By Ian Chow, Certified Massage Therapist / Infant Massage Instructor / Oncology Massage Trainer
Length: 2.5 mins read (565 words)
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This is the second of my three parts article in terms of aging. If you miss out on the first one, no fret, just click here. And this is the final article. So, here goes, the fun facts about aging.
No.1 Study of aging is known as gerontology. Then, geriatric is an adjective relating to the care of aged people.
No.2 Women age much faster once they reach their 50s meanwhile for men, once they reach their 60s.
No.3 After 45 years old, male fertility will go down 5 times (which you should not make it as an excuse to be fooling around :P) Then, the average age of menopause for female is at 50 years old.
No.4 Aging doesn’t determine success. The founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Harland David Sanders (a.k.a. Colonel Sanders), started Kentucky Fried Chicken at the age of 65!
No.5 Breast is one of the organs that will age faster than the rest due to its high fat tissue content. (as women grow older, detecting lumps that could be cancerous may also be harder)
No.6 The amount of blood pumped by your heart decreases by almost 50% by the time you reach 90 years old. (Definitely much strenous to do vigorous activity but it shouldn’t be an excuse not to do light exercises still)
No.7 The average worldwide life expectancy for women is 74.2 years meanwhile for men is 69.8 years. (My fortune teller said I will die at the age of 63 years old due to heart attack. Hehehe. I am intend to prove him wrong.)
No.8 Massage shouldn’t be overdone (in its strength) for senior citizens due to the thinning of skin layer meanwhile facial massage is good to restore facial muscle memory.
No.9 We lose 10% muscle mass naturally every decade. And as we grow older, for every 1 day of strict bedrest, we may need to work out for the next 2 weeks to regain that muscle mass lost during the bedrest.
No.10 According to WHO, between 2000 and 2050, the proportion of the world’s population over 60 years will double from about 11% to 22%. The absolute number of people aged 60 years and over is expected to increase from 605 million to 2 billion over the same period.
No.11 We may lose control of our bladder or its muscle may weaken as we age. Kegel exercise is one of the routine exercise that one can easily do to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. (So, if you want to avoid wearing adult diaper in the near future, do try Kegel exercise)
No.12 Aging can be awesome too. Study shows that despite citing other health and money concerns, those 65 and older experience less stress. (Possibly this has to do with life experience….just like myself, I find it easier to maintain a calmer composure in my 40s compared to when I am in my 20s)
No.13 One reason why you may have to speak slower or repeat your sentence when speaking to older people is because of the effect of presbycusis which makes them have difficulty in hearing high-pitched sound which all our consonants are made of. They will hear mostly the vowel sound (a,e,i,o,u) like how Dory from Finding Nemo speaks whale. 🙂
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