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I created this web site to first tell the story of a 5,000 mile walk across the county along the American Discovery Trail, with posts from May 2011 – May 2012, and retold that journey recently from a different perspective. … Continue reading
Near the end of the American Discovery Trail hike I created a song about the kindness we experienced across the country. After the journey was over I composed guitar music to accompany some of my landscape photos along the way. Those two creations morphed into the two movements of Beauty and Kindness for the American Discovery Symphony, which premiered with a full orchestra ten years after the journey was over.
As a full time caregiver I discovered that working on the photos and music for sharing our 5,000 mile walk across the country to be therapeutic for maintaining my brain health. I came up with ways to continue this “hobby,” creating three more thematic slideshows and then orchestrating all of them. I spent the final year before the premiere of the symphony rounding up and engaging with the wonderful musicians who volunteered to perform.
Ever since Cindy came off of hospice last fall I have been trying to figure out how to best live life as a permanent caregiver. I ended up with a plan for the ten year Unenlightened Wisdom Project, scheduled to last until the end of 2035 (technically eleven full years, but humor me). Over the course of the next ten years (OK, eleven) a combination of publications, presentations and products will be made available to the public, designed to benefit brain health and humanity.
All of us are biased by our own experiences and the news we receive from others. News can be either information or misinformation depending on the accuracy and relevance to our own life journeys. As we expand the breadth and depth of our experiences and the news we receive, the better we can distinguish news that is accurate and relevant and the better we can transform our biases into wisdom. Unfortunately, the Enlightenment of western civilization created tinted glasses for American society that retains biases harmful to both brain health and humanity. Over the next ten years (OK, eleven) the Unenlightened Wisdom Project aims to remove these tinted glasses from our vision.
Both publications and presentations will inform and inspire others on themes ranging from brain health early on to true democracy as we head towards the year 2035. The project as a whole serves the same functions as the American Discovery Symphony. The publications will keep my mind engaged, while presentations will keep me socially engaged.
Should I no longer be a caregiver before 2035 I am committed to continue with the Unenlightened Wisdom Project until completion. You could consider this as my life’s work, as in the culmination of my in depth experiences as a long term caregiver, long distance journeyer, multidisciplinary STEM academic and multilevel educator. By the end of this project I will have turned eighty, a good time to just maximize the enjoyment of my own life.
For the followers of this website the year 2025 will feature “Top Five” lists, as in the top five blog posts for different themes such as “Bittersweet Moments” or “The Pedicab Years.” I will post excerpts from the writings of the Unenlightened Wisdom Project relevant to brain health and living well. I might also add further glimpses into my life as a caregiver, living in the same house and village where I was raised.
Over the next ten years I hope I can perform and/or present to expanding audiences at venues farther afield, but for 2025 I will start with local home gigs. Interested in discovering America? Brain health? Home caregiver wisdom? Do you live within a 50 mile radius? (I can go further if I find the coverage). Please leave a comment if you would like to invite me into your home for engaging with your circle of friends on the topic of your choosing. I ask only for free food (maybe even leftovers!) and to have a “hat” out for voluntary donations. The purpose of the donations will be to sweeten the pot for PCAs to come in and provide coverage during my home gigs.
I created a separate website called Unenlightened Wisdom Project to keep people informed over the next ten years. I am working on a third website where purchases of content and bookings for presentations can be made. This comes at a time when my current web host is merging with another, which means the first task for both the project and the sites will be to migrate them to the new host. The next posts for either site will come after the migration is completed.
Along with the migration I will work out a way to finally reward subscribers with additional content. For example, the “White Paper” for the Unenlightened Wisdom Project will be sent. Please subscribe as well to the Unenlightened Wisdom Project website (though best to wait until after the migration) and help me expand my outreach to people with content to benefit both brain health and humanity.
Please like, share and/or subscribe to further the outreach for brain health and home caregivers.
As a young man I seldom shed a tear over anything, certainly not over sad events. My problem solving instincts kicked in and I would be too preoccupied with analyzing how to make the best out of sad events than to shed tears, instincts that continue to serve me well as a caregiver. I did manage to shed an occasional tear over the most joyful events, weddings in particular. An occasional inspirational movie had the same effect.
With the Christmas season upon us, Cindy and I watch Christmas movies almost daily during meal time (ah, the advantages of pause and play streaming). As an, ahem, “mature” caregiver, I find myself shedding tears over trite Christmas themes that never would have tapped into such emotions when I was younger. Conventional wisdom suggests this is an uncontrolled consequence of aging. I do not dispute that, though I suspect the wisdom of aging contributes to being sappy. My role and research as a caregiver contributes further to this wisdom.
