I am thrilled and excited to share this post by Rebecca Budd of Tea Toast & Trivia. Rebecca interviewed me a little while ago and I was delighted to come across the post she wrote with the podcast audio attached. I hope you will listen.
Season 3 Episode 50: Debby Gies on Being an Eclectic Memoirist and Conversationalist
I am your host, Rebecca Budd, and I am looking forward to sharing this moment with you.
I am delighted that blogger and non-fiction writer, Debby Gies and I are connecting Toronto and Vancouver, Canada.
Debby is a Canadian author, writing under the pen name of D.G. Kaye. She writes about life, matters of the heart and women’s issues. Her intent is to inspire others by sharing her stories about events she has encountered, and the lessons that have come along with them.
Debby is an empathetic fashionista and shopper extraordinaire who loves to laugh. She is an eclectic memoirist and conversationalist who writes to empower by sharing slices of life. Her blog is a wide-ranging mix of randomness, where you will find anything from writing tips to tales from the past, to travel tips, book reviews, and author interviews.
I invite you to put the kettle on and add to this exciting conversation on Tea Toast & Trivia.
Thank you for joining Debby and me on Tea Toast & Trivia.
And a special thank you, Debby, for sharing your insights on living life in the now, with humour and expectation. You have inspired me, and I know that you have inspired readers and listeners to head into the unknown with courage and determination.
I invite you to meet up with Debby on her blog, D.G. Kaye Writer.com , on her Amazon Page and on Goodreads. It is a place that welcomes profound conversations that reminds us to Live, Love, Laugh and Breathe.
Until next time, dear friends, keep safe, keep reading and be well.
Realms of Relationships – Wrapping up the Year and Covid Lingering Effects
Welcome to my Realms of Relationships post finale for 2021. I hope you all have been enjoying my articles where I share some of own experiences about different types of relationships. Next year I’ll be back with my travel columns and later in the year I’ll be back with more relationship talk, and maybe even something new! Today I’m sharing this post here I originally wrote for my monthly column over at Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine.
In this edition, I want to talk about relationships that have been altered or have taken on new awakenings through the global pandemic we’ve all been living through for almost two years now.
Once all the lockdowns began, life as everyone knew it changed. Suddenly, moms and dads are working at home, trying to get their jobs done as they had to adapt to helping school their kids digitally – a feat in itself for the technically challenged.
How we’re affected by the ages:
Many couples forced to spend more time together during lockdown discovered they loved and missed going to work to get out of the house to avoid 24/7 with a partner, while some other relationships were strengthened in that time as many re-discovered, reconnected, and re-evaluated their relationships. Some friendships were strengthened, while some others were let go of as realizations and evaluations of our lives took place when we were restricted from seeing anyone. So many were affected from quarantine conditions from unemployment adding financial strains, dealing with sick and dying loved ones, disrupted homelife, home schooling and growing mental illnesses because of forced conditions having created havoc in so many people’s lives. Many statistics have been cited about the increase of divorce enquiries and proceedings. I also must make mention of the many stranded at home stuck in abusive relationships with no escape.
Young children are equally affected at differing crucial stages of their learning, as well as hampered social skills while not being able to play or interact in person with others. Many young children and toddlers missing crucial interacting at nursery schools and play dates spending two of their earliest years either missing social interaction – where they learn to socialize by playing and learning together with other children, while others too young to realize the way they are growing up in their earliest years at home isn’t situation normal.
Middle-grade and teenaged kids were desperately missing social interaction. As they craved their usual activities with friends at a time of exploration of the world at their curious ages, suddenly having their ‘regular’ lives ripped out from them stuck at home with family in their new constricted lives, have had to find ways to adapt. How many suicides do we even imagine have occurred because of the mental disruption of their lives?
