"THERE IS ONLY YOUTH AND OLD AGE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 551, 13 January 1950, Page 19

"THERE IS ONLY YOUTH AND OLD AGE"

HIS is the text of an interview with Dr. Elizabeth Bryson, who answered ques- | tions on some problems of old age in a recent women’s session from 2YA.

Question: At what age do you think we should start taking more care of our health? : Atiswer: How can we take care of our health? What is our health? Surely it is our wholeness-our whole person -our being in a state where our body is able to carry out the activities that we wish to engage in. Health is harmony, the smooth working together of all our faculties. How can we take care of this? The very words "take care" suggest a kind of anxiety about ourselves that is the very opposite of health. No, I don’t like your question. There is no age at which we should start taking care of ourselves in the pampering fashion that your question suggests, and when you make it still worse by asking when we should start taking more care of our

health I feel like answering in the words of Alice at the Mad Hatter’s tea party when they asked her if she would have more tea: "I can’t have more tea-lI haven’t had any tea yet." Health is not a thing we achieve by taking care, and more care at some special age just doesn’t make ‘sense. Question: Well, if you won't let us think about taking care of our health should we at least moderate our activities as we get older? Answer: Now that is a much better question, because now you are talking about our bodies, not our health, In the natural course of life the body ages. It runs a well marked course from the cradle to the grave. Every person who achieves old ,age has followed a course that has been compared with the course of the sun daily in the heavens. The sun rises in the morning and looks upon a wide bright world in an expanse that steadily widens the higher it climbs in the firmament. It reaches the zenith. At the stroke of noon the descent begins. The sun gradually draws in its rays. Light and warmth decline and are at last extinguished. This is the normal course of life, and should be understood. There will be no need for us to moderate our activities. Our ageing bodies will see to that without any anxious care on our part. Our activities will be moderated soon enough. We need not hasten

the process artificially. None of the physical changes of old age should be anticipated, but are recognised when they make their inevitable appearance. Question: It seems to me that the really healthy old people I’ve known did not eat much. Would it be a good scheme, do you think, for us to start reducing the amount we eat after we pass middle life? : Answer: Yes, I think it would, but you must first tell me what you mean by passing middle life. A wise old professor of medicine used to put it hike this to his students: "Middle age? There is no middle age. There is only youth and old age-and old age begins at twenty!" And he was right. If we didn’t eat unwisely in our earlier years there would

be no need ever to reduce deliberately the amount we eat. Your questions still seem to me to assume that old age is something definite that has to be organised and planned for and made to conform to certain rules of living. I would like to say what I always want to say to the mothers of young children: "Leave them alone. Give them a chance to live according to their own rhythm." I would not have anyone dictate to an aged person just how much or how little he should eat. Speaking generally we must admit that the people who reach old age must have been thriving on the food they ate. I have known several overweights who got into the nineties. There is no absolute rule. But still it is true that the spare people seem to live longer and to be healthier. Again this is natural, Less food is needed where vitality is lessening and activities are being restricted from an inner necessity. Actually the quality and balance of the food is more important, than the quantity, and when the food is right in these ways there is less need for excessive quantity, and no desire for it. The needs are the same throughout the whole adult life-more of the natural protective foods and less of the devitalised foods. Question: Do you think that older people should have afternoon naps, when (continued on next page)

