat account.

Stevyn (20:41):

So there's fat, there's glycogen stores, and then there's blood sugar. And those are your three different systems. And for your body to really have energy that lasts all day long, to be able to care for people, you need to be able to utilize all three of those and access them. And that comes from, you know, having low stress, great nutrients and, um, some good low-level movement throughout the day, just to let your body know that it's still alive. So, so many people just sit sedentary throughout the day. Doesn't matter what it is. If you're in a wheelchair, if you can open and close your hands, if you can raise your arms or do circles, um, I used to teach a class called, uh, silver sneakers, and we would just do chair exercises. You actually have a second heartbeat in your calves, a second heart in your calves, and that's kind of a stretch, but when you do toe raises, like go up and down on your toes like this, it's helping to pump that blood back up to your heart. You can do that in a wheelchair or in a chair, you know, anything that you do helps to keep those systems working better. And I liken it to, um, like my phone, you know, it goes dark if I don't touch it, but if you keep kind of touching the screen, the light stays on, and that's what we want to do. Keep touching the screen, keep just moving and, and, and using the parts of your body. And they will last longer.

Roy - AGEUcational (22:10):

Yeah. And they, you know, they have said that setting is the new smoking and, you know, a lot of us that have more desk jobs now, uh, you know, it just makes it that much harder, especially as we, you know, transition into that, uh, you know, into the older age, you know, it's, uh, for me, it's become a big concern because it just of what you said, not being, uh, constantly in motion and things like that. But I want to talk, get back to the caregivers for a minute that, okay.

Stevyn (22:42):

Oh, I was just going to say that sitting is the new smoking was coined by Dr. Levine of the Mayo clinic. And, um, his solution to that is called meet non-exercise activity, thermogenesis. And basically that's just like a fancy way of saying move more at low levels.

Roy - AGEUcational (23:00):

Okay. Okay. Yeah. And you know, sometimes it's just like stuff for me setting an egg timer or a, uh, uh, alarm on my phone ever 50 minutes to an hour just to stand up. Because if not, you know, I can end up sitting in that chair for hours and hours upon the end, which I know is bad. But, uh, you know, I was going to talk about the caregivers for a minute. It's an important statistic to remember, and I'm not sure if you've seen it or aware of it, but there used to be a stat that about 70% of caregivers who provide care to a higher need individuals, um, they will pass before the person that they're caring for. And so that's, uh, another important aspect of this as that caregiver is that it's very important, you know, to take care of yourself.

Stevyn (23:53):

Well, a lot of people see taking care of yourself as being selfish, and it's the exact opposite. Actually, your self care is actually caring for your loved one so that you can take care of them longer. And that paradigm shift is hard for people too. They're so used to pouring out. You're not used to pouring in, but you know, energy is a, a limited source. It's not infinite. And you have to allow time for your body to go into what's called your parasympathetic nervous system. And to be able to, it's just like switching the light off on your, on your nervous system, letting your body rest, letting it digest its food and repair, rest digest, and repair. That's Paris, the parasympathetic nervous system. And most caregivers I've, I've seen my family be in caregiver roles. I'm not in that role myself yet, but I've, I've seen it firsthand and it's easy to stay in the, on position all the time because the person needs so much care and you want to make sure you're doing it right. And you're taking care of your life. And a lot of caregivers are taking care of to two directions, you know, maybe parents and children still at some level. And they get kind of sandwiched in between there and the burnout in that, um, will, will lead to illness if they don't check it and take good care of themselves.

Terry - AGEUcational (25:19):

Yeah. And that's what, that's what we talk about a lot. I mean, cause we're, we're the sandwich generation or we're in the sandwich arena right now, you know, um, my daughters are 22 and 28 and then my mom, she just turned 86 this past fall. And she, thankfully she has been pretty healthy up til now. Um, well, and she, she is healthy now, but she did have a, uh, stay in the hospital, um, in October. And, um, she has, she has been doing really well on her recovery as far as her physical and occupational therapies and all of that. And she's, she's in a retirement home. Um, so she's still able to do that, which we're, we're very happy about. And she is too, she's ready to not be, I mean, she's ready to be on her own and independent again, but she had to build back up to that and it, it was a group effort.

Roy - AGEUcational (26:20):

Yeah. I just, I keep, uh, I don't have any more, I used to have a thing hanging over my desk. And so we can talk about the basic building blocks of health is number one and number one, it's eat. Right. And, you know, eat well-rounded nutritious, not just always out of the fast food window, but drinking our water. And then also getting, uh, you know, anywhere between, I guess, six to eight hours sleep depending on who you listen to with that. And then of course, you know, the exercise is stay moving and, um, I'll just get your opinion on that. I've always felt like those are kind of the fundamental building blocks to, you know, being a well,

Stevyn (27:03):

Yeah, I think that the, those are great, great, um, categories of being well. I think if you could kind of stand those on a foundation of awareness and curiosity, so being aware of what you're currently doing and then being curious about what something else might look like, because everyone kind of knows maybe what they should be doing, but to internalize that and pose the question to yourself that says, huh, I wonder what it would feel like to eat beans or I wonder what it feels like to go to bed by 10 o'clock, you know, and just by posing that question, your brain is engaged, your subconscious mind engages, and it wants to find out the answer to that. So it's almost like a software program in your brain. That's going to make it happen. So that's why I always say awareness and curiosity is first.

Stevyn (27:54):

Yeah. And then yes, I recommend, you know, the daily dozen is a free app that you can get on Google play or the iTunes store. And it's, it's made my Dr. Greger of nutrition, facts.org. And that's a great thing for everyone to just download to their phone and see are you get, cause eating a variety of foods is sometimes hard to want to find, like, what does that mean? And gives you all the best categories and you can kind of check them off and you can see, Oh, it's been a week and I haven't had anything green or when was the last time I had a cruciferous vegetable, like broccoli cauliflower, you know, those kinds of things. Cause they have different health properties. And so I find that to be a really useful tool to help people actually make that one happen.

Terry - AGEUcational (28:51):

I can spell it. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (28:55):

I was gonna kind of comically challenge you on that last point about if we ask ourselves the question we subconsciously or, you know, it'll, we'll see. As I told Terry, I was sure wondering what it would be like to win that lotto last night. We did, we did, we did. I only got two numbers, so

Terry - AGEUcational (29:11):

We, we want eight, but I'll try again tonight almost, almost pretty close half.

Roy - AGEUcational (29:23):

The other thing I think that, um, I think we can do better again and again, I'll throw myself under the bus a little bit is that we can be kind to ourselves that we're not going to beat. We're not going to do all this stuff perfect. Every day, we've got to just make an attempt to do the best we can. And you know, Terry was, uh, one of her daily motivations the other day was something about being in the moment. And you were talking about that. The awareness is if you're eating, sat there and think about what we're eating and not be, you know, like, and she was telling me that as I had 25 other things I was thinking about, so, you know, we can be aware and be in the moment, but we can also be kind when we do trip up and just realize, Hey, you know, today's behind us. There's nothing we can do about what's past, but we can look to the future and try to, uh, you know, do better tomorrow. And I think we, um, caregivers can be really, really hard on themselves. Um, they never, a lot of them never feel like they can do enough. And um, so anyway, just, just another little tidbit I think,

Stevyn (30:33):

Well, what's interesting is, um, there's a place for guilt in life. You know, if you say something mean that you shouldn't have, if you, um, kill somebody, you know, like there's reasons to feel guilty, but, but food is not one of them. Food should never be a source of guilt. It's just, it's a source of like curiosity. We'll go back to that again. Oh, I wonder what made me want to eat that? And then you can start to understand the underlying effects of what's prompting you to do that. I was talking to my, um, my group coaching guys today and I was telling them, you know, one of them wanted to eat a bagel and I'm telling you on this dirty and this daily doesn't list, there's no bagels on that list. Cause I can just really want the bale. And I'm like, eat the bagel, you know, the bagel, give yourself permission and enjoy it like that.