The elderly have had to endure not only extra lonely times with aching hearts as their loved ones ached with the worry for them, but many of the elderly who rely on the help and visits from others were devastatingly left out in the cold. The long, lonely hours of being alone became so much more profound for both the sick and the agile – those that require daily visits for care, and those denied the ability for visitations from loved ones. Yes, digital apps helped to connect some and not others, became the backup for visual virtual visits, but there is no substitute for a real human visit where we can look into someone’s eyes and feel the love, a touch, a hug, and human physical compassion, and this missing of human interaction left a gaping hole in the hearts of too many.
The sick who couldn’t get proper medical attention and consequently dying before their time – like my husband, who died BECAUSE of the Covid epidemic halting regular doctor visits and no way to get into a hospital unless there was an evident and immediate emergency. Those that actually feared going to a hospital for serious ailments because they were afraid they’d catch the Covid inside the hospital. The undiagnosed cancers, deeming treatment too late – LIKE my husband. The strokes and heart attacks people died from because they refused to go to hospitals during Covid. The delayed testing for the so many with yet to have diagnosis that did and will ultimately end these people’s lives earlier than would have pre-pandemic. And the list goes on and on.
I know what I write of is merely touching on the tip of the icebergs as so many in the world have suffered losses – loss of lives, sickness, and financial draining. These devastations in all our lives in some way or another have become the rude awakenings for us, and worse for many more.
Realizations. This pandemic gave us all a time for reflection and reckoning, a look around, and insight as to who’s caring about us? I know I’ve certainly had startling revelations myself after losing my husband seven months ago and discovering that my own family (save for two) doesn’t have the time of day for me, as well as discovering that my husband’s family were just that – my husband’s family. This rude awakening for me just brought me back to Maya Angelou’s famous quote: “When people show you who they are, believe them.”
What I’ve learned during this pandemic: Keep your circles small and tight. It’s all about the quality of the people in our lives, not the quantity. And friends are the family we choose.
If anyone here would like to share some of your own awakenings and discoveries you’ve had through these trying times, please feel free to share.
Let us all pray for a better year globally, the sick to heal, the virus to die, and peace, love, and brotherhood to return to mankind.
Below are links to just a few articles on how the pandemic has wreaked havoc on many relationships:
Welcome to my September edition of Realms of Relationships at Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine that I contribute to monthly. There are many kinds of relatioships, but often, we forget about the one with ourselves.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – D. G. Kaye Explores the Realms of Relationships – September 2021 – The Relationship with Ourselves -Self-Care
Relationships with ourselves – Self-Care
Welcome to my Realms of Relationships column at Smorgasbord Blog Magazine. Today I want to talk about the most important relationship we can have, and that’s the one we have with ourselves. It’s often easy to overlook ourselves, especially when times are tense, fast, and frazzled with life’s daily grind. And if we have loved ones to care for on top of daily living, often, the last person being served is usually ourselves.
I’m a living testament of what self-neglect can leave behind as resulting damage. Often, we get so wrapped up in our lives and lose track of time – the time we let ourselves go. So yes, self-compassion and self-care are just as essential for us to live in good health – not just to survive.
Sometimes, some of the most nurturing people forget that taking care of others requires us to be in good health in order to care of someone else. But often in the middle of trauma, our focus often falls on the loved one we’re caring for – both young and old, without giving a second thought for our own well-being. I know this because I lived it.
Self- care encompasses the daily things we do for ourselves to keep our health in check – hygiene, eating properly, taking meds and required vitamins, and getting in exercise and enough sleep. Most importantly, any ailments we feel coming on should be dealt with as soon as possible once we notice things aren’t running as smoothly with our bodies, and not left to fester until such time we decide to stop pushing aside things a doctor needs to have a look at. And then there is emotional health.
If we are living through a stressful time, not just our physical health needs tending to, but, we need an outlet to relieve some of the mental angst that can sometimes translate to more physical ailments. Trust me, it’s not a myth, stress and worry have the ability to do great damage within us. Just like a health regimen followed daily creates cumulative benefits that add up daily, not following one will most certainly chip away at all the goodness we’ve already accrued through time as we continue to neglect ourselves.