There are a handful of common Christmas themes. Saving Christmas or Santa Claus does not bring out the sap in me. Neither does thwarting international terrorism on Christmas (OK, so only Die Hard employs that theme). I may or may not find sappy the romantic kiss that finally happens on Christmas Eve while snow suddenly and magically starts to fall, even in southern California!
The theme most likely to make me emotional is the one in which a person is forced to reexamine their life at Christmas time, a la Christmas Carol. A person considered successful by civilized standards catches a glimpse of what life would be with humane or loving priorities. They have a revelation and choose the path of humanity and love.
Never does this theme work in reverse. Neither for Christmas nor at any other time does a movie tell the conversion of a formerly humane and loving person catching a glimpse of being rich and powerful. Christmas movies can get away with all types of fantasies, but suggesting that deep down inside our nature prefers to be successful over love and belonging is just too unbelievable for people to swallow.
If you have followed this blog for awhile you know there is a physiological reason for why the Scrooge conversion does not work in reverse; the same reason why certain behaviors enhance brain health. This accounts for the “deep down inside” feeling. Being civilized bombards us with messages that our priorities should be on material and/or individual success, preventing for some the experiences of joy, belonging and altruism making us euphoric. Yet our brain cells still know “deep down inside” what our conscious neglects. We still can distinguish between the believable and unbelievable at a subconscious level, a level where our true nature turns us into saps.
Younger adults may think sappy tears must be part of a cycle where the elderly return to a childlike, emotional innocence, but I have a different theory. As we grow older, more experienced and wiser (hopefully), we become more in touch with who we are. Part of that is acquiescing to what our body, conscious or even subconscious tells us, overcoming social norms that might not be in our best health interests. We make less effort at restraining joy at the level that sheds tears.
I go a step further. Knowing that euphoric joy enhances brain health, yet limited in my real life interactions with others now, I embrace vicarious opportunities such as Christmas movies for tearful joy to occur. I become sappier than I would be without this knowledge. I encourage younger adults who witness older folks like me getting sappy to loose the civilized restraints and follow suit for the sake of their own health.
‘Tis the season to be sappy. Then again, all seasons should be.
I omitted one strategy in the Elder Rest post. First, a little refresher about our sleeping arrangement. After Cindy’s first and worst seizure in March 2019 she was placed in hospice and moved to a hospital bed in what was our living room. I added a twin bed that became a separate couch by day, my bed pushed up next to Cindy’s at night. A physical division separated the hospital and twin beds, but that did not change our sleeping habits. We never spooned when we slept, since neither the physical positioning nor the extra heat was conducive to falling asleep.
Cindy continues to have seizures every few months. Changes to her diet and other strategies make the seizures much milder, but in addition to those she has mild spasms daily. For years I have given a low dose of lorazepam to Cindy before bedtime to prevent such spasms and allow both of us to sleep. There often comes a time in the morning when the mild spasms occur before I am ready to get up.
Occasionally, I reach across the divide to hold Cindy’s hand when her morning spasms occur, which serves to calm her after a few minutes. Recently I realized that they calm me as well. Holding her hand would not be effective for me when I first go to sleep, as the physical awkwardness likely would shorten my first sleep cycle. Yet sleep cycles shorten throughout the night, with falling back to sleep becoming tougher each time. Holding Cindy’s hand works well for the last, morning cycle and I sometimes hold her hand now even when she does not have spasms.
I believe there are two reasons why this hand holding intimacy works well for me. First, my intent is to calm Cindy, not me, which ironically makes it easier to calm my mind as well. Second, the neurotransmitters released during intimate touch benefit the brain, which could mean a naturally sedative effect as well.
Sleep cycles involve two main functions. The brain is still active even during the deep sleep phase, but that activity is geared towards detoxification. During the dream or REM phase the brain processes life experiences and rewires the synapses accordingly. Elders tend to sleep less at night, nap more during the day, but as long as these two functions still occur we get what we need. The main impediment to proper rest is a hyperactive mind at bedtime, with concern for getting enough rest contributing further to the hyperactivity. The best routine to overcome this problem starts way before bedtime.
Afternoon Before Bedtime (BB)
Exercise that is strenuous enough to produce the euphoric “runner’s high” releases neurotransmitters beneficial to the brain. People who exercise regularly tend to need less sleep, but that sleep is deeper. However, neither mentally nor physically strenuous activity should occur close to bedtime.
Four Hours BB
We aim to finish our last meal of the day at least four hours before bedtime. Three hours BB is recommended to start the overnight fast and shift away from glucose metabolism. As I mentioned in the previous entry, my last meal of the day has more fats and proteins in order to urinate less at night. Salt would have this same effect, but I limit salt intake for the sake of blood pressure.
