Who Defines Our Cultural Attitudes?

If older people stay engaged with mainstream society, experience will become a valued commodity

Making Life Experience Count

The large cities where we live are meccas of people from all over the world, yet our cultural attitude towards ageing is still dictated by a 1950s Madison Avenue advertising culture that slowly removed people over 40 from its depiction of relevant consumers. And that is still where we sit. According to our billboards, online or print ads, videos and articles, we are all perpetually somewhere between 21 and 38.

Taking Back Mass Media

The only way for people over 40 to see ourselves addressed by our own culture, is to take back the street. Keep working. Do not go and stare at a sunset somewhere - unless it's on a holiday. If you're in marketing, stay engaged in your brands and change the copy and the design to reflect your own demographic somewhere in the market, as you get older. Stay engaged at your clubs, restaurants and open spaces until you become a visible force. The more people over 40 are reflected in the mass media and included as a demographic in marketing, the more the elderly will slowly be looked upon as a group to respect. Since we are a consumer culture, each segment has to stay engaged with the marketplace just to earn a psychological place within it.

Countering Ageism

Whereas Native Canadian, Asian and many other cultures celebrate the wisdom and intelligence of their elders, in the dominant North American culture our underlying tendency is to consider non-earning members of our society as irrelevant to the marketplace - and therefore irrelevant to us. The upshot of this is that boomers control a huge portion of current spending whether they are currently earning or not. According to Mass Mutual Financial Group, senior women age 50 and older control a net worth of $19 trillion and own more that three-fourths of the nation's financial wealth. You would never know this by the representation of senior women in either our mass media or targeted messaging in our brand-oriented culture. Perhaps the brands currently serving the over-40 consumer group are quietly enjoying the financial rewards somewhere on a beach... and keeping the secret to themselves.

Massage Therapy is a Great Way to Stay Healthy and Manage Stress

Be Proactive About Wellness & Stress Management

As the autumn gets underway and work and family stresses build up again, massage therapy can go a long way toward maintaining your wellness and helping manage your stress levels. Whether you are in pain or just want to relax, regular massage therapy can help you achieve greater wellness.

Along with mindful meditation and yoga, massage therapy is an effective way to improve blood flow and breathing, give you an increased sense of well-being, and increase your range of motion. 

In Canada, a Great Place to Get a Massage is LifeMark Health

A couple of weeks ago I had a very restorative experience at a LifeMark clinic on Bathurst Street in Toronto, which is right near my neighbourhood. LifeMark has around 100 locations across the country that offer different health and wellness services. Their experts work holistically in the areas of physiotherapy, massage therapy, cancer rehabilitation, dizziness and imbalance, and more. 

I hadn't had a massage in 8 months. While it was no surprise that my sedentary job with my right hand on a mouse all day was the culprit in the severe tightness of my rotator cuff muscles, it felt fantastic to have them worked on. I was told that these muscles are overworking to keep me in balance while I'm manipulating a computer mouse for seven or eight hours a day. (Why can't hardware companies invent a replacement for the mouse so that we can work without causing harm to our bodies, especially as we age?...).

Improving Your Immune System With Massage

Many people don't know that a massage also strengthens your immune system. According to Holistic Medical Massage:

Your immune system is affected by your emotional state—whether you are elated, angry, fatigued, or stressed. Stress actually decreases natural defenses resulting in less efficient and slower healing, and a greater susceptibility to infection.

So how does massage help your immune system? Massage therapy boosts immune system by stimulating “natural killer cells” Since therapeutic massage decreases cortisol that destroys natural killer cells, your immune system gets a boost. An increase in white blood cells and natural killer-cell activity better prepares the body to fight off possible invading cells. Massage even boosts immunity in those people with severely compromised immune system, such as breast-cancer patients.

Taking Time Out For Yourself

Individuals who have health insurance coverage through their employment can be entitled to up to 6 registered massage therapy sessions annually, depending on their plan and the price of the services. The idea is that you don't wait until you're super tense and stressed out to go - instead, you go for a massage every couple of months for proactive health maintenance, incorporating it into your routine just like you go for a regular haircut, work out, walk regularly, and take time out of your routine just for yourself.

