Aging Naturally

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Touch is a basic requirement for optimum health: touch-deprived babies, both animal and human, do not develop normally. This need does not diminish with age, but older people often have fewer opportunities to give and receive health-promoting physical contact. I urge you as strongly as possible to find ways to touch and be touched as you move through life. One way, a perfectly good one, is to treat yourself to massage on a regular basis.

Lack of sex is not so easily remedied if one lives alone or with a partner who is no longer interested in or physically able to engage in it. Clearly, many older people have active sex lives and get pleasure from it as much as or more than ever.

The point is that sexuality changes as you grow older. If you agree that acceptance of aging is the goal, then you must work out your peace with changes in your sexual life. Here are some strategies that I recommend:

If you are older and living with a partner, try to express your needs, especially if they have changed. See if you can find areas of common ground where you can exchange some form of nurturing touch.

Self-stimulation is always an option. I consider it a healthy practice throughout life.

Everyone is different. Pay attention to how your interests and appetites change. Try to adapt to the changes. And keep in mind that for some people diminished interest in sex can be a liberating and welcome change.

STRESS

Life is stressful and always has been. Eliminating stress entirely is not an option. If there are discrete sources of stress in your life--a relationship, a job, a health problem--you can and should take action to try to mitigate them. But my experience is that we all are subject to a kind of conservation law of stress. If stress recedes in one area, it seems to increase in another. Get your finances in order, and your relationship sours. Get your relationship together, and the kids cause you grief.

Whatever objective stress you have to deal with, you can learn to activate the so-called relaxation response, a shift within the autonomic nervous system from sympathetic dominance (the fight-or-flight response) to parasympathetic dominance (the heart rate slows, blood pressure falls and metabolism and immunity are optimal). You can evoke the relaxation response in many ways: by working on your breathing, practicing yoga, taking biofeedback training, floating in water or stroking a cat or dog that you love.

I have long promoted the benefits of working with the breath as the simplest, most efficient way of taking advantage of the mind-body connection to affect both physical and mental health. Here's a simple relaxing breath technique you can try at home:

1. Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge behind and above your front teeth, and keep it there throughout the exercise.

2. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.

3. Inhale deeply and quietly through the nose to a count of four (with your mouth closed).

4. Hold for a count of seven.

5. Exhale audibly through your mouth to a count of eight.

6. Repeat steps 3, 4 and 5 for a total of four breaths.