Taking care of ourselves is vital for us to function optimally, but especially when someone else is relying on us to take care of them. When chaos or trauma strike, it shouldn’t mean that we abandon what’s important for us to remain in good health, but so often we’ll sacrifice what’s good for us and put others before us. Here’s what we need to know about taking care of ourselves:
Make sure to get enough sleep – not getting enough sleep can initiate other health problems.
Make mealtime a routine at least twice a day if you can’t manage three squares. If you eat a good breakfast it can sustain you through the day in case you do happen to miss out on lunch. But even more important to eat a healthy dinner, especially if we’re missing that lunch.
Don’t stop taking important vitamins and supplements, especially if you’re deficient in them. Not eating properly during stressful times, then not taking supplementation, doubles the drain on our bodies leaving us without efficient fuel or nutrients.
Take a timeout and go for a walk, read a chapter, listen to music – whatever you enjoy for a mental health break from high stressed life. If you’re caring for someone 24/7, arrange for someone to come by and give you a break for some down time and time to get household essentials looked after, and maybe even to eke out some personal time.
How I can attest to this advice? Because I became one of those self-neglecters.
During my husband’s illness when I was caring for him 24/7, the last thing on my mind was about what I needed. While my world was spiraling out of sense, I didn’t care about eating properly, sometimes not eating at all. I had no appetite. I’d sneak in a shower when my husband would sleep, or if one of his personal support workers were bathing him.
I was full of preliminary grief and anxiety, and I wasn’t hungry. . . Please continue reading at Sally’s Smorgasbord to learn the repercussions after we forget to take care of ourselves.
A quick hello as I surface from chaos and grieving status quo. I’m in the midst of packing, donating, and trying to sell stuff online that requires frequent attention – just what I don’t feel like doing. I’m moving in two weeks and trying to figure out the puzzle, deciding how to keep as much as will fit in the smaller unit, which isn’t really small, but compared to now, well, let’s just say it’s A LOT of stuff. I probably won’t have a Sunday review ready this week, but I’ll have a new edition of Writer’s Tips next week. In the meantime, I’m sharing Sally Cronin’s recent article in her new fabulous, Author Series, where she offers valuable PR tips on how to best present ourselves, from bios to pictures.
Smorgasbord Public Relations for Authors – Part Two – Author Biographies -Tips and Translations by Sally Cronin
The definition of Public Relations in business is“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between businesses and the public”
In the past my focus has been on book marketing, which did include how to reach potential readers with blogs, social media and as part of the writing community. Whilst this series will revisit those platforms along the way it is an opportunity to focus on some key areas of our public profiles that might influence the public to buy our books.
This week it is the turn of the biography that we put on selling sites such as Amazon, Bookbub and Goodreads.
Author Biography – Tips and Translations
With approximately 150 authors across the Cafe and Bookstore and the Children’s Reading Room, I am in Amazon and Goodreads daily checking for new releases and reviews to share in the updates. In the current series of Meet the Authors I am also updating biographies to include and I am afraid that I have had to update quite a few myself with new books, or the numbers of books that have been written.
My suggestions today are not carved in stone, and how you write your biography is entirely your decision. The one area that is key and seems to be echoed around the writing sites is the fact that a biography that is overlong will be overlooked.
The biography is your advertisement that combined with your photograph is going to grab the attention of the potential reader who has landed on your author page.
Last week I shared the fact that there are 20,000 new ebooks uploaded each week on Amazon that are in direct competition with your books. Provided you have listed your books with the genre or sub-genre, when searching for books a reader will be offered a selection to choose from. Hopefully that will land them on your book page or your Amazon Author Page.
Having got them there.. and smiled at them from your author photograph they will look at the first line of your biography and with any luck will decide to read the rest.
However, they are not going to stay their long! Which is why the recommended length of an author biography is under 1000 characters (Amazon recommendation) or 300 words.
The primary aim of your biography is to establish your credentials as a writer and to give a quick resume of your work with a dash of personality that makes them think they might enjoy your books.