Stevyn (31:32):

Clean of enjoyment is gonna do, it's gonna, it's gonna treat your health so much better than the feeling of guilt, because then it sets you up for a bad hormone response and you just don't want that hormone in there. And so if you're going to have the brownie with the ice cream and the whipped cream on top, like I had last night, then give yourself permission, enjoy it, taste it, love it. And then know when you've had enough and move on to the next thing. So I think that that's what people like bad food, good food, guilt, you willpower. And that's just, we just need to toss all that thinking out the door and just be aware. I always tell everybody, ask yourself three questions every day, three questions all the time. Why do I want to eat? And then just know the reason either you're hungry or um, you just want it, or there's some sort of craving or you're bored.

Stevyn (32:24):

Like there's always an answer. And sometimes just knowing what that answer is, is enough to free you from that. Um, so that's one question. Why do I want to eat? The second question is when was the last time I moved my body? Like if you're just kind of asking yourself that periodically, when did I move us and let that be your prompt to do something, anything. And then the third one is what is my stress level right now? How do I feel? Am I in my tense and my breathing out of my chest up here and my breathing from my belly and I relaxed those three questions will take you farther than any program or exercise membership.

Roy - AGEUcational (33:01):

And that's one thing I did leave off my list was to breathe. And I, you know, people used to laugh because I had that written up there. But, uh, you know, it's been pointed out to me over time and not necessarily, it doesn't have to be stress, it can be intensity, but I will hold my breath or, you know, and then catch yourself. But breathing is important. I think that's a huge, uh, part of, uh, I think it's a huge part of yoga is that, you know, learning the breathing and breath control and things like that. And it, it, it can really do wonders for our health. There's a breathe app also. That's really good. Yeah. I turned off my notifications. I need to, yeah, breathing is good.

Stevyn (33:40):

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Breathing is one of those things that can actually change your chemicals. So I don't have to do anything, et cetera. And my chemicals in my brain will change to a stress response or I can breathe from my belly and I can actually reduce my heart rate, my blood pressure and my stress hormones as well. Right. And opposite is true too. I'll just step back. So maybe you can see a little bit better if I stand in a power pose like this with my feet square and my arms on my hips for two minutes, it raises your testosterone and it lowers your color, your, your cortisol, your stress hormone. And that's a perfect way to get yourself ready to go in and talk to your doctor and advocate for yourself or for your loved one, because you're not intimidated. All of a sudden you're standing full and strong and your hormones, and it actually changes the way that you think and come across. Um, if you're going to go get a job interview, stand like that for two minutes, and then we will have the confidence that you didn't have before. So your body can change your mind and your mind can change your body. It's so connected.

Roy - AGEUcational (34:50):

Yeah, it really, I was going to say, you know, mind, body, and soul, that it's all, they all have their part in our wellness spectrum. Exactly. No. Well, Steven, we want to thank you for being on the show. I mean, it's been a great talk, a lot of great information. So, um, if you to understand, you know, what is something that you use in your daily life that, um, could be, you know, an app or a habit, something that you do that you feel like really perpetuates your wellness that you just couldn't do without on a daily basis?

Stevyn (35:31):

Yeah, well, one that I use all the time is that daily dozen app. Um, I like to check in on my own my myself and see how many I'm getting. There's 24 possible checkboxes in that app. I like to try to make sure I'm getting at least 15 of those every day and not leaving out any category over a three-day period. And that pretty much covers your nutrition. Um, so that one, I love, I also love tracking devices. Some people don't love them, but I do. So I have this one on it's called a wise band, w Y Z E it's cheap. It's like $29. You can get a Fitbit, which is more expensive. Those are good too. Um, and basically it buzzes me if I haven't moved for a while. So if I forget, it's my reminder. And then at the end of the day, you know, like I'm, I'm at 5,000 steps for today, which I don't, I don't want to be that low. Um, anything under 5,000 is considered to be sedentary by researchers standards. So I use this as benchmark and just say, Oh, I probably should go for a walk after dinner tonight. I haven't really moved that much. And it's a good reminder.

Roy - AGEUcational (36:36):

Wow. 5,000. Okay. Okay. Well tell everybody, you know, who would your client be? You know, what can you do for them? And of course, how could they reach out and get ahold of you?

Stevyn (36:54):

Okay, great. Yeah. Um, as my, the name of my company is indicates grow wealthy. Um, I am in more of the finance space. So a lot of my clients are financial professionals or they're financially savvy in some way, they understand longterm planning. They understand kind of what it takes to have goals that are in the future with short-term wins and long-term dividends and that kind of thing. So mostly, um, people who understand financial concepts and want to apply that to their health, um, so they can prepare themselves for retirement. So my website is growellthy.com grow. And then wellthy.com. And if anybody is interested, thinks they might be a good fit for my wellth Academy, they can fill out some information for a free wellness audit. I'm happy to go over their numbers, do a free consultation for them and give them some really great information that they can either go work with on their own, or they could potentially work with me on, okay.

Roy - AGEUcational (37:54):

Okay, great. Well reach out to Stevyn. I'm sure she can help you, uh, stretch your wellness to, uh, you know, kind of coincide with your lifespan as well. We don't want to outlive that for sure. Right? So, uh, that's going to do it for this episode of educational. Of course you can find us on all the major podcast platforms. iTunes are changed to Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and a whole bunch more. Also, you can find us on Facebook. We do have a group. We do like to try to stimulate discussion there. Uh, check us out on the website at www.AGEUcational.com.

Roy - AGEUcational (38:43):

You know, we post our podcast there also check us out on YouTube. We'll be posting, uh, uh, the videos of the interviews there as well. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of each other. This is,

Speaker 5 (38:57):

We appreciate it, Stevyn. Thank you so much. This is Terry signing off.

www.growwellthy.com

www.agecational.com

 

     

Careging Tool Kit with David Moyer

While building a successful career growing companies and trotting the globe for clients, David and his Wife lost several parents, stepparents and two siblings that brought into focus how little time we have together.  We know parents are going to die but are often not prepared when it happens.  In addition, stress, anxiety, fear of making a wrong decision haunts us all in some aspect.

As a result of these experiences and seeing others in the same situation, David studied the challenges of aging so that he could help others through this time of life.  David is a Certified Senior Advisor and developed the Caregiving Toolkit that educates family members on how to start the conversation with your parents through end of life and beyond so that everyone knows what to expect and can make informed decisions when the time comes.  The Caregiver Toolkit has 14 lessons and over 30 assessments and worksheets to walk families through this process. 

www.udumo.co

www.ageucational.com

 

Full Transcript Below

Roy - AGEUcational (00:03):

Hello, and welcome to, uh, one of the inaugural, um, episodes of age educational podcast. Uh, my name is Roy and my co-host is, so what we're going to be doing is we're going to talk about pretty much everything aging. We're going to try to, uh, provide information. We're not only going to talk about the journey that we're on with our parents. And of course in our life, my life, I'm not going to throw Terry under that bus. But, you know, as I approach that age where I need to take more care, so what we're going to target, you know, seeing the senior population, adult, children, caregivers, and then again, people like myself who are moving into that age to try to learn how to, um, see what we can do to age healthy and to help those that are, are, are needing some extra help. And of course our caregivers trying to provide them some support as well. So, uh, please bear with us as we kinda get through these first few episodes where we'll be learning a lot, but, uh, it's going to be a lot of fun. I think we've got a lot of great information and some great guests, uh, to bring to you. So, uh, without further ado, uh, we'll talk to our first guest is David Maurier. He runs a website called who doomo.

