Now that we’re at the turn of the century, it seems that everyone’s goal is to live at least a century.
About 62,000 people did just that last year. According to the World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999 edition, that’s a 68 percent increase from 1990.
How do they do it?
Maybe some folks have been reading their way to long-lasting health. A recent browse of the Internet yielded dozens of books on how to live to 100.
Wannabe centenarians will find titles such as “Elixir of Life: The Fountain of Youth Formula, How to Live Over 100 Years” and “How to Feel 20 Years Younger in 30 Days.”
Also out there on the bookshelves are books like “Longevity Strategy: How to Live to 100 Using the Brain-Body Connection” and “Living to be 100: Life Lessons from the Landmark Harvard Medical School Study.”
And another one that gets right to the point, with a little humor, is “Hello, Methuselah! Living to 100 & Beyond.”
It’s easy to see that people are living longer. It’s how people do it successfully that’s the question.
Here are a few books that offer tips to staying healthy, happy and energetic while looking forward to your 100th birthday.
“My book is different than all the others,” says Harriet Scott-Gauthier, a 15-year breast cancer survivor from Santa Clarita. Her book is titled “Smart Seniors Never Grow Old” (Goldcott Publishing).
“One of my readers said that she worked for years at a medical library in Washington, D.C., and she could not find the answers to her aging problems until she found my book,” says Scott-Gauthier, who, by the way, reports that she’s in good health, very energetic and still has her natural hair color at age 75.
Scott-Gauthier includes suggestions on both preventing the effects of aging, and reversing them, like how to return your hair to its natural color with massive doses of B vitamins.
“100 Ways to Live to 100” by Charles B. Inlander and Christine Kuehn Kelly (Walker & Co.) is a comprehensive manual for improving the overall health of the average American. This five-chapter book includes tips to increasing longevity, ranging from improving outlook to the role of vitamins and hormones, to choosing a good doctor.
Some of the keys to living longer include exercise, accident-proofing the home, mind-body techniques to maintain mental and physical wellness, and alleviating stress.
Inlander and Kelly also stress the importance of quality medical care, insurance coverage and dietary modes that boost immunity. They offer health-based advice, such as ways to reduce the odds of heart disease, and more personal pearls of wisdom, like owning a pet.
Inlander is president of the People’s Medical Society, a consumer-health advocacy organization based in Allentown, Pa., and Kelly is a freelance health writer from Havertown, Pa.
Learn how other people have found fulfillment in their retirement years through 31 lively interviews chronicled in “Adventures in Senior Living: Learning How to Make Retirement Meaningful and Enjoyable” by Lawrence J. Driskill (Haworth Press).
Retirees talk about the opportunities, needs, problems and challenges that retirement can bring. Instead of being bored, these retirees found quite the opposite by spending time on volunteer work, travel and community involvement.
Retirement is the time to tend that garden, finish that quilt, spend more time with loved ones or get on an exercise program.
Others concentrated on making a difference by recording books on tape for blind people, conducting missionary work, visiting patients in nursing homes and hospitals, teaching Sunday school and delivering meals to shut-ins.
In “Movin’ On: Living and Traveling Full Time in a Recreational Vehicle” by Ron and Barb Hofmeister (R&B Publications), the authors discuss their 11 years of full-time RVing. The book includes pictures, facts, financial information and anecdotes.
In one chapter, the couple tells a funny story about volunteering as campground hosts in Yosemite National Park in an area geared for tent camping.
An inexperienced camper came into the park in a motor home and was confused about the bear boxes, where tent campers to store their food safely away from hungry bears. She emptied out all the food from the cupboards in her motor home and wanted to know if she needed to also empty her refrigerator.
“We didn’t have the heart to tell her she didn’t need to do that,” said Barb, laughing.
The Hofmeisters’ home page on the Web, at www.movinon.net, greets visitors with a picture of their motor home and the message, “This is our house. Our back yard is the whole United States.” The site also shows the table of contents and excerpts from the book, which includes a list of phone numbers and addresses for RV service providers.