It is recommended to write the biography in the third person. I have played around with both first and third person and I have just revamped mine with the latter. (I am still playing around with it)
Not all of us have degrees in literature or are award winning or USA Today Bestselling authors. However, those that do should lead with that.
Failing academic credentials, then get creative on how to hook a reader into trusting you know what you are doing. One of the ways to do that is use third party endorsement by using snippets from your reviews.
For example you could select one of your top reviews for a book and start your biography.
James Smith is a writer whose readers consider ‘is a master storyteller who brings characters alive’
Samantha Johnson’s first novel Desperate Authors received five star reviews ‘Johnson’s creative world building left me breathless’
If you have awards for other books mention you have several including two or three stand out commendations.
Following this, and if you have more than one book, it it a good idea mention your most current book with a brief synopsis.
It is not necessary to list the titles of all the books you have written within the biography as the covers are featured on the page. However, after the main biography you can add further information on series of books for example, so that the reader has a better idea of which book to begin with.
Many of the sample biographies of best-selling authors that I have read over the last couple of weeks have been written with a certain amount of humour which made them stand out.
It is a good idea to put the link to your website with a note – For more information about the author and their work etc.
Amazon new look Author Central
Amazon have made it easier for you to share your biography, not only on other sites but in other languages.
Potential readership around the world.
The other key element to think about is your visibility on an international platform such as Amazon which sells our books on 17 sites (maybe more as growing fast) with a reach of approximately 58 countries. This means that you need to make sure your biography is on as many sites as possible. . . Please continue reading at Sally’s blog.
I have been a storyteller most of my life (my mother called them fibs!). Poetry, song lyrics and short stories were left behind when work and life intruded, but that all changed in 1996.
My first book Size Matters was a health and weight loss book based on my own experiences of losing 70kilo. I have written another thirteen books since then on health and also fiction including three collections of short stories. My latest collection is Life is Like A Bowl of Cherries: Sometimes Bitter, Sometimes Sweet.
I am an Indie author and proud to be one. My greatest pleasure comes from those readers who enjoy my take on health, characters and twisted endings… and of course come back for more.
As a writer I know how important it is to have help in marketing books.. as important as my own promotion is, I believe it is important to support others. I offer a number of FREE promotional opportunities on my blog and linked to my social media. If you are an author who would like to be promoted to a new audience of dedicated readers, please contact me via my blog. All it will cost you is a few minutes of your time. Look forward to hearing from you.
A big shout out to Sally Cronin at the Smorgasbord Invitation (my second home), for keeping my online spirit alive during this difficult time for me. She has kindly been resharing my Relationship Columns I’ve written for my series at her Blog Magazie. Today I’m sharing the recent replay here of Forming Healthy Relationships, as I prepare to publish my next article in the next week or so.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – D. G. Kaye Explores the Realms of Relationships – Forming Healthy Relationships – Rewind – What’s Inside the Box?
As many of you already know that D.G. Kaye’s husband passed away on April 7th and our thoughts are with her during this sad time.
Debby is working on her next Realm of Relationship Columnbut rather than have the pressure of a deadline, we thought we might share the first posts of the series which began in January 2020 every Monday to bring new readers to the blog up to speed.
Forming Healthy Relationships – What’s Inside the Box?
Welcome back to this month’s edition of Realms of Relationships. In this segment, I’m delving into how we judge and are judged by others – First impressions and Body language and discovering what’s underneath the wrapping.
As humans, we are often judged by our outward appearances first. But if we never gave someone a chance to approach us to potentially form a friendship or relationship just because we couldn’t see beyond appearance, our circles would be pretty limited.
People come wrapped in all assortments. Who and what we attract or gravitate to stems from the vibe we give off – this vibe consists of a combination of traits we emit with our words, body language, and our physical appearance. All these elements comprised will help to determine who chooses to approach us.