Check out these articles to find out more about how massage therapy can help you:

Benefits of Massage Therapy

Types of Massage

Massage and Anti-Aging

Climbing Dubrovnik Steps For Health

Climbing the Steps of Dubrovnik: an Adventure in Health

Looking at Dubrovnik's Old Town and the Adriatic Sea from Dubrovnik Steps

For any traveler, climbing steps in Europe is an adventure in health as much as a beautiful, historical wonder to experience. Just like doing a step class at the gym, step-climbing on real stairs or steps uses up many more calories than walking, is good for your heart, and is a quick way to get your legs into great shape.

An article by the Huffington Post describes how someone lost 96 pounds by climbing six flights of stairs a day, and the Times of India reports that in addition to maximizing your cardio efforts, climbing steps increases your core muscle strength, tones and sculps your body, and provides a good low-impact workout.

Walking Up the Dubrovnik Steps

Walking down the Dubrovnik Steps from Villa Klaic is beautiful!

The Dubrovnik steps to Villa Klaic, 15 minutes on foot (walking straight up the steps) from the Old Town on the Adriatic Sea  are a case in point. The first time I climbed them a month ago, it felt like a lot longer than 15 minutes. I was so out of breath once I got to the top that I could hardly breathe, but afterwards I felt fantastic! The second time I finished the climb I was slightly less out of breath, and the next day my legs really hurt. But when I looked around at all of the other 40+ women in Dubrovnik, I noticed that they all have toned thighs and are slender. Who wouldn't be, climbing those steps all your life?

More Breathtaking Scenes Walking Down the Dubrovnik Steps

Beautiful doors line the walls of the Dubrovnik Steps

Pondering the beauty of Dubrovnik while walking down the steps was truly breathtaking too. People's homes, gardens and terraces are all encased by thick 6-foot or 7-foot high stone walls. It is these walls that provide the entry point to the homes, and many homeowners took special pride in installing gorgeous doors.

Gardens inside the walls of the Dubrovnik Steps

Peering inside homeowners' open gates was a marvel. Fruits I had never seen grow on trees before were everywhere - lemons, oranges, olives, and something that I thought might be pomegranates...

Climbing Steps Wherever You Are

A view of Dubrovnik's Old Town from a different set of steps

It's easy to get sidetracked by the beauty you can see by looking across whatever scene you see when you arrive at the top of some steps wherever you happen to be. But the most important part is to just climb them.  Livestrong has come up with an interesting way to calculate how many calories are burned by climbing steps:

Divide the number of calories you burn per mile by the number of steps it takes you to walk a mile. The result is a unique-to-you conversion factor you can use to calculate how many calories you burn from the number of steps you take as you walk. For example, the calculation would look like this for a person who burns 99.75 calories per mile and walks a mile in 2,200 steps:

Conversion factor = 99.75 calories per mile / 2,200 steps per mile = 0.045 calories per step

Venetian Vivaldi's Inner Order

Finding Inner Order: Revisiting Vivaldi Concerto Op. 3 No. 8 

Summer is often a time of clearing out the old, going through attics, clearing cottage relics, selling off contents of family estates, or just clearing out one's mind to find something new again.

Mining teen dreams that were packed away can inspire new projects as a baby boomer now

One of the best summer strategies in cleansing out what's old and renewing your energies with new inspiration is to return to what you loved before you reached adulthood. There lay hidden, unmined and often unrealized passions and dreams. If you touch back on something you experienced as a teen that was not quite of this world, you can probably absorb it now and make it work positively in your life. Since Vivaldi invented ritornello form where the theme keeps returning to the main line, returning to his music now seemed very understandable.

How Rediscovering Music That Touched Us Before Can Be Rewarding

Vivaldi's Double Violin Concerto in A Minor is Light and Bright with Soaring Phrases

That is what happened with me and Vivaldi's Double Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 3, No. 8 in the recording by David and Igor Oistrach. This recording informed several of my early teen years, rehearsing a ballet competition quartet at age 14, riding bikes and soaking blistered toes from pointe shoes, and watching our ballet choreographer translate Vivaldi's sustained phrasing into 8 outstretched arms reaching across the room horizontally in a perfectly-balanced continuum. How, as young dancers, we wove and intertwined like leaves with golden ribbons and bent torsos - then back to the continuum on which all things in life rest - not quite of this world. If wellness is about maximizing natural health within the framework that we've each got, what could be of more value to it than a perfect teen influence that had been folded into the recesses of the subconscious?