Roy - AGEUcational (01:29):

We were going through some pronunciation lessons before that, but David is a certified senior advisor, uh, and develop the caregiving tool kit that educates family members on how to start the conversation with your parents through end of life and beyond so that everyone knows what to expect and can make informed decisions, informed confident decisions. When it, when the time comes, the caregiver toolkit has 14 lessons, 80 plus videos and 30 assessments and worksheets to walk families through this journey. Of course, uh, you know, David experienced this firsthand hearing stories of others in similar or worse situations, uh, was David's motivation to do something. His approach was to provide education to anyone who was facing similar situations. David became a certified senior advisor and, uh, the experience led him to develop doomo, uh, to be able to reach out to people and help, uh, our go, our, the goal of the website and David is to honor your parents by educating you the caregivers so that you have knowledge to provide a better life to your parent or loved one honor, knowledge love.

Roy - AGEUcational (02:42):

So David, we appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us and, um, uh, welcome to the show. Well, thanks. Thanks Ryan, Terry, thanks for having me on you bet. You know, and this is, um, I guess since this is one of our inaugural issues, we'll kind of get some of our, uh, information out. I spent 20 years, uh, or more, uh, consulting with the business side of senior living communities. So I got to see a lot, you know, for mystery shop, into looking at finances to, uh, looking at, you know, how care was delivered and, um, started educational as kind of, kind of the same experience just to, uh, put information out there for seniors in their families. Because we, since we were in the business, we had, uh, continually had friends and relatives that came to us asking for information, and it's just, uh, you know, it's not readily, it's becoming more readily available, but the, uh, the quality and who you can trust is always an issue.

Roy - AGEUcational (03:46):

So, uh, that led me to, to begin a educational putting information out. And then after a while, uh, you know, my life kind of moved in a different direction, but the last few months, um, both Terry has gone through some issues with her parent, her mother who is still living. And then of course, uh, you know, my parents are both still living. So we have things that are on the horizon as well. So we felt like the, uh, you know, in conjunction with some written material that we push out that, uh, you know, starting a podcast would be very education, very age education offer for all of us. So that's kind of the, uh, where we started at. So anyway, let's just kinda jump into it. Um, so now I thought, I remember reading David that you also pretty much experienced this, you and your wife had kind of gone through similar situations with your parents, is that correct?

David(04:47):

Yeah, right. That's right. Uh, several times with, uh, our direct parents, our step parents and unfortunately two siblings. Okay. So in the, in the course of probably 10 years, 10 or 12 years, I think it was, um, there was eight, eight people going through that and, uh, in various stages, some that, uh, had everything taken care of and it was, you know, nice and, uh, all the care was there and others, it was just a battle trying to get the basic benefits and health, uh, assessments and health care delivered and, um, you know, dealing with the state, dealing with the County, dealing with the federal government for those benefits was just, uh, difficult beyond all belief. Right.

Roy - AGEUcational (05:39):

And, uh, you know, a lot of times, even though we age, um, as a, uh, slowly, sometimes we have, uh, issues that hit us and something happens all at once. But even though we see our parents or loved ones that age over time, all of a sudden we usually wait till it we're in a critical spot in order to start taking some action. And I think that's, um, kind of part of your message too, is to let's get out in front of this a little bit. Let's make some preparations, some plans. So, uh, we don't put so much pressure on our caregivers, our kids, our loved ones at that time.

David(06:20):

Yeah. And it all starts with a conversation. There's a, uh, a framework that I use called care conversation, assessment, roadmap, and education. And the conversation is just, just start the conversation, right? Yeah. You know, get things going before you're in that crisis moment, then it's not a conversation anymore. It's much worse. It's a shouting match or a screaming match or something like that. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (06:44):

Well, listeners may not be, uh, as much aware of, as some of us that have been around this for a while, is that especially, I think these statistics are more for your all's Hymers, um, uh, those that have Alzheimer's, but caregivers can actually, uh, die 60 to 80% depending on the study read, uh, uh, they will die sooner than the person that they're giving care to. It is just that stressful.

David(07:12):

Right. Right. And it is a stressful situation. I mean, it's you think of a baby in your you're having fun. They're always learning something new, they're gaining abilities on the opposite end of that is they're forgetting stuff and they're losing abilities. And that is phenomenally stressful to see somebody that has raised you lose those abilities and that stress is taken into your own body, mind, and body stress. And it just wears everybody down. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (07:44):

And, uh, you know, I used to be a, um, I was a volunteer long-term care ombudsman, uh, here in, in the Tarrant County where we live for, I don't know, probably six or eight years. And then we, what we can add on top of that is if the family members don't agree or if, uh, if they all want to be in charge, then that can add another level of stress. Uh, just beyond belief. I mean, I can't even tell you some of the atrocities that I have seen and it wasn't the, uh, you know, the seniors fault that it was the, you know, the family. Yeah. And, you know, Terry, uh, I'll let her talk about that a little bit. She had two sisters that, you know, when her father got the, um, diagnosis, I think they were able to kind of move through the process. He, you know, easily there wasn't a lot of conflict, but that's, um,

Terry - AGEUcational (08:40):

Yeah, my, I have a sister who lives close by and then I have a we're in the Dallas Fort worth area. And then, uh, I have another sister in California and, um, my sister and when my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, uh, my oldest who lives nearby, we both had, okay, this is, this is, this is it. Uh, she's going to take dad and I'm going to take mom. And that's really, that's what we did. Um, so she was in charge of, you know, finding the, I helped, of course, as much as I could, uh, as much as she blessed me because she's so alpha. Um, but, uh, and, and finding care and all of that, um, for dad and, and, and it was, you know, it was at least a 12 year process. Um, but, uh, it, it was not a fun place

David(09:29):

And it always change. You know, the other part of that is we think it just, uh, you get a diagnosis and then that's that, but it, depending on where you are in that phase, it can, uh, it will change over time. And, you know, we've all seen that with the, uh, uh, you know, like I had a neighbor across the street from where we live that, uh, you know, she actually got out in the middle of the night and, uh, had come across the street and got in one of our cars, you know, woke up in the morning with all the red lights out front, and, um, went out to see what was going on. And, you know, her husband was doing the very best he could to take care of her home, but she got out, it was about a 20 degree night that she ended up in a vehicle.

David(10:12):

And luckily, uh, you know, it didn't, uh, she didn't freeze to death or get sick or anything, but again, you know, as you progress through this, things can change. So it's, it's always a moving target. It seems right. And that's, that's where assessments come in. Uh, you know, you assess the situation, you assess pretty much everything, the ability of, of your parents or child or spouse even right on a regular basis. Can, can they do this? Can they do that? Right? And Terry, there's a whole division of care, uh, capability in that. Okay. Just like you did split up your parents, uh, with responsibilities, you take your mom, your sister tech, your dad, and work through that. So having those constant assessments, you know, where are we today? Where are we next month in? And they start, you know, you start seeing this just like a child.

David(11:11):

It's like, Oh, there's a new ability. This is nice. They can now, you know, say their first word or take their first step in it's on the opposite end. It's Hey, it looks like, you know, mom is having trouble remembering where the spatula was to cook. We now need to assess or in front of the stove or dad driving. And that's, that's the big one that everybody hits everybody. Uh, the most is driving ability. So doing those assessments on a regular basis keeps the family engaged, and it also helps the parent or spouse or child understand the progression of it. So it's not a shock.

