When we were growing up, women over 50 just weren't thought of as beautiful. Sure, you'd have the occasional Elizabeth Taylor, whom people admired well into their 30s-but then, even Liz Taylor's heyday came when she was in her teens and 20s.
Otherwise, after women hit 50, something-strange-seemed to happen. Our grandmothers and mothers had no trouble at all finding shapeless old-lady's clothing and frumpy coats, but there just didn't seem to be anything available that reflected their maturity and their beauty.
Fortunately, ours is a generation that has already changed the way people look at youth. Now we're doing the same thing for aging! Today's women are staying vibrant and sexy well beyond their 50s, and we don't have much trouble finding clothing that shows us off beautifully!
For some good examples of the changing faces (and bodies!) of women over 50, take a look at Sharon Stone. She's still active, and she's still gorgeous. Meryl Streep is well over 50, and she's doing some of the best acting work of her life. Christie Brinkley is back to modeling because cosmetics companies have realized that women who are over 50 are still buying makeup-because we still plan to keep looking good!
Granted, once we reach and pass 50, we have to pay more attention to our beauty than we used to. Our skin and hair can start to become thinner, and we have the potential to develop osteoporosis, which can affect our looks and our health.
But today, women over 50 also have access to exercise routines that can keep us active while we also have a lot of fun. And, with medical science and increasing knowledge of proper nutrition, we can keep our bodies beautiful and healthy at the same time.
As an over 50 woman myself, I know I'm taking better care of my beauty than I did when I was younger-and I'm really seeing the results! Here are some things I recommend for women over 50 to help them understand that our beauty matters.
· When we hit 50, sometimes the "wages" or our past diet "sins" start to come back to haunt us. If you've always eaten a healthy diet, congratulations! It's not too late for the rest of us, though. Every little healthy change you make can have an impact on how you look and how you feel, so get started today. Maybe you'll want to do a diet makeover or just increase your intake of fruits and vegetables. Whatever you do, you will see a difference.
· Exercise is even more important after 50 than it was before. Over 50 women can be at risk for osteoporosis so it's especially important that we do weight-bearing exercises.
· In addition to diet and exercise, we need to pay attention to the needs of specific parts of our bodies. For example, our hair can become thinner and more brittle after we hit 50. In addition to diet and exercise, we need to learn how to be more careful of our hair by avoiding harsh chemicals and brushing it gently. There are even foods you can eat to reverse your gray hair!
Women over 50 remain beautiful, sexy women. In fact, part of our allure is that we have a comfort in our own skin that we just didn't have when we were younger. All we have to do is be a good shepherd to our beauty, and we can enjoy it for the rest of our lives.
Joyce Becker is a successful marketing entrepreneur living in New Jersey with her husband of over 30 years. Joyce is also a trailblazer. As a woman and a Baby Boomer, she has broken molds, working in a variety of careers and providing inspiration to countless women whose lives have been touched by her spirit and energy through http://YourSecondYouthBlog.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joyce_Becker
Showing posts with label 50. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 50. Show all posts
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
How I Got My Golden Swagger
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| My mom |
People are sometimes surprized when they learn that I'm 54 years old. Some even ask what my secret is. Honestly I don't have a secret. First of all, I have to wonder what the consensus thinks/feels/believes a woman who is 50 + is supposed to look and behave like? But I digress, I suppose there are some elements in place that help keep me "youthful" so I'll share.
While I STRIVE to get in a decent amout of exercise and to eat well balanced meals, I admit that I don't always eat what I should and too often eat things I shouldn't. What we eat without question contributes to our well being or lack thereof; but it's not the end all and be all. When questioned by the psedo-righteous Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus rebutted: "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." Matthew 15:11 (KJV) So while diet and exercise are contributors to living the good life, there is more to it.
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| My grandmother |
My grandfather, a 30+ year employee of the historic Ford Motor Company Rouge plant, tinkered and tilled for years after he retired. No rocking chairs for that pair!