What Is It In Vivaldi That Is So Uplifting?

Embracing the Platonic classicism of baroque music enriched our ballet quartet then as much as it does now. What is it about Vivaldi that is so uplifting?

Well, Vivaldi was a priest and worked in theatre, for starters. He worked extensively with tonalities in all of the music he wrote for different instruments. According to James Leonard, Vivaldi transformed music of his time. "Preceded only by a set of Trio Sonatas in 1705 and a set of Violin Sonatas in 1709, Antonio Vivaldi's first published set of concertos, called "L'estro armonico," was the most influential and innovative collection of orchestral music of the first half of the eighteenth century. "L'estro armonico" (roughly, The Genius of Harmony) was published as his Op. 3 in Amsterdam in 1711 by Estienne Roger and quickly completely changed the form from the more weighty Roman model of  to the lighter Venetian model of Vivaldi."

There is something easy about building and sustaining wellness when Vivaldi speaks to the calm of self-knowledge. This recording of Vivaldi offers the clarity of an order that helps us to feel calmness and peace. Its soaring with perfectly balanced violin lines blending in harmony is not easily forgotten.

Eating From Your Own Garden Promotes Wellness

Home-Grown Peppers and Tomatoes Keep You Healthy

Eating food that you grow yourself promotes your health and well-being

One of the best ways to promote health is to eat fresh from your own garden. Eating your own garden produce not only keeps you well physically, it also grounds you and promotes emotional health. Whether you live in the country or the city, there is nothing quite like the smell of fresh tomatoes, peppers and chives ready to be picked. And one day when Google invents wearable noses that convey scents online, we will have the bonus of being able to share the special aromas of fresh chives, dill, tomatoes, basil and sage with each other.

Growing Your Urban Garden on a Condo Balcony

Waking up to the dawn of the city surrounded by lovely flowers is a good way to start the day

A balcony garden is a feat, a fight to survive against the car fumes wafting up from the urban thoroughfare below. The glorious petunias in various shades of pinks and purples welcome you each dawn, a separation from the waking city beyond. For optimal results, nurture your balcony garden with high-grade potting soil, water it when the sun is down, and if you have southern exposure water it more than once a day.

Starting an Indoor Garden in the Autumn

Adapting outdoor garden techniques to an indoor garden takes skill

 Every summer as we get into August, thoughts start again about how to preserve this unique beauty that is an urban balcony garden. Will it be possible to continue my flowers indoors? Will vegetables grow inside a home? Should I get something that resembles a small greenhouse? Will my cat be safe nibbling at the leaves, and will my produce be safe if my cat does what cats do?

According to Pikes Peak Area Garden Help, the best way to create an indoor garden is the following:

• choose plants that can live on little light
• choose plants that will survive dry conditions
• grow herbs such as sage, basil, marjoram, oregano, and thyme (in sunny areas)
• cut most plants regularly
• give plants ample drainage, lots of water, and lots of light
• vegetables need a minimum of 6 hours of sun each day to thrive
• tomatoes, peppers and eggplants can all grow in potting soil, which is lighter than garden soil or topsoil and won't become too compact
• lettuce can grow indoors all year round, from seed
• some house plants act as air purifiers, like English ivy or spider plants

We would love to hear about your field gardens, balcony gardens, urban gardens or deck gardens. Send us your pictures and we will share them on our next post!

Ageism in the Workplace

Over 45 and Struggling At Work? You're Not Alone

Ageism discrimination against mature workers exists within corporations, despite what we think

You can find anti-bullying, anti-smoking, anti-racist and anti-discrimination groups of all kinds online, but regardless of how hard you look you will find little information on age discrimination laws that are in effect across every province of Canada. According to a 2013 joint CARP-Ceridian study, “ageism discrimination against mature workers exists within the Canadian corporate culture, despite how far we like to think we have come.”

In the U.S. the Age Discrimination in Employment Act forbids employment discrimination against anyone at least 40 years of age, and in the EU a ban on age discrimination was introduced with varying consequences.

Age of the Worker Does Not Define Capability

There is no truth in the assumption that our flexibility, capability and knowledge is defined by our age. When I first studied Multimedia Computer Design Applications over age 35, I was concerned that my age would preclude my being able to achieve a successful career in multimedia, but I forged on anyway because I loved the creativity of the digital design field.