Terry - AGEUcational (11:55):

Can I, can I ask something just, just for my purposes, um, what exactly is a certified senior advisor? So certified senior

David(12:07):

Visors are those that are interested in helping families walk through this process. It's a dual certification and it's tested by nationally, Oregon, pardon her national companies in, uh, authorized companies that, uh, go through a series of, uh, studies and workbooks and classes that walk you through the entire life cycle of the aging people. So everything from, um, family dynamics, which you brought up Terry and how to work with them, to, um, working with financial planners and working with, uh, physicians and nurses and home care agencies and those things. So it's a, it's a very detailed, uh, study program and a certified test, um, that people will go through so they can help seniors and their families go through this process with, with less angst, you know, anxiety, stress, and doubt kind of thing. Okay.

Roy - AGEUcational (13:17):

Yeah. And a lot of, I think the other benefit to the, um, to the CSA designation is that the members are held to a higher standard. So it, to me, it's an extra level of protection that is in there for seniors in their families. If you're talking to a certified senior advisor, not only do they have the product knowledge, the service knowledge, but they've got the knowledge of the aging process, how to deal and what is, um, how to deal ethically, I think is the most important part because, you know, sometimes as we, uh, you know, as seniors age, they may be in that, uh, little forgetfulness and, you know, people run out, uh,

Terry - AGEUcational (14:00):

Um,

Roy - AGEUcational (14:02):

Unethical people will run out there and try to get them to sign some documents when they know that they're not in the capacity in order to, you know, take on whatever that responsibility is. So I think it's definitely worth publicizing, you know, to see if you can to seek out, uh, somebody that's, if you're dealing with the aging or elderly issues to deal with somebody who is a CSA certified.

Terry - AGEUcational (14:28):

Yeah.

David(14:28):

And I was just going to bring up the ethical part of it, because these are confidential conversations. I mean, you, you know, they stay with the family and they're in there with the family, um, just like a CPA or a CFP or a physician they're confidential conversations that you, that you keep between the family and the CSA.

Terry - AGEUcational (14:51):

So I was, uh,

Roy - AGEUcational (14:52):

I just wanted to kind of go back to your website for just a little bit, and we'll give, uh, you know, at the end of the episode, we'll give all the information, how people can reach out, but, uh, you've got this broken up into, um, it looks like three sections. And then I think this fourth one is kind of putting them all together, but, uh, it just correct me if I'm wrong here, but it looks like we have the part of start the conversation, which we've been talking about, uh, start the conversation, assess situation, the division of care. So tearing them walked right down, uh, this, uh, this list, Oh, far, then we have that remote gift caregiving, which, um, it's become more common as people are spread out all across the country.

David(15:41):

Dan, and Terry's already experiencing that with her sister. So, and we actually put that in there because my wife and I, the family is on the East coast and my wife is from the West coast. So you had her flying back and forth and, you know, spent a lot of vacation, uh, working with her parents and, and, uh, spending it out there with them. Yeah. But, um, yeah, I was flying her back and forth, um, when she could and, uh, while she was there, I was back here with the kids and working full-time so it's a stress. Yeah. And part of that remote caregiving, one of the important things is setting thresholds because you're either jumping on a plane or, uh, you know, driving for some number of hours, two, three, four, 10 kind of thing. So you have to understand the threshold. Okay. What event is going to trigger me to jump on the plane or get in the car and drive for five hours. Right. So knowing those and setting those ahead of time, um, drops that stress level down instead of, you know, okay, this happened, I'm going. Yeah. And then, you know, two weeks later that happened, I'm going and it just, it just wears you down.

Roy - AGEUcational (17:00):

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Which kind of leads into the next one is the caring for yourself. Uh, you know what I think the old adage is, you know, we have to take care of ourselves before we take care of anybody else. So, you know, and I see that a lot, uh, before, uh, with the caregivers will be so run down and so tired and you can just see the toll that it's taken on them. But anyway, so we get through the, uh, you know, estate planning, all the documents, build the plan, and then the second, uh, module, and this is the aging in place or move, which again, a huge decision where, um, uh, because you know, most seniors do not want to move. And I, you know, I understand that, but for safety, you know, as the, my neighbor escaped. So, you know, there's the security, keeping them secure. Uh, you know, there's a lot that wraps around that, but again, it's a conversation that it's, it's hard to say, uh, it's time to move today. So we're loading up the truck and, you know, taking you somewhere, do you start that conversation?

David(18:16):

I mean, well, first it's, the conversation should be, we're going to try and keep you in your house or your home as long as possible, but we need to do some things to do that, you know, pull up the rugs, the loose rugs, you know, there's a huge number of senior citizens that fall because the rugs, they slip on a rug and they hit their head and they're concussed. And, you know, then that leads to, okay, I'm not going home again. So pull up the rugs know, pull things that they can slip on, pull out, you know, remove the chairs that have the extended legs out into the walk path. Um, when you get old, your site is diminished. So put more lights out, you know, light up the place with Ellie denounce LEDs. You can do that for less expensive than light bulbs. So light up the house so they can see clearly. Yeah. You know, they have bending issues. So, you know, if you've ever gotten up out of a chair and you go, Ooh,

Roy - AGEUcational (19:15):

Many times,

David(19:17):

Uh, well bending down in the kitchen or bending to get in and out of a tub or, you know, in, you know, bending into a closet or a reaching, you know, a lot of people. So I'll just get on the step still and reach up there. Well, no, no more steps to it. Cause balance is, is, uh, off the older you get, the more unbalanced you are. Right? Um, so it's those simple things that you can do to keep in the house, keep them in their house and home. But, but then also look at activities of daily living. So you're doing those assessments on a regular basis and independent activities of daily living. There's a set of those that, um, you can look up anywhere, just the IADL or ADL, independent activities of daily living are like shopping on your own or driving a car or, or doing financial transactions and things like that.

David(20:10):

So those are the things that help you decide. And, and if you work with your parent or spouse on those things, they will actually look at them and say, yeah, I need some help doing this. Yeah. Instead of no, I've got it. And you know, my experience was, my dad was German full German. My mom was full-blooded Italian. So, you know, I was raised in a conflicted life. So real, you know, real passionate about certain things, but I got to get it. Right. Right. You know, my dad didn't want any help, none whatsoever. And my mom was just the opposite said, yeah, here's the bank account. Here's this here's that told me what to do. All right. We'll come help. So you're going to have those, those differences in spouses and care.

Roy - AGEUcational (20:59):

Yeah. And that brings up a good point too, about the generational differences. Because, um, when my grandmother got into this position, she was the same way. It was like, you know, my grandfather had taken care of everything he had passed probably at that point 20 years prior to her. So she had been living on her own for, you know, a good 15 or 20 years. But when it came time to say, you know, do you want us to give you some help? She was like, yeah, please do. So she was good. Now mom working, you know, she had a, uh, a very, uh, uh, successful career trying to wrestle anything away from her, uh, that was going to be a whole nother challenge. And then, but the other part, yeah, the other part I wanted to touch on with this, uh, with the move is the socialization piece.

Roy - AGEUcational (21:48):

And again, I'm gonna use my grandmother as an example. Um, she lived alone on the other side of town. Wasn't a big deal. She, um, you know, she's still motor yard and she did everything. It wasn't, uh, uh, the security risk. Wasn't her getting out as much as you know, I was worried people watching her would try to get in on top of her, you know, in her house number one. But, uh, she stayed in the house because, um, well she said because of church and her friends and, you know, in the neighborhood, they'd lived there for 50 years or so, but you know, what we began talking to her about was that she didn't like driving to church anymore. And most of her friends had passed by this point. And so really, you know, the benefit of her staying, uh, she was giving up a lot of socialization basically.