My parents are amazing too. Even though both have had health challenges, they're both still doing quite well. Dad, a retired executive from Chrysler has a philosophy which I'm working to incorporate..."If it ain't fun, I don't do it." Now you have to earn the right and be in the position to do this. You have to pay some dues, but when you've worked as long as my parents and grandparents, sowed into countless lives, repented of your sins (both spiritual and natural), shed enough blood, sweat and tears, you come to a point in life where you can not only recite that phrase, but live it.
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| Me and dad |
Even having said that, my dad still sows. Sure, he donates to charity, gives offerings at church, but what is so wonderful about him...the thing I think I love the most about him is that he NEVER complains. Oh he might report an ailment or an incident that happened to him along the way but "oh whoa is me" never escapes his lips and I'm working on being the same way consistently.
Then there's my mom. Mom has had a more difficult time than my dad or grandparents. She suffered a stroke 15 years ago and has had a few other health challenges along the way. Even though her speech and mobility are limited, she stilll does everything her body and will power will allow her to do for herself. Again, she NEVER complains and NEVER asks for assistance to do anything she can do for herself. It might take her more time, but at 80 years of age she still maintains a sense of independence and dignity.
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| My hubby (He's the one on the far left, lol) |
Another thing I admire about my husband is his outlook on life. Rick and his 5 other siblings were adopted. He has shared with me that there are times when he can't help but question why his parents gave he and his blood brother away. Some people might harbor that haunting question along with bitterness and anger but he doesn't. Instead he has set goals for himself, tracks them and ACHIEVES them. He has accomplished a lot in life and he attributes it to following instructions that the Lord gave him. When he gave his life to Christ in the early 80s, he was given instructions to STICK WITH ME (God) and go back to school. At the time he was working in the Chevy Gear and Axle plant in Hamtramck, Michigan. He had dropped out of high school. I talk about this more than he ever will but I'm proud to say that he not only earned a GED while working, but took community college classes and graduated with two Associate of Arts degrees. But he didn't stop there, he enrolled in Wayne State University and without taking any leaves of absence, earned two Master's degrees, certification as an Education Specialist and licensure in Community and Agency Counseling.
All of my life I've been surrounded by people who know the value of investment. Investment in meaningful service, spirituality, mental and physical health, and in love, laughter and leisure. How could I help but have a Golden Swagger?
I'll bet you have a Golden Swagger story and I'd LOVE to share it with my readers. Please share.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
K.I.T.
Tips for staying connected
100 years or so ago, (actually 1970) I graduated from Longfellow Jr. High School in Detroit. My classmates and I circulated these little autograph books and wrote sweet, funny and sometimes not-so-nice notes in one another's books. One common thread was that nearly everyone signed off with the acronym K.I.T., along with their telephone numbers. Even way back then we recognized the importance of staying in touch.One of the greatest challenges of aging is how your support network changes. Staying connected isn’t always easy as you grow older—even for those who have always had an active social life. Retirement, illness, death, and moves can take away close friends and family members. And the older you get, the more people you lose. What’s more, getting around may be difficult.
But it’s important to find ways to reach out and connect to others. Loneliness and isolation are major threats to aging well. Having people you can turn to for company and support is a buffer against depression, disability, hardship, and loss.
The good news is that there are lots of ways to be with other people. It doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you get out of the house (if possible) and socialize:
- Connect regularly with friends and family. Spend time with people you enjoy and who make you feel upbeat. It may be a neighbor who you like to walk with, a lunch date with an old friend, or shopping with your children. Even if you are not close by, call or email frequently to keep relationships fresh.
- Make an effort to make new friends. As you lose people in your circle, it is vital to make new connections so your circle doesn’t dwindle. Make it a point to befriend people who are younger than you. Younger friends can reenergize you and help you see life from a fresh perspective.