After working in digital design for six years in a medium sized city, I moved to a larger city and had to start at the bottom again. I had a design portfolio of decent print and web work that I showed to prospective employers, but initially I could only find work as an administrative assistant with some design responsibilities thrown in. People at the downtown consulting firm that first hired me made it clear that my boss had had an affair with my predecessor, and it was inferred in my hiring that they would be safer hiring someone my age.

Determined to refute any accusations that my worries about ageism appeared victim-like, I forged on with a positive attitude. However I did not experience much that was very different over the next decade even though I upgraded my digital design and marketing education and kept honing my skills. I studied web design and digital marketing management at both Ryerson University and the University of Toronto. After designing corporate engineering brochures that were promoted to all architects across town, I moved on to design the websites and brochures for an established window fashion firm, then a series of flash websites for a national property management firm, then handled all digital marketing for a reseller of barcode scanners, printers and industrial automation devices. I optimized hundreds of magazine articles for SEO for a publisher, project managed client interactive work, managed e-marketing campaigns in the corporate logowear industry, blogged, built social communities, managed organic and paid search campaigns for brands and sub-brands. In every normal sense, this would be called building one's career by performing good work and improving one's own expertise.

Ageism in the Workplace: A Builder of Personal Character?

By my late 40s I was a digital marketing manager with a strong digital design background, and I can definitely attest to the existence of ageism discrimination in the workplace, however subtle and difficult it is to either prove or change. Since everything has a positive side, ageism in the workplace has definitely been a builder of my personal character.

Most people my age do not change jobs or work on a contract basis, but I had established a solid marketing network and was convinced I could overcome the now-familiar biases. I was also a baby boomer operating in a field that I knew was created by and dominated by millennials, who I found refreshingly unconventional. But if age discrimination laws are in effect in Canada, why can't competent, experienced people over age 40 pursue careers of their choice in fields that they are passionate about and good at? There should be room for everyone to contribute in some meaningful capacity, and biases and prejudices should not rule.

It is clearly up to our corporate leaders to set the stage for people of any age to be able to pursue their careers in the corporate world and not experience ageism. Unfortunately, the field of digital marketing is one of the few fields of which corporate managers often declare their ignorance and then proceed to appear almost proud of the fact. There is no explanation for corporate management over age 45 who didn't grow up with "digital" showing such little intention of ever becoming acquainted with it. Digital marketing and digital media are, after all, primary tools used in the way the world works now and in the way their companies work. The result of ageing senior managers abdicating digital and glibly remaining in this comfort zone is that digital marketing is up for grabs or takeover by anyone, regardless of their knowledge or qualifications - as long as they are young. 

Ross Mayot, vice-president and general manager of CARP, a Toronto-based association that advocates for people age 45+, said “Mature professionals are often overlooked based on assumptions that they are too old to keep up with the times and may cost a company more in terms of benefits.” But those assumptions aren’t true, he said. “Employers need to realize that the age of the worker does not define capability, negate the willingness to learn or adapt, or automatically mean increased benefits costs,” he said.

For information on ageism discrimination against mature workers please see:

The Workplace Institute

Grey Matters

Top Employers for Canadians Over 40

CARP

Age-Discrimination Lawsuits
50 Is the New 65
Is Your Workplace Ageist?
Forced Out, Older Workers Are Fighting Back

Beet Greens Boost Health

Beet Greens – Don’t Throw Them Out!

As a life-long borscht maker, I only recently discovered the value of beet greens.

Beet greens are a good source of protein, folate, panthothenic acid, phosphorus and zinc

According to nutrition data, beet greens are very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol. They are also a good source of Protein, Folate, Pantothenic Acid, Phosphorus and Zinc, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Vitamin K, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Potassium, Copper and Manganese.

Livestrong says that beet greens boost the nutrients in any dish they're added to. Even though some nutrients, especially vitamin C, are lost when greens are cooked, when you compare a 1-cup serving of raw to cooked beet greens, you gain more nutrients from the cooked version.

We know how delicious borscht is, winter or summer. But to add that extra addition to your diet, make sure to steam your beet greens. Your body will thank you - and you will feel better!