Our demeanors and physical appearance send signals to others leading them to form a perception of what we’re all about. But without learning what’s on the inside, and perhaps what’s perceived as a first impression, we may not always adequately represent who we really are. Depending on how we choose to present ourselves on a given day, we’ll undoubtedly be judged by our actions as first impressions, so it’s a good idea not to misrepresent ourselves. Sadly, society does label people based on appearance, and as much as appearances do play a part in determining who we approach and how we’re accepted, appearance alone is not a great indicator of what’s inside our box.
Now we all know the old saying – don’t judge a book by its cover, but sadly, it’s human nature that people are judged by their covers. Yes, it’s unfair, but there are shallow thinking people among us. And pity for those who judge because they may just be missing out on opportunity for a satisfying relationship or friendship because they couldn’t see beyond difference.
What do we want most from a relationship? Acceptance, love compassion, trust, understanding, communication and reciprocation. These are the most important qualities a relationship should offer, and the qualities that will sustain a solid relationship. These aren’t qualities you can necessarily decipher based on looking at an individual. Yes, it’s easy to make judgement, but until we learn about what’s behind the cover, we aren’t able to make a complete assessment.
We are hard-wired for judgement. We all have our own version of what’s acceptable to us and peeves we hold in our mental lists of what we seek out of a relationship. But maybe we need to look beyond those physical peeves and explore personality and values.
I found this in my archives, not even sure I reblogged it? But It’s always interesting to look back on plans, then a year later, look where things went – south? Looking at plans, did they come to fruition? And then of course, the dreaded burnout. And then eagle-eye Sally Cronin found it in my archives and shared it at her Smorgasbord Blogs from the Archives Series.
Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives -2020- Pot Luck – #WritingHabits by D.G. Kaye
Welcome to the current series of Posts from Your Archives… and I will be picking two posts from the blogs of those participating from the first six months of 2020. If you don’t mind me rifling through your archives… just let me know in the comments or you can find out the full scope: Posts from Your Archives – Pot Luck – 2020
This is the first post by D.G. Kaye, Debby Gies and she shares her observations about her writing habits and how the have changed over the course of her previous six books. I am sure something we can all relate to. This was first posted in January 2020 and just before Debby took a book break.
Change in Writing Habits, Book Break the New Book
Today I’m talking about how I notice some of my writing habits have changed through the years. When I wrote my first 6 books, I was disciplined differently. I did my writing first thing in the morning right after breakfast – or the day would surely distract me. But as the order of life sometimes changes, so has my writing.
I could write a rough draft in 2-3 months of writing 5 days a week with anywhere from 100 to 2000 words in a session, depending on the inspiration – sometimes the well is empty. After writing time, I’d move to the computer. Writing all my drafts in longhand comes in handy when wanting to stay off the computer to avoid distraction. After checking out blog comments, posts and social media, and although writing for the day was done, I then spent time in between the daily grind of life, reading articles on learning the trade of self- publishing and homing in on the craft of writing.
It’s now well over a year since I put out a new book. Oh sure, I was working on one, but somehow my enthusiasm wasn’t there, and I stopped enjoying the writing. Then life happened – a lot, then came winter vacation escape, and finally, I realized that I just needed a year off from the disciplined mandate of writing a book.
In that time of not writing a book I was still writing. I write 2 monthly columns, blog articles, book reviews, run guest interviews and have been featured as a guest myself on many blogs, and have even ventured into writing poetry more seriously. There’s no shortage of writing in my life, I just wasn’t feeling inspired to write another book without a timeout from the burnout of publishing 6 books in 5 years. Each of those books took up a good 6-8 months of my life, and I realized how swiftly life is passing by, and decided I need to be living a bit more before committing to a new project. So, I learned to accept my welcomed book writing break and learned it was okay to not be writing a book for a while. The only pressure I had was self-imposed, so I finally admitted I don’t have to write a book every day for the rest of my life, and if I’ve lost the interest for a particular project, it’s okay to abandon it. Now that doesn’t mean that all the work I’d put in would go to the delete bin. All it meant that the started manuscript would live in rest in a folder until such time I may get inspired to go back to it.