- Spend time with at least one person every day. You shouldn’t be alone day after day. Phone or email contact is not a replacement for spending time with other people. Regular face-to-face contact helps you ward off depression and stay positive.
- Volunteer. Giving back to the community is a wonderful way to strengthen social bonds and meet others, and the meaning and purpose you find in helping others will enrich and expand your life. Volunteering is a natural way to meet others interested in similar activities or who share similar values. Even if you’re housebound, you can get involved by volunteering on the phone.
- Find support groups in times of change. If you or a loved one is coping with a chronic illness or recent loss, it can be very helpful to participate in a support group with others undergoing the same challenges.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Let's Play!
Play, Creativity, and Lifelong Learning
WHY PLAY MATTERS FOR BOTH KIDS AND ADULTS
By nature, humans are born to play. Playing is instinctive and fundamental to our existence. Playing helps us survive and thrive by connecting us to other human beings and to sources of energy and excitement within ourselves. Play is simultaneously a source of calmness and relaxation, as well as a source of stimulation for the brain and body. Playfulness helps us be more inventive, smart, happy, flexible, and resilient. A sure (and fun) way to develop your imagination, creativity, problem-solving abilities, and mental health is to play with your romantic partner, officemates, children, grandchildren, and friends.
IN THIS ARTICLE:
- Play: It's not just for kids
- Lifelong benefits of play
- Play and relationships
- Playing at work
- Play, creativity, and flow
- Learning how to play again
- Related links
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AUTHORS
TEXT SIZEPlay: It's not just for kids
"What do most Nobel Laureates, innovative entrepreneurs, artists and performers, well-adjusted children, happy couples and families, and the most successfully adapted mammals have in common? They play enthusiastically throughout their lives."
~ Stuart Brown, Institute of Play
Play is often described as a time when we feel most alive, yet we often take it for granted and may completely forget about it. But play isn't a luxury - it's a necessity. Play is as important to our physical and mental health as getting enough sleep, eating well, and exercising. Play teaches us how to manage and transform our "negative" emotions and experiences. It supercharges learning, helps us relieve stress, and connects us to others and the world around us. Play can also make work more productive and pleasurable.
Despite the power of play, somewhere between childhood and adulthood, many of us stop playing. We exchange play for work and responsibilities. When we do have some leisure time, we're more likely to zone out in front of the TV or computer than to engage in creative, brain-stimulating play. By giving ourselves permission to play with the joyful abandon of childhood, we can continue to reap its benefits throughout life.
Some of the reasons we play:
- to learn
- to create
- to feel challenged
- to pass time
- to calm and focus ourselves
- as spectators watching others
- competitively to win
- cooperatively
- for the fun of it
- for the joy of it
The lifelong benefits of play
Play connects us to others
Sharing joy, laughter and fun with others promotes bonding and strengthens a sense of community. We develop empathy, compassion, trust, and the capacity for intimacy through regular play.
Play fosters creativity, flexibility, and learning
Play is a doorway to learning. Play stimulates our imaginations, helping us adapt and solve problems. Play arouses curiosity, which leads to discovery and creativity. The components of play - curiosity, discovery, novelty, risk-taking, trial and error, pretense, games, social etiquette and other increasingly complex adaptive activities - are the same as the components of learning.
Play is an antidote to loneliness, isolation, anxiety, and depression
When we play vigorously, we trigger a mix of endorphins that lift our spirits and distractions that distance us from pain, fear and other burdens. And when we play with other people, with friends and strangers, we are reminded that we are not alone in this world. We can connect to others in delightful and meaningful ways that banish loneliness.
Play teaches us perseverance
The rewards of learning or mastering a new game teach us that perseverance is worthwhile. Perseverance is a trait necessary to healthy adulthood, and it is learned largely through play. Perseverance and violence are rarely found together.
Play makes us happy
Beyond all these excellent reasons for playing, there is simply the sheer joy of it. Play is a state of being that is happy and joyous. Jumping into and out of the world of play on a daily basis can preserve and nourish our own hearts, and the hearts of our communities.