Roy - AGEUcational (22:42):

And so that is one other, I think a key element is that, uh, to a lot of some, to some, it's not a big deal, but to others, that socialization component is huge. And she went to an independent living community and she flourished. I mean, I would go over there to visit her and I could not catch up with her. She'd be, you know, down in the puzzle room, she'd be at the friend's house, playing cards or dominoes. And it was one of the, uh, the best moves for her ever. But, you know, that's very individual because there's some people that you, you know, they just don't fit in. Don't take part. So the socialization components, not a huge factor. So that is definitely something to consider.

David(23:28):

And that's part of the assessments that you need to do is how social is your parent or spouse or child. That mean if they're out, you know, if they're an extrovert in non social media in going and playing tennis and you know, all kinds things, that's part of the assessment and say, okay, we have to keep that up. Right. You know, and make sure that's, that's part of their life so they can continue on like that. Right. Because, because here's an example, what we do when you're a criminal and you're really bad criminal, what's the first thing they do. But you in isolation and that's what breaks you down. Okay. You know, it's like, okay, think about this. So if you're taking a social person and isolating them in some environment where they have no ability to talk to somebody or not physical ability, but no ability to reach out, they're eventually going to shut down and it's going to affect their health.

David(24:29):

And that's, that's a big impact that COVID had had, has had on a lot of facilities where they've, they've completely shut down. And the only expert will, don't only people that are in and out are the nurses and doctors. Right. So family isn't allowed in there. And, you know, that's the case with my mom is I had, uh, they closed down in late February. They were one of the first facilities to close down and I didn't see her until September. Wow. I called her on the phone. Yeah. But, uh, September they allowed physical distance visits and that went on for, uh, about a month. It was every two weeks you were allowed to come in and in physically destined yourself, no masks, shields, and all that kind of stuff. And it was 12 feet apart, which was, so think about this, you're behind a plexiglass shield.

David(25:24):

You've got masks on in your 12 years or 12 feet apart from somebody that's hard of hearing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's those things you got gotta, and that's the, get your back to the assessments when you're moving somebody into a facility or group homes, group homes are another opportunity, right? Where you have, uh, people of the same age in the same, um, same abilities, same social Macs and those kinds of things. There's a lot of group homes that are starting out because, uh, CCRC is, are, uh, continuous care. Retirement communities are, are, can be expensive 4,500 to $6,000 a month, you know,

Roy - AGEUcational (26:09):

And that's been a conversation in the industry for the last few years. Uh, you know, some of the architects would finally come to conferences and fess up that, you know, we've got to do better being affordable because right now we're all trying to outdo each other to see who can build the, you know, the biggest, the best in this. And then, uh, you know, in some instances, you know, you price people out of that market. Don't want to get into, you know, too deep into that. But you know, our, our, the funding for retirement has changed a lot too, that, you know, back in the day, uh, you retired from a company, you had a designated amount of money that they would send to you every month. Well, you know, most companies by now have switched over to the, um, contribution type plan where, you know, you put money in and then when you retire, you've got, you know, X number of dollars that you've got to make class, uh, you know, you've got to manage it on your own.

Roy - AGEUcational (27:07):

So, uh, that is definitely something to look at because I, you know, working with marketing in the, uh, in that world when, uh, residents would come in for the first time, that was always the very first thing is, you know, I can't afford it. They are definitely afraid of running out of money, deathly afraid of not being able to leave even a small, uh, legacy to their children or grandchildren. So, you know, definitely part of the, part of the process to think about, um, how to pay for the different, uh, different styles of living. But

David(27:44):

So here's, here's, it's good that you're, it's good that you're sitting down because here's the shocker, you know, I've got a 20 year old and he will live past 100 years old. Wow. No, no question in my mind. Yeah. Um, he will live, so, so, you know, the average age now is 80 and 82 for men and women. Um, very shortly. Um, I'm saying probably 10, maybe 15 years, that'll creep up to 88 in 90, and then in 20, maybe 30 years it'll easily hit a hundred. Wow. And, and if you follow the longevity science that is taking off like wildfire, um, they're protecting 120 and even 150. Oh my gosh. I can't even imagine. So, so they, they look at it as aging, as a disease, not inevitable. Yeah. So if you're looking at it that way, you know, retiring at 65 or 60 or 70, it's not gonna happen anymore. Yeah. In, in your finances. I mean, I tell people that when I, when I work with them, I say, you, you have to plan on finances, landing lasting until you're a hundred.

Roy - AGEUcational (29:05):

Well, in the, uh, I think the, the joke in the financial services industry, that it, well, it's the, um, I guess the myth has been perpetrated by population that, you know, in the financial industry, we tried to dispel is that when you retire your, uh, spending, typically doesn't go from, you know, a hundred percent to 20% of whatever you were making, you know, you know, because people want to retire and they want to do things. They want to travel. They, they need, they still have needs. And so it's of a myth that, uh, you know, we always try to bust is that you are going to need, uh, you know, probably 80% of your current income, you know, to live in retirement and that's, then you stretch that out. And I, you know, it's, it's, I guess when you think about it, it's not, it shouldn't be such a shock because when I was growing up and I don't have the empirical evidence on this, but, you know, just intuitively it seemed like that people back then, you know, 60, 65 and, uh, you know, that was a pretty long life where now we're, you know, up into the eighties and nineties is not, um, not unheard of it's, you know, very common.

David(30:24):

Yeah. The number of people over 100, just in the U S is increasing substantially every year. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (30:33):

Yeah. So that kind of brings us to the, um, uh, the next component is the last days and arrangements, and this is, this is difficult and it's not, it's not necessarily difficult for us old people to talk about it because it it's our kids. And, you know, mine, I've tried to talk to my daughter before and, you know, she'll put her, put her hands over her ears and say, Hey, I don't want to talk about that. And, you know, even Terry it's, uh, you know, some things that we've discussed and it's, it's uncomfortable because we don't ever want to think of our loved one, not being here, passing. But, uh, on the other hand, again, if we wait until that happens, then all of a sudden we're, you know, we're in crisis mode, decisions have to be made in a hurry if bank accounts and other things aren't, uh, aren't titled ride in, in, you know, have succession plans for them. Then all of a sudden, sometimes money can be frozen for periods of time as well. So there's a lot of implications of not planning,

David(31:35):

Right? I mean, the money part is just the, is the simplest thing, because that can be taken care of through an attorney. So you got a powers of attorney set up your living, well, set up your will and estate plan. And those, and those are, I mean, you're talking 500, $600 pretty straight forward, and you can even do that yourself. You're several places online that you can do that yourself. You just have to be careful that you get the one for the state that you, where your parent lives in now, because the state, the States all have differences, minor differences. Um, but beyond that, it's, you know, how do you want to be remembered? I just look at this, like, look at obituaries and it's facts and figures, right. You know, born this date died that date, um, married this date, these children worked here did that, you know, but, but there's nothing about the person in that.

David(32:31):

So, you know, go back and ask your mom or dad and say, how do you want to be remembered? You know, not just the organizations you worked for, but, um, your life, your life is more than the companies. Yeah. And that will open up more conversations than you can imagine when you talk. And, and, and here's, here's the, here's the golden part of the golden years. If you want, you're having those in deep in-depth conversations with your parents. You know, I never knew that my mom was scared to death of riding on motorcycles until we got into a conversation. I go, why are you so scared? And she goes, my brother at, at three years old used to put me in now understand this is like way back when her brother had a motorcycle and her brother was responsible for taking care of. And so at three years old, when he wanted to go somewhere, he grabbed my mom and later across the tank of the motorcycle and off they OD, you know,

Terry - AGEUcational (33:43):

Oh, ouch. I remember doing that on the regular bikes, you know, riding on the handlebars and stuff like that. But man, to have a motor right there, that's crazy. I'm sorry I interrupted you.