One hour BB
This is when I end my “screen time” with all electronics. I put on calming instrumental music while I wrap up evening chores. When the chores are done I turn off the music and read a little to Cindy if there is time, otherwise I play my classical guitar right up until bedtime.
Bedtime
Bedtime is not when sleep starts, but rather when I climb under the sheets and read until I lose focus. I find the best reading material for this are cartoon anthologies such as “Calvin and Hobbes.” The problem with an engaging book is being too engaging, focusing the mind until the next chapter ends or beyond. Each cartoon in an anthology is only three or four panels of lighthearted fluff. When my mind drifts in the middle of one of these short entries I know I am ready to turn off the light.
After Bedtime
Only on rare occasions do I sleep through the night. Typically I wake up once to urinate and drift back to sleep. If this does not happen I engage in deep breathing. This usually gets me back to sleep before I reach a count of twenty, but even if I go way beyond that I am comforted with knowing I am calming and refreshing my mind as much as possible without deep sleep.
Though I have a naturally hyperactive mind, whether I am thinking about my caregiver situation or the plight of humanity, this routine works for me. If the tricks you have tried at bedtime are not working, go farther back in the day for a more comprehensive approach towards getting the rest your brain needs.
My friends in college tagged me with the nickname Hoover, not because I kept my dorm room meticulously clean, but rather because of how I sucked down food at the dining hall. For much of my adult life I told folks I adhere to a quantitarian diet, eating large quantities of food at meal time. My body tolerated such a diet because of extensive physical assertion. Now I see the sense in what I once scoffed at, senior citizen food portions and discounts.
My diet suits the elder phase of life for a person focused on brain health, blood pressure and staying physically active. The physiological and experiential differences between people means what one person eats might not be best for another. I am sharing my diet to provide general guidelines rather than specific meal plans.
What Not to Eat
A wide range of foods can satisfy our nutritional needs. I am more stringent about staying away from the foods most likely to erode my health. The big three that I avoid are high fructose corn syrup, trans saturated fats and processed foods.
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is both the most ubiquitous yet easily avoidable of the three. As a sugar substitute, one can find HFCS in foods such as bread, cereal, ice cream and soda. People turn to diet soda as an alternative, but artificial sweeteners have problems as well, plus diet soda does not effectively curb calories. Our bodies tell us to stop eating for one of two reasons: we have been fully nourished or our bellies are busting. Since diet soda possesses zero nutrients, losing calories means either drinking large quantities or eating nutrient packed food apart from the soda, which one should be doing anyways.
You can find justification for anything on the internet. Lately I see articles “debunking” the bad rep high fructose corn syrup gets as studies reveal little caloric difference from other sugars. That is not the point. Unlike other sweeteners, HFCS contains the inflammatory C-Reactive Protein (CRP). You avoid HFCS not to curb obesity, but conditions such as arthritis.
Inflammation also provides cause to stay away from processed and trans saturated foods. For my situation I am most concerned about impacts on brain health and arthritis, but there is a wide variety of illnesses caused by inflammation. Though my routine diet avoids these foods, they are not as easily avoided when eating out, which gets to my next guideline.
When to Eat
The 5:2, 14:10 and 16:8 fasts have been popularly recommended for losing weight. The 5:2 fast refers to days out of the week, as in eat for five days and fast for two. I do a variation of eating my routine diet for five days, then treating myself to something different once a week, which might spill into two days with leftovers. Some dietitians recommend letting loose once a week as a way of being better motivated to stick to an overall diet. That strategy always sounded good to me!
The 14:10 and 16:8 refer to fasting for either 14 or 16 straight hours overnight. You might try this for losing weight, but for the sake of brain health alone I usually fast for 12 hours overnight, with no food for three hours before bedtime. This allows enough time for the body to flush toxins from the glucose metabolism that fuels the brain. After burning through sugars our energy thirsty brains shift to ketones during the night.
For this reason I concentrate the sugars in my diet mainly at breakfast. I might eat birthday cake during the time of the celebration, but will partition out all sugary leftovers for my morning meals to kickstart the brain I starved from its preferred source of energy overnight. In contrast, I consume most proteins and fats during my last meal of the day. Carbohydrate metabolism releases water, fats and proteins bind with water, meaning I urinate less during the night with this strategy.
What to Eat
Once again, I am not here to tell you what to eat, but as we get older we have an increased need for antioxidants relative to other nutrients. Antioxidants curb inflammation. Chia seeds are the main antioxidant I use, which adds crunch without affecting the taste of any food. Chia seeds also absorb moisture, which helps fix the texture of any food prep that came out too runny.