Play and relationships
Play is one of the most effective tools for keeping relationships fresh and exciting. Playing together for the fun of it brings joy, vitality, and resilience to relationships. Play can also heal resentments, disagreements, and hurts. Through regular play, we learn to trust one another and feel safe. Trust enables us to work together, open ourselves to intimacy, and try new things.
Play helps us develop and improve our social skills
Social skills are learned in the give and take of play. Verbal communication and body language, safety and danger, freedom and boundaries, cooperation and teamwork: all are discovered and practiced repeatedly during infant and childhood play. We continue to refine these skills in adulthood through play and playful communication.
Play teaches us how to cooperate with others
Play is a powerful catalyst for positive socialization. Through play, children learn how to "play nicely" with others - to work together, follow mutually agreed upon rules, and socialize in groups. As adults, play continues to confer these benefits. Evidence even shows that play may be an antidote to violence. In fact, those who avoid or have never learned to play may become lost in the world of fear, rage, and obsessive worry.
Mutual play can heal emotional wounds
When adults play together, they are engaging in exactly the same patterns of behavior that positively shape the brain in children. These same playful behaviors that predict emotional health in children also lead to positive change in adults. Studies show that an emotionally-insecure individual can replace negative beliefs and behaviors with positive assumptions and actions by living with a secure partner. Close, positive, and emotionally-fulfilling relationships heal and create emotional resiliency. Play provides a safe and joyous context for the development of such relationships.
Playfulness in Relationships
Mutual laughter and play are an essential component of strong, healthy relationships. By making a conscious effort to incorporate more humor and play into your daily interactions, you can improve the quality of your love relationships- as well as your connections with co-workers, family members, and friends.
Read: Playful Communication in Relationships: The Power of Laughter, Humor, and Play
Playing at work: The key to productivity and innovation
Work or play: It's all in your attitude
When researchers studied preteen children's attitudes about play, they discovered that some children called almost everything they did "play" while others called almost everything they did "work". Reconnecting with the children at the end of adolescence, the children who thought of everything as play were more successful and happier in school and were more content socially than the people who saw everything as "work".
Many people are working longer and harder, thinking that this will solve the problem of diminishing free time and an ever-increasing workload. But they are still falling behind, becoming chronically overwhelmed, and burning out.
Work is where we spend much of our time. That is why it is especially important for us to play during work. Without some recreation, our work suffers. Success at work doesn't depend on the amount of time you work. It depends upon the quality of your work. And the quality of your work is highly-dependant on your well-being.
Taking the time to replenish yourself through play is one of the best things you can do for your career. When the project you're working on hits a serious glitch (as they frequently do), heading out to the basketball court with your colleagues to shoot some hoops and have a few laughs does a lot more than take your mind off the problem. If basketball isn't your cup of tea, having a model airplane contest, telling stories, or flying kites in the parking lot will also allow your relationship to the problem to shift and enable you to approach it from a new perspective.
Playing at work:
- keeps you functional when under stress
- refreshes your mind and body
- encourages teamwork
- helps you see problems in new ways
- triggers creativity and innovation
- increases energy and prevents burnout
Play, creativity, and flow
Psychiatrist and writer Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has studied play extensively. He describes play as a flow state that requires just the right balance of challenge and opportunity. If the game is too hard or too easy, it loses its sense of pleasure and fun. Maintaining a flow state in games with others requires all participants, regardless of age or ability, to feel challenged, but not overwhelmed.