Roy - AGEUcational (33:57):

I was just going to say, getting back to the obituaries, it's funny you bring that up because it used to be kind of a running joke that I, uh, you know, I'd tell my kids same more than, you know, cause there was a bunch of that came out. It seemed like at one time it's like they were born, they weren't a Baptist and they died and I'm like, okay, well we can probably, we can probably find it hopefully a couple more facts to fling in there, you know,

Terry - AGEUcational (34:21):

To talk about.

Roy - AGEUcational (34:23):

But you know, it gets back to having that conversation, what, you know, uh, cremation versus burial where, you know, because I've, I've got some very specific places that I've seen in my life that I would love to be, you know, interred there. Some people, not some people, not that, uh, don't really care that much about it, but it's, uh, the problem, what I have seen is that after somebody passes is too, unless they've left a, you know, a detailed outline, it's too late to ask at that point. And so then that keeps on some more guilt that we really don't know, or we really didn't talk about it, so it can be uncomfortable, but we can make it, uh, we can kind of lighten it up and make it a little funner, but it just something that needs to be done for sure.

David(35:11):

Yeah. I say, don't wait until you're staring at the funeral. Director's face to figure this out. Right, exactly. You know, get it all done ahead of time and you know, good thing or bad thing. There's a lot more options to handle remains now. I mean, you can shoot them up in space. Now you can put them as a coral reef in the, in the ocean, you can mean green burials are really taking off now where there's no embalming in your either remains or in the ground within a day or two. Right. And they naturally decompose or there's, there's places all over the States now in all throughout Europe where you can, um, have these and they're they're forested areas where natural decomposition takes over. So, so there's, there's different ways for everybody to do these things.

Terry - AGEUcational (36:06):

Yeah. My daughter's telling me, well, I, um, I'm going to be cremated. So my daughter keeps sending me a little note note saying that they're going to turn me into a, um, a seat, a Pat van ATAR CD, or a heart CD or something like that. I'll haunt them forever.

David(36:25):

That's right. That's right. That's a good one. I hadn't heard that one. Yeah. Now the options are available.

Roy - AGEUcational (36:34):

Well, David, we want to thank you so much for, uh, taking time. Not only to be, uh, you know, one of our inaugural guests, we certainly appreciate that, but, uh, this is great information. I think it's something that everybody can benefit from no matter where we are, either as the aging individual or where we are as the adult child, it's never too early. And I think you make a point about, you know, um, some of these conversations, we may can actually get some details or get to know our parents are a little bit better, you know, or some of these details that we may not have known, uh, in the past because we just didn't have the conversation. So always great. But, uh, tell people, if you don't mind how that they can reach out, well, what can you do for them? Number one on, I know you've got this, uh, caregiver toolkit, but uh, you know, what can you do for them? And then of course, how they can reach out and get ahold of you.

David(37:33):

Sure. And thank you for that opportunity. Yeah. Cite is you do Mo it's Udu, emo dot C O in your demo is a Zulu word for honor in a use that as in honor, your parents. Yeah. It's one of the things that we can do for them. Um, you know, they raised us and I realized not everybody had a great childhood, but uh, sometimes that can be, um, rebuilt later in life. So, um, we can honor our parents through this part of their life, um, in, you know, what goes around, comes around. So your children are going to see, you honor their parents, your parents, so they can do the same thing with you when it comes your time. So the site is Udu, emo.co doomo, and there's, uh, as you said, Roy, there's the course that's up there that helps people walk through the conversations.

David(38:28):

Does the assessments helps helps you do all the assessments, um, division of care, home maintenance, uh, when you're going through a facility, um, use your five senses in the facility, those kinds of things, um, all the way to past the end of life, when you're shutting somebody's life down, if they have a business or, you know, the estate plan and doing those things. So all of that is laid out there. So you can build a roadmap with your parents or spouse or loved ones and make it easier. I always say, if you know where you're going, if you have a map and know where you're going, the journey as much easier versus what should we do now, right. So that's all up there and that's on the website. Um, you can, you can get ahold of me there. Uh, there's emails up there, David at [inaudible] dot co.

David(39:20):

Um, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's there for everybody. And, uh, lots of good comments coming back on the course and, and, uh, assessments. And we're always adding new stuff up there. And, um, one of the other things I do is there's a links page on the website. So you go up there and it's on the upper right-hand corner on lengths. And if you, if you want to do it yourself and you don't want to, you know, take, uh, use the toolkit that we have, there's a bunch of links up there to go through and find people that can do things for you. So I'm not opposed to that. It's, it's get the help out there, get people to start talking about these things and give them statistics and give them, you know, the Alzheimer's and dementia associations and certified financial planners in caps. In an earlier conversation, we talked about certified aging in place.

David(40:14):

Specialists could come into your home and take a look at it to keep your parent in there as long as possible. And you know, for $150, it's, it's worth it. And because now you have an independent authority coming in and saying, these are the things to keep you in your home. So now you and your parents can walk through that. Okay, mom and dad, what do you want to do? You know, what can we do? And they'll give you the cost for each one of them. So that's what the whole links page is up there for, you know, use the resources or please just use the resources on the links page. And if you'd like the whole roadmap, it's there in bits and pieces. And as you said, Roy, uh, the complete caregiving toolkit is also the option. So it depends on where you are in the stage of life with their parents or take the whole thing and get started now. Yep.

Roy - AGEUcational (41:10):

It's, it's never too early to get started. We will just make that it's, uh, you know, it's, this is about education. It's about knowing where to turn at those moments and not waiting till we, uh, get in the moment to have to figure things out when it's a, it's a crisis. That's more stress we tend to make, uh, not as good decisions because we don't know what all of our options are. So, uh, go take a look at the website and, uh, you know, download some of these, uh, tools that will be, uh, be very helpful as a, your, your parents or as you go through the aging process, because it can work both ways on, especially on the discussion part. You know, we can get those as the older person and start that conversation with our children as well.

David(41:55):

For sure. It's, you know, if you're of that age, then you want your children engaged in say like, here's, here's the assessments and we're going to walk through them down with your children and it'll take the fear, uncertainty and doubt from the child off and say, Oh, okay, now make parents want to talk about this. Yeah. Let's make the build the roadmap together.

Roy - AGEUcational (42:15):

Right. All right, David. Well, again, thanks a lot. And, uh, w this is going to do it for, uh, R w this episode of age locational podcast, please visit [email protected]. We do have a Facebook group that we would like to, uh, you know, ramp up some conversations in there. So please, uh, you know, go over there. If you have questions, if you have show ideas, if you are a professional that serves seniors, we'd love to hear from you. If you're a senior, that has a good story. We'd love to hear from you, an adult child that, uh, you know, wants to put their, uh, this is, you know, in the beginning, especially, uh, we may refine our mission as we move on, but, you know, in the beginning, we want to hear from a wide range of individuals to, um, let people know first off, you're not alone going through this or other people that have been through it, going through it, and then where we can go get that help as well. So until next time, I'm Roy I'm Terry take care of each other. Thank you so much.

David(43:20):

Thank you. And continue on. It's a, it's a, what you're doing is good. All right.

Roy - AGEUcational (43:25):

Thank you, David.

www.ageucational.com

 

 

AGEUcational Inaugural Episode with Roy and Terry

Roy and Terry talk about why they started the AGEUcatoinal Podcast and the direction they want to go. This will be providing information of their journey as well as speakers that are professionals in a related discipline, stories of seniors, their families, and their caretaker.

Join them on this exciting journey. You are not alone and we are here to help in whatever way possible.