For my routine diet I prepare big batches of what I call brain health soup and smoothie. The soup contains our daily nutrients from vegetables and chicken, along with savory spices good for brain health, namely black pepper, turmeric and ginger. I also sprinkle walnuts on top of the soup, similar to how people add croutons. The smoothie contains daily nutrients from fruits, including the powerful antioxidant provided by blueberries, along with cinnamon, kefir and flaxseed. Kefir is a probiotic that maintains a healthy gut.
A Special Note on Coffee
Caffeine enhances brain performance, but too much increases blood pressure and erodes brain health. After experimenting with different approaches, I have settled on drinking coffee four mornings a week, on the days when I have the most coverage and might accomplish the most things. The other three days I allow for a mini detox.
Those are the main guidelines for my elder diet. Next up: elder rest.
As we get older we shed layers of invincibility. We injure ourselves more easily while taking longer to recover. Getting healthy at a younger age was a goal that, once reached, we tend to let slip. This is especially true for dieters who have to resume dieting after cycles of losing weight. At a certain age we have to be wary about letting things slip, as we get closer to when we can no longer recover. Septuagenarians approach that age when we must pursue health strategies that are more about a permanent lifestyle than reaching a goal.
Variety is the spice of life and is one of the key ingredients for maintaining a permanent lifestyle of exercise. In my case the variety of the four New England seasons correspond with four exercise seasons as well. By the time one season and exercise regimen concludes I am ready for the next one.
During the spring months of late March through May I am able to jog with Cindy in the adult stroller for 5-8 miles. From June into early August the deerflies become brutal the further we stray from the village center. I park Cindy at Robertson Plaza as I “run” stair repetitions, or at the village green as I “run” intervals around the perimeter, or at Yale’s summer school campus where I can run either hill reps or intervals without deerflies spoiling my exercise. From late August into early November I return to jogging with Cindy for 7-10 miles, while periodically alternating distance workouts with hill reps or intervals. From mid November to mid March I am unable to go out with Cindy and I either do a stair workout inside the house, or go for a trail jog when coverage is available.
In the past I mentioned how superb the stair workout is for maintaining fitness, while also being the most tedious. I doubt I could do my inside stair workout for a whole year, but because of my changing exercise seasons I do not have to. For that matter, I would even find my favorite exercise during fall season to be tedious if that was my routine year round. I actually look forward to my winter exercise regimen by the time that happens.
Efficiency becomes another important consideration as our remaining life expectancy shortens and what septuagenarians do with our time becomes more precious. This is doubly the case when, as a caregiver, I spend four plus hours each day just with meal time and the efficiency of an exercise frees up more time for other endeavors. This contributes to why I actually look forward to running up and down stairs in the winter. During these months I have a little more time for other projects that keep me sane.
One ingredient for an exercise becoming efficient is providing short bursts of anaerobic activity. This amounts to exercising vigorously enough to be gasping for air. I also include strength training in the form of sit ups and pushups with my efficiency exercise. Strength training provides brain health benefits, in particular the release of brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), a neurotransmitter that facilitates and maintains neuroplasticity.
In regards to this and other health matters I advocate you follow the principle and not my actual practice. You can do anaerobic workouts in more varied and enticing ways than sit ups, pushups and stair reps. At a gym you can use rowing, cycling, elliptical or treadmill machines, as long as you intersperse anaerobic bursts. Most gyms also provide a variety of options for strength training.
Sustained aerobic exercise provides the most important benefit of mindfulness, similar to yoga or meditation. With aerobic exercise you are not gasping for air, though you should be exerting yourself at least to the extent that you would not be able to belt out a whole song. As we progressively age the more difficult efficient exercise becomes, as well as varied exercise, but mindfulness exercise may continue.
A leisurely stroll in the woods also calms the mind and benefits the brain, even though the blood flow benefits are not as great. There may come a time when that is all an elderly or disabled person can do … or less. Cindy is not a septuagenarian yet has not been able to stroll on her own for years. Her continued will to live results in part from still getting out in the calm of our scenically pastoral town even without the benefit of exercise.
Variety, efficiency and above all mindfulness are my keys to a permanent lifestyle of exercise to maintain brain health and longevity.
Three sequential events happened so far in 2024 that affects my motivation to stay healthy as I approach seventy years on the planet. In January I weighed the heaviest of my life and retained that weight throughout the winter and into spring. As the year progressed I felt discomfort in my right hip that may be a touch of arthritis, aggravated by being overweight. Then less than two weeks ago the frame on the adult stroller snapped. My main form of exercise during the summer has been on hold since.