| Feelings We Experience in the Flow State | |
Involvement | Complete focus and concentration, either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training. |
Delight | A sense of bliss and positive detachment from everyday reality. |
Clarity | Great inner clarity and a built-in understanding about the state of affairs. |
Confidence | An innate sense that the activity is doable and that your skills are adequate to the task. Additionally, you don’t feel anxious or bored. |
Serenity | A sense of peace and an absence of worries about self. |
Timeliness | Thorough focus on the present and a lack of attention to the passing of time. |
Motivation | Intrinsic understanding about what needs to be done and a desire to keep the moment of play moving. |
Learning how to play again
Fun games for the whole family
To learn how to play some of Bernie's favorite, fun-for-all-ages games, download and print:
Bernie DeKoven, one of the originators of the New Games movement, has devoted his life to developing games that bring people together emotionally in the context of playing for fun. For those who have forgotten how to play and don't know how to get started again, Bernie offers the following advice:
"You don't have to have rules or goals or a board or even anything to play with except each other. But whatever it is that you're playing, there are two things you have to take seriously: being together, and the sheer fun of it all. No game is more important than the experience of being together, being joined, being equal - governed by the same rules, playing for the same purpose. And no purpose is more uniting and freeing than the purpose of being fun with each other."
Winning and losing
Bernie makes important points about winning and losing:
- It's OK for you to lose. This may be hard to remember at the time. But getting beaten, fair and square, by your own grandkid, is one of life's great events.
- Nobody has to lose. For some reason, both adults and children tend to take games more seriously than anyone needs to. That's why it is not unusual for a trivial game to end up as a contest of wills and for children to wind up in tears because they've "lost."
- Competition separates, rather than unites. Despite your best efforts to keep the competition friendly and fun, the very existence of winners and losers shifts the focus of the game away from fun and playfulness. It separates rather than unites, alienates rather than embraces.
- Yes, the competitive separation can be overcome. Whenever it happens that opponents embrace each other, it is a victory and a triumph of the human spirit. But it is a rare occurrence.
Suggestions for playing games where no one has to lose:
- Instead of stopping a game when someone wins, just continue playing until everyone wins. There's the first winner, then the second winner, and then the third.
- When playing a two-person game, like checkers or ping-pong, try playing with three players, and rotate turns.
- If there are only two of you, in checkers, for example, just trade sides every third or fifth turn so that you have to play the other's person's position.
Related Articles
Emotional Intelligence (EQ)Five Key Skills for Raising Your Emotional Intelligence
Laughter is the Best MedicineThe Health Benefits of Humor and Laughter
More Helpguide Articles:
- Improving Emotional Health: Strategies and Tips for Good Mental Health
- Stress Management: How to Reduce, Prevent, and Cope with Stress
- How to Stop Worrying: Self-Help Strategies for Anxiety Relief
- Playful Communication in Relationships: The Power of Laughter, Humor, and Play
Thursday, December 16, 2010
What I Learned by the Time I Turned 50
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| 54 Baby! |
- God's majesty becomes more evident to me each day.
- I've been blessed with a phenomenal family.
- I had a very happy childhood.
- I'm much smarter than my kids (but my kids are much smarter than they pretend to be).
- I won't go to hell for drinking an occasional glass of wine or doing the hustle.
- It is truly more blessed to give than to receive.
- My joints can predict the weather.
- Favor ain't fair - neither is gravity.
- Nips, tucks and liposuction are NOT evil
- It's "hip" to be square.
- Worrying about what others think of me is a waste of my time.
- The only enemy I have is the devil.
- I wish I'd learned how to make Nana's cornbread dressing.
- The bible is the best How-To book ever written.
- Grandparenting is like math. It divides your time, adds joy to your life, subtracts from your wallet, and multiplies your Kodak moments.
- Watching my kids grow up is bittersweet.
- I'm grateful for my girlfriends.
- Children have a way of humbling you - one way or another.
- The key to really, really good spousal intimacy is quality, not quantity - no really!
- Tea is the nectar if God.
- Being transparent is far less stressful than faking it - people find out anyway.
- Now I have respect for money.
- You can never have too many pairs of unmentionables.
- Bras and Pantyhose were invented by someone with a sadistic mind.
- Now I have something to blame my mistakes on - my age.
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