Aging is like sex and home maintenance: done well, it’s a source of pride and satisfaction. Done poorly, it’s a nightmare.
Thankfully, there isn’t one secret to doing it well. You can figure out how to excel at this in your own way. But you can also learn by listening to others who have been there before you. (Again, like sex and home maintenance.)
UnitedHealthcare has done you the favor of surveying 100 centenarians on how they live and what they value. They also asked the same questions of 300 Baby Boomers, so you can see how their habits compare to those of their most long-living elders. (Let us underscore the age spread here: the Boomers were all aged 50-55, so the centenarians were sometimes more than twice their age.)
We went first to the comparison of regular physical activities and found that in most cases, as you might expect, Boomers are more active than centenarians. They are more likely to go walking or hiking (78-44%), do exercises to strengthen muscles (47-41%), engage in gardening (43-23%) or indoor cardio exercise (37-18%) and ride a bike (20-8%). But, astonishingly, more centenarians attended exercise classes (16% versus 13% of Boomers) and participated in yoga, tai chi or another form of “mind/body/spirit activity” (11-8%).
To go back for a second, note that 8% of the centenarians still ride a bike. And the survey also found that 5% of them still run outdoors. So watch your back, Fauja.
Boomers are more likely to say that maintaining physical health is tougher than maintaining mental or emotional health (74%-59%); more centenarians said mental health was tougher (14%-10%), which could mean that Boomers are more pressed for the time needed to go on long bike rides and kayak trips, or that centenarians have a lower bar for maintaining physical health. Or that centenarians have too much time to sit around and worry about things, which adds stress and makes it harder to stay mentally healthy. Or something else.
Among the other intriguing revelations here: centenarians have better sleeping and eating habits (or at least claim to). “A mere 38% [of Boomers] get eight hours or more of sleep daily compared to more than 70% of centenarians.” So that’s something to work on or look forward to.
Also: Boomers would rather have dinner with Julia Roberts than Meryl Streep; centenarians prefer Streep. Boomers would pick either actress over George Bush or Barack Obama; centenarians would prefer to dine with the presidents. And Betty White beats all comers in both groups. Handily.
Photo of Joseph Burke (age 100) throwing the first pitch on the first pitch at the Chicago White Sox game on Opening Day, 1988, scanned from a family photo album by Ryan Burke, via Wikimedia Commons.