They would love to hear from you as well.

www.ageucational.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - AGEUcational (00:03):

Hello, and welcome to the inaugural episode of the age educational podcast. I'm Roy, we're going to be instituting a podcast. We've had the educational, uh, website and, uh, Facebook for quite some time. We've delivered a lot of, uh, uh, of our own content. Then we kind of backed off and have been curating some lately. And we've decided to go ahead and, uh, start a podcast for this as well. I mean, what we want to do is cover a lot of angles of the aging spectrum, you know, stages, spectrums, where, uh, we, you know, we can talk to some professionals, some, uh, seniors, some family members, some caregivers, uh, you know, people telling their story and some things that they've learned along the way, you know, we just want to make it a, just a good forum and try to present, uh, you know, information that's interesting on this process because, uh, no, we're all getting there.

Roy - AGEUcational (01:14):

We can't stop it. And, you know, just like us, we have, um, you know, no, I'm not, Terry's not, I, I may be aging a little bit, but she's definitely not. Uh, but you know, we have aging parents and, uh, you know, Terry still actually has, um, uh, one younger daughter just, uh, in her younger twenties. So, you know, there are times that she may be considered part of that sandwich generation. Not that she's still at home, but, you know, still does take some attention. So, um, we just felt like it's important to put the information out there to let people know that they're not alone in their struggles. Um, maybe provide some hints, tips, tricks, you know, I'm fortunate enough. Both of my parents are still living. Um, you know, I've been in the senior living industry as a consultant for the last 20 years. And not that I, I'm not, you know, the, the purpose of this show is not to advocate for any one type of living. It's mainly just to present information. We feel like, I think everybody needs to make the choice that's best for them financially and what their needs are. Sometimes that may be staying at home, living with the relative may be senior living, but, uh, you know, there, there is an answer for everybody that's out there. Right.

Terry - AGEUcational (02:38):

Right. And I mean, when you just start out your, as your parents are aging and different ailments are coming up, you know, it's, it's hard to start at the very beginning and just hearing different, um, conversations about what's worked for other people that, that helped me a lot when, I mean, my dad had Alzheimer's for a long time, probably for about 12 years, but my mom took, took care of them as long as she could. I mean, I got kinda bad. And, um, then he ended up going into a, um, I don't know it was a tribe. Well, first you went to a retirement center, but it was like, it was like, um, it wasn't, it was kind of assisted living, but it was, it was, um, you know, he had to wear an ankle monitor just in case he would bolt for the, for the door, which he did a couple of times and, uh, you know, he'd run out and then somebody would come after him.

Terry - AGEUcational (03:41):

And, and they'd be looking around saying, Mr. John, where are you? And he'd say, here I am, you'd stand up right there from the bushes where he was on ramp from everybody. Um, but then, uh, he lived there for a couple of years and then he ended up in a group, an Alzheimer's group home, and it was awesome. There were six, you know, six to eight people who lived there who were patients. And then, uh, they had staff around the clock, um, heavy at different times. And, um, it w it was an awesome experience there. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (04:17):

And it's a difficult, uh, it's difficult to know what to do because, uh, if it's a spouse, of course, we never want to let them go. And we had an, you know, this has been probably 10 or 12 years ago had an unfortunate event that, uh, we had neighbors across the street that were, um, uh, the, the wife had started suffering Alzheimer's and she was somebody that liked to, um, escape and like to get out and roam around. And so the husband, unfortunately, he was elderly as well, and wasn't in the greatest of health, but he didn't want to, you know, have to put her somewhere. And so he kept her at home. They put some door alarms on, he had wedges under the doors where she couldn't open them and thought he had everything worked out. And so one morning I woke up about four 30, five o'clock and, um, you know, there was a bunch of red flashing lights out the front window.

Roy - AGEUcational (05:15):

So I got up, went out and found out that this, uh, that the wife had escaped during the night. And this was on a, uh, you know, kind of a cool night. It was probably in upper thirties or forties. She had escaped in her night gown and wandered across the street. And at the time I had an old Jeep and she had gotten in the back of that Jeep and the police found her over there sleeping, and they got lucky because she didn't shut the door. Good. And the dome light came on. So that was the, what kind of cued the police and fire department to walk over there and check it out. Sure enough. They found her. And, you know, shortly after that, she did have to go to a memory care facility where they could take care of her. But, um, sometimes even the best of intentions, you know, things don't work out. And then the other thing to think about is there used to be a lot of statistics on caregivers. And, um, you know, at one point I think 80% of caregivers would, uh, pass before the person that they were taking care of, especially in that Alzheimer's environment, because it is just such a strain and so much, uh, work and sleep deprivation, and I've never been through it. So I'm not even trying to say, I can understand what people go through, but I just know from talking to different people, that it's very, very difficult.

Terry - AGEUcational (06:44):

Well, yeah. And, and, um, you know, I I've really feel like in, in my case or my dad's case, mom really overcompensated for him a lot. And, and didn't, you know, we'd know, notice things here and there. And I lived pretty close to him, so we saw them a lot, but, um, and we always joked about, you know, little things that he would do here and there. And, uh, just not think anything of it and just kind of Mark it up to aging, but, but it got to, you know, he would S when he did things like stick his key car keys in the freezer, and we, we had no, no idea what was going to be next, you know? Um, and just a lot of mental things that you have to do too. Like, we'd have to go and get the mail out of the mailbox because he waited for that mail. Um, um, and, uh, there was direct, we were finding bags of direct mail pieces to him because he would send it in thinking that he was going to win a million dollars if he gave $5 here, $10 there. And he talked to anybody who called, you know, there are just things that it's just, it's hard, it's a mental game, it's a physical thing. It's

Roy - AGEUcational (08:01):

Well, and that's a, you bring up a good point about the, uh, about if, especially if they're with a spouse about the, it's hard for the children to know exactly what's going on because the spouses tend to overcompensate for them. And sometimes they do it, um, trying not to let other people know what's going on. And sometimes they, you know, it's just a loving relationship and they try to take care of each other enough that you really don't know, um, you know, what may be going on with the other, with the other person.

Terry - AGEUcational (08:37):

Right. And, and I mean, and in my case, I'm sure we'll talk about this more in depth, but, uh, in, in dad's case, he would, he would have, you know, uh, times when he would get kinda me verbally abusive. Um, and, uh, you know, he kinda, he got it got mean there toward the end. So we had to kind of trick him into go into the hospital. I don't suggest waiting until that happens to, um, to do, to make some, you know, have some action, take some action, um, you know, just kind of check it out along, uh, along the way and try to be as prepared as you can in this situation. It's just not an easy thing at all. Right.

Roy - AGEUcational (09:25):

Yeah. And there's so many new developments with, um, you know, some, maybe there's not cures, but there's a lot of meds that slow it down on a lot of things. So if you suspect that, just trying to get in and get people tested, or get yourself tested and, and see, it's always better to know where you're at than to speculate and, uh, you know, try to see what kind of help you can get the, you know, some other topics I think that, uh, need to be addressed. We'll be, uh, driving, you know, that's always a difficult conversation and, you know, it's one that we kind of jokingly have now that, um, it's my sister got my mom a, some kind of a key, uh, alert. Like if you lose your keys, you can look it up and see where they're at. And it's got like a little, uh, Oh, I can't even think of what the code is, but it's like a tile. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a tile. Okay. So she got her tile and I was, you know, w mom was like, well, I don't know why I got that. I never lose my keys. And I, I said, well, it's not a key finder. It's a, it's a, it's a, uh, ignition jammer. And so I said, instead of trying to talk you to giving your keys up, she's my sister, just gonna jam the signal on your key, where you can't start the car,

Terry - AGEUcational (10:46):

You do have to be creative.