Problems of Old Age (continued from pre

they don’t seem to need as much sleep as they used to? Answer: Yes, I still think they should have an afternoon nap if they want it. Old people often sleep better in the afternoon than in the pight, Often they wake up in the eatly morning hours because vitality is then at its lowestafter a few: hours of sleep they have difficulty in getting to sleep again. The healthiest people, old or young, are often those who can snatch a few hours of sleep whenever they need it or have thé opportunity to get it. So. let the old people, whom I see you are still determined to organise, have their afternoon nap if they want it and can take it. Question: About clothing. We were told recently that in China the old people wore long padded silk robes. That sounded very sensible to me. ~ Do you think our clothing is well planned for older people? Is warmth a big problem? Answer: Yes, that’s a very good idea about a padded silk robe. The Chinese have a great deal of practical wisdom behind their age-long usages. Ageing people are more like children in their .need for warmth. It is said that a warm coat is as good as a meal to a child on a chilly day. The same is true of: age. Particularly true is this during the night, especially in these cold grey hours of the early morning when so many older peaple wake up and can’t get to sleep again. Hot bottles and hot drinks and a little stimulant of some kind are the great comforters. Again this is natural and not to be anticipated in any way. When the ageing person. feels the need for extra warmth it is natural to do something about it; this should be understood. No, I don’t think we do anything very helpful about clothing for old people. I remember- my grandmother’s fine .and beautiful shetland shawl which seemed to give her great comfort on many occasions. But again I warn you: "Don’t go round giving shetland shawls to the people you think have qualified for them. The time for a Granny’s shawl is the time when the Granny herself wants it-and there are some grannies at 40 and some young people at seventy. So don’t go planning and organising for an ‘age that is so variable. Question: There are old people who seem determined to be grumpy, discontented and critical. Does some physical change cause this? Answer: Sometimes there may be a physical change behind some of the behaviour difficulties. The hardening of the arteries which is inevitable as life goes on makes it harder for people so affected to keep interested in the everyday things that are taking up the attention of those around them. It is easier to live in the past, and there is a tendency to be critical and compare unfavourably the interests of the present with the recollected enjoyments of the past. The mind. tends. to run along the well-beaten grooves; the old stories are repeated in the ‘same words-it is easier to run in the old groove than to beat out a new road of thought and find fresh modes of expression when~the vital blood-flow fo the brain is not as good as it used to be. |'So™ be" patient" with "your * teatly old people and remember that their stories

may be worth listening to even if you have heard them before. About the "grumpy and discontented" bit: I feel inclined to take up the cudgels for the old people and say that there are just as many grumpy and discontented young people as*there are old. This is a disease of all ages; and it is due to failure to develop and mature in the way of life that is appropriate to the age of the person. There are grumpy and discontented babies; and there are grumpy and discontented young people. The babies don’t want to grow up; and the young people don’t want to grow older; and the men and women of adult years don’t want to accept the responsibilities that are appropriate to their years, and when these _ ill-adjusted people reach old age they don’t want to be old and they can’t face the fact that their race is nearly run,.and so they remain as they have always been-grumpy and discontented. No, I won’t have you blame: old-age for that. Question: Your whole belief seems to be that age should come naturally and happily, We know that it does not always do this. Could you give us some guide to achieving this contentment? Answer: Contented ageing is largely dependent on recognition of the needs of the body when it becomes less resilient, less equal to strenuous activity, requiring less food always of the best quality, needing more warmth-a recognition of these limitations as they become gradually, very gradually apparent, and by recognising ‘them and catering for them in a natural’way to enable the essential person whd does not age to continue in all the activities that are congenial and orting, and in others that have had to be denied through the stress of the mature earlier years. Often the things that belong more to the mind and spirit of the person have had to be laid aside, not indulged in. To these, a healthy old age comes as a benediction and a blessing. Time to. read-time to garden (within the limits of physical capacity), time to develop. the hidden skills that were crowded out in the active years of money-makirig and family cares. I have known several grandmothers who became good artists in their seventies and eighties. And how many grandmothers really enjoy their grandchildren more than they ever enjoyed their own children! They .have more leisure and less responsibility-or at. least they should in a well ordered society. And they should of course all have grandchildren to enjoy. One of the really bitter things about old age is loneliness. The lonely aged person has need to be a philosopher. Having no intimate friends left who understood something of their earlier life, they often have to accept the fact that youth can never ‘understand age. After all, this again js natural. The old person has been young, but the youth has.not known old age. It is no good saying, "You will think differently when you are older." That only infuriates youth, true as it undoubtedly is very often. Age should be able to make allowances for youth more easily than youth can understand old age. What the young cannot possibly understand is that the old person does not feel old. There is nothing old in the psyche.