These events reveal how my motivation to stay healthy shifted as I face becoming a septuagenarian. Thriving as a caregiver in the present still motivates me, but the threat of impending arthritis concerns me about possible journeys in the future. Ten years ago I last slept out under the stars; I have not gone so long without sleeping outside since before I became a Boy Scout. Even if I never have the opportunity to go on a long distance journey again, I do not want arthritis to be the cause. That means losing weight in the present to avoid the progression of arthritis in the future.
My blood pressure monitor helped motivate me to stay fit in the past. My stressful situation combined with whitecoat syndrome sometimes caused my blood pressure to spike and get rejected as a blood donor. The daily feedback from the monitor motivated me to lower my blood pressure through lifestyle choices such as exercise, which coincidentally kept my weight down as well. Yet this past year my blood pressure stayed relative low despite the weight gain. I continue to go for 5-10 mile jogs with Cindy in the adult stroller, though I now suspect that with my extra blubber what I fancy to be a jog may look like a crawl to an observer.
Evidently, the blood pressure monitor no longer provides enough motivation to control my weight and thwart arthritis. Now I monitor myself with what most people do for losing weight, a scale. I had gone from 20% overweight down to 10% when the stroller broke. After immediately gaining a few pounds back (why is it so much quicker to gain weight than lose it?), I have found other ways to exercise until I repair the stroller, with my scale continuing to be a constant motivator.
I usually focus on the lifestyle factors of being social, positive and active for maintaining brain health. I do this because of their primary importance for living well despite media providing more information about the value of exercise, diet and rest. Yet I find my established routine for lifestyle factors such as being social easy to maintain; diet and exercise proves to be the greater challenge for me.
My next few entries will share the perspective and insights of a long term, septuagenarian caregiver who is motivated to maintain healthy diet, exercise and rest.
I gradually adjusted to Cindy’s condition, much like a swimmer slowly wading into cool waters rather than plunging in. For those that do not see Cindy on a daily basis their adjustment was more like a plunge, sometimes with a similar shock. Our kids were shocked to varying degrees from the “plunge,” as were our extended families of siblings. Less shocked were the circle of friends who came to help out as companions for Cindy, the self-awareness that they would not be shocked probably accounted for their willingness to volunteer in the first place.
Then there are our visiting granddaughters, ages two (Marabelle) and four (Lyla). They are not shocked at all, since they did not know their Grandma to be any other way. Lyla and Marabelle play around their grandma without any discomfort and are conscientious about giving her a kiss on the cheek goodbye when they leave. Lately in this warmer weather we all go out to explore the village center, with Lyla eager to help push Grandma in the stroller.
When we walked across the country Cindy frequently mentioned she looked forward to having grandchildren. At times that would tug at my heart because I did not know if her wish would come true. When our grandchildren first arrived during her hospice years I still lamented that she could not fully enjoy what she had wanted so much. I also lament that our granddaughters cannot receive Cindy’s full warmth and vibrancy. I fear I am lacking as a substitute.
Yet there is still much to be cherished in this situation. Action speaks louder than words. Nothing I could say to my grandchildren would demonstrate the value of love and responsibility to others as effectively as being Cindy’s caregiver. Nothing could prepare them for treating the less fortunate with compassion better than being part of her care as well. Obviously I wish Cindy never had dementia, but seeing our granddaughters handle this situation better than most adults comforts me during this trying time.
Like many others in this information era I use a tablet for a wide variety of tasks. The one tablet/smartphone tailored task for which I stubbornly rely on pen, paper and clipboards are making lists. In a long ago post I revealed my penchant for all kinds of lists on clipboards. The one most important for reducing mess in my life, and hence stress, is the monthly to do list.
Just before the start of a new month I list the tasks I want to accomplish in a left hand column. I might add new tasks to the list as the month progresses while crossing off the ones achieved. I put an X mark by a task that is no longer feasible for that month. In a right hand column I make smaller lists for ongoing tasks that I know will take months. One to be covered in more detail soon is my Unenlightened Wisdom project.
Jotting down tasks unclutters my mind, freeing up space for more focused endeavors. Uncluttering the mind is yet another strategy for preserving brain health. I continue with the old fashioned way of pen and paper because there is something more gratifying, more mess reducing and stress releasing, in the physical act of crossing out a line item on the list.
UPDATE: My previous entry revealed my help wanted call for more coverage. It appears now for July and beyond I will have reliable Tuesday and Thursday morning coverage. Yay! I am still looking for a housemate or some other means to present at conferences, perform for community gigs or long weekend respites. All brainstorming ideas welcome!