Roy - AGEUcational (10:49):

So, uh, but anyway, you know, that, that those are difficult conversations, but also caregivers. I mean, you know, th uh, hopefully we can, uh, get some, uh, some other experts in that caregiving to just, you know, tips that can help, because, like I said, you, uh, sometimes the caregivers end up getting sicker than the people they're taking care of because of the time and the stress that goes into being a caregiver, not only for Alzheimer's, but for any, you know, aging individual that needs a lot of help. And so, you know, there are a lot of places to turn for, help out there for respite care, different things. So, you know, hopefully we can, we can get into all of that, but, you know, just some general topics I've thought about, you know, poly pharmacy. Uh, we go to a lot of doctors, law doctors prescribes all the meds, and if you're don't have a good pharmacist, you know, the doctors should ask what you're on, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes if you have a good pharmacist, they will catch it. But a lot of times they don't. And so knowing what medicines interact and just being careful and asking the question, not that we on the show, we'll be able to tell you what's polypharmacy, but the, uh, knowing when to talk to your medical professionals and say, Hey, look, I'm taking this. I, you know, I'm taking this, this and this, how are they interacting? What are they doing? Because sometimes there can be deadly consequences

Terry - AGEUcational (12:24):

And keeping track of it. I mean, today, it's, it's easier than you think to keep track of it. There's so many apps available. Um, you should be able to have an updated list on all the medications that you've taken and are on. Um, so you can just kind of pull it out and you don't have to worry about having a little folded up piece of paper in your wallet. You know, seeing which date it was from, you know?

Roy - AGEUcational (12:48):

Well, and that's, it's important because like, um, you know, it's been a few months since your mom had her event, but when she did, then there was a scramble to find all the medication to get them all written down. So he could take two of them,

Terry - AGEUcational (13:01):

A big, clear tub full of her stuff. And I'm the one who helped her do her, you know, do her weekly medications in her little planner and everything, but she had added a couple of things and I just, you know, walked around with this tub until I got it all entered.

Roy - AGEUcational (13:16):

Yeah. But it's important if you have a, an emergency event to know that when they go, so, uh, you know, try to get out ahead of that stuff, keep the records, uh, with, um, smartphones. I'm sure there are some apps now where you can list all that and scan them with QR codes just to keep up with them. So, you know, those are the kind of things that we hope to get into you on the show, uh, diabetic management, there's, uh, you know, like myself, I have to, uh, test and try to keep my glucose levels low. I have to work at it for sure. Don't do as good as I need to be, but working on it. So, you know, would be able to talk firsthand knowledge about some things like that, that help us out, but hopefully we'll have a wide range of things to, um, you know, interest. There's just, uh, you know, there's so much going on out there now. And, uh, healthcare and politics, we have vaccinations and, uh, you know, everybody has to make the right choice for themselves now, for sure. But then, and then there's a lot of things, the other things that may be not healthcare related, but scams things to look for when you get, uh, emails, unfortunately, uh,

Terry - AGEUcational (14:32):

You know, text messages. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (14:34):

People trying to scam us at all areas, calling and saying, Hey, your granddaughter's here and, you know, needs money. And, you know, that's something that mom had pulled on her. And it's funny because my, my daughter, uh, was sitting on the couch right next to her when this guy was trying to say, Hey, your granddaughter is, uh, stuck in Europe and she needs this money. And she, she let her keep talking after a while. And, you know, luckily she just has one granddaughter. She just had one granddaughter at the time. So, you know, she looked over and said, well, she's sitting right here, but you know, those are just the kind of things that, uh, can put you into a panic if you really don't know where you're, you know, where they are and do they need help?

Terry - AGEUcational (15:20):

Oh, an IRS. Oh my gosh. So many of those scans, there's so many things that you just, not any normal people would ever think of. Think of stories like that. Yeah.

Roy - AGEUcational (15:30):

Yeah. And with email today, you know, there's a lot of these phishing emails that look legit from Hey Powell or from Amazon or different things like that, that people send out. And if, you know, it's just, uh, the best thing to do is just close it out, go into your account and try to do it without responding to the email, because that's what they hope that you'll do is just respond and put all of your information in there where they can steal it, you know? So those are, um, definitely some things that we hopefully that we can get into. Um, anyway, there's just a world of, uh, we've got a lot of food insecurity. So some things that we can do to help feed people are where you can go to turn for help. Um, anyway, you got any other

Terry - AGEUcational (16:25):

Yeah. For many different things, but, uh, yeah, that, you know, th the aging parents and, and, uh, the older adult kids who are making their own decisions, but you might not agree with some of them.

Roy - AGEUcational (16:41):

Yeah. Well, we used to have a saying that, you know, for a long time I was a volunteer ombudsman in my County. And we used to, you know, we would get calls from kids all the time saying, you know, mom stopping this treatment or this or that. And, you know, our answer for that was, was, uh, you know, there's no law against somebody making a bad decision as long as they have their faculties. Um, but you know, as children, sometimes we hate to see decisions that are made. So that definitely is, um, definitely is something to try to determine, you know, are they making decisions in their right mind? And then also learning to deal with that, that it has to be their decision that we have to unfortunately live with that sometimes.

Terry - AGEUcational (17:27):

And I can't, I mean, gosh, I can't even imagine not being able to be independent, you know, which is with all these things, like the driving aspect of it, mom says, she'll give out, give up her license when she's 90. Now she said that we've got it on tape. Now. She said that at one time, but boy, she is not going to go without and screaming that's for sure.

Roy - AGEUcational (17:51):

Yeah. Well, the other great thing, I mean, cause you know, like I said this, unfortunately, I mean I fall into the aging category and luckily I'm still healthy and can do a lot, but we talk about the driving aspect, but now we've got Uber and Lyft, so it doesn't necessarily have to be taking somebodies independence away. It's just finding a different way to get them to where they want to go. But unfortunately, you know, in our society, especially, you know, my age and older that was, uh, uh, a definitive point of independence is when you got your driver's license, you could take off, go anywhere you want to. And um, so it it's, it's hard I'm sure, but we have to look at these other alternatives and say the, you know, the true point of driving is to get to point from point a to point B. And there's another method that we can do that and still be, uh, you know, independent without having to bother anybody else to come do that for us.

Terry - AGEUcational (18:54):

Yeah. I may have tried to get mine a couple of years before hand in the middle of the night taking the car, you know, that all another thing. Oh my gosh. And get caught every time. Right.

Roy - AGEUcational (19:05):

Right. All right. You have anything else?

Terry - AGEUcational (19:11):

No, we just, there's just a lot of aspects here that we can cover and um, we will, we will do it.

Roy - AGEUcational (19:20):

Yeah. And the other thing too, we want to be sure. And invite professionals, uh, seniors, adult children, uh, to, uh, give us an email, uh, eitherRoy@ageuknationaldotcomorterrywithayterryatageuknational.com. And tell us your story and we'll see if we can't, you know, set up a time to do a typing, to get everybody on. We would love to hear stories and you know, this is some of this is going to be about us and the things that we're going through that we also want to hear from others and make it about, uh, you know, make it about community. That's the way that we'd get through all of this.

Terry - AGEUcational (20:07):

Yeah. You have, you have to have, uh, a big community to reach out to, or just, uh, you know, close knit, good friends. Us.

Roy - AGEUcational (20:17):

Yeah. Yeah. Right. All right. Well again until next time, uh, it is age educational age, G E U C a a

Terry - AGEUcational (20:31):

E I O N a L.

Roy - AGEUcational (20:34):

Yeah. Age education.com. We're on all the major social media, Facebook, uh, Instagram, Twitter, and probably YouTube. I think we should have a YouTube channel with these videos going up on that too. Pretty same. So anyway, check us out until next time. I'm Roy Terry take care of each other. Happy new year, happy new year.

 

www.ageucational.com