In that time away from book writing, without the rules of my self-imposed discipline hanging over me, instructing myself to write first thing in the morning, I didn’t always only write in the morning anymore. And I noticed I was developing new writing habits – writing spontaneously as compared to writing by schedule.
In my old writing habits, if the morning had passed and I was into my daily activities, I was done writing till the next morning. If an idea sprouted to mind, I’d simply jot down a sentence with the idea in a notebook to keep for fodder for a future a topic to write about. But now, throughout this past year plus that I haven’t put out a new book, I have found that random ideas have taken up more of my immediate attention—going with the inspiration when it hits. Instead of just making a notation, which would have certainly had a different interpretation than the one I originally had in mind from the magic of the moment, instead of just jotting the thought down and left to meld into the many other fleeting ideas, I’ll immediately pick up a notebook and write what comes to mind about that topic, while it’s fresh in my mind, dropping whatever I’m doing in that moment to take advantage of the moment. Please head over to Sally’s to continue reading.
*Note, I think I originally wrote this post in early 2020. Intentions were good, but 2020 happened big time in my life, and still continues. The book was finished and self-edited then left aside again. As soon as I get some semblance of a publishing mojo, the book will be released. Stay tuned!
Welcome to the first edition for 2021 of my monthly column – Realms of Relationship I write for Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine. In this Part 1 of 2, I’m discussing the importance of vetting online communications – emails, social media, etc – for scammers and trolls. In part 2 this month, I’ll be delving further into what you need to know when it comes to vetting potential online relationships of the heart.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – D. G. Kaye Explores the Realms of Relationships – January 2021 – Online Connections–Vetting on the Internet, Email and Social Media for Scammers and Trolls
Happy New Year and welcome back to a new year of Realms of Relationships. This is my corner at Smorgasbord Blog Magazine where Sally generously, gives me a featured spot here to share some nuggets of experience on various aspects of communication and relationships we encounter and form through life, where I talk about how I analyze and deal with same issues.
Much of the world has at least somewhat of a digital existence since the advent of the internet became an appendage part of our lives these past few decades. Internet has become a whole new entity of itself and some who aren’t so internet savvy have to be extra diligent about who they allow into their circles – even more so – into their lives, digitally.
Now, we all know the many pros about living digitally, but do we know how to recognize the cons?
Social media, email and online dating apps can become threatening when allowing or inviting the wrong type of people into our circles. It’s essential we verify who we are speaking with on the other side of the internet before we allow them into our business.
On the pro side, social media and group apps are a good thing to keep us engaged, and a good means to interact with our peers and family. We can Zoom with friends, family, and for meetings, which of course has been a lifeline for many during this Coronavirus time.
We can instant message our friends and family through apps and texts. And we can make connections with like-minded people globally. And of course, there are numerous apps online for dating. But I caution to be diligent on those apps, and I’ll get to that next issue.
On the con side, in order to make healthy and honest connections in this era of trolls and scammers, we should all be doing our due diligence verifying the people we allow in our circles, making sure they are authentic. Before we make new bonds or meet up with people we’ve met on apps, it’s essential that we do a little background checking. Just as it’s equally important to verify the true source of an email before allowing ourselves to be scammed. And these topics are what I’m going to cover here today.
***
Let’s begin with scam emails and how to detect them – what we need to look for when siphoning out a suspicious email. For example, I’ll share about some usual scammy emails I have personally received over time – scam emails from my bank, my government, Amazon, and Paypal and how I deal with them.
In the past few weeks alone, I’ve been inundated with emails from Amazon, informing me that my account is under investigation and has been closed due to suspicious activity, or requires my attention. The messages all ‘conveniently’ offer me a link so I can log in to my account and check what the ensuing problem is. DON’T! Do not click on that link! In fact, when you receive any kind of such emails NEVER EVER click on the supplied link in the email to sign into your account to investigate. NEVER! This is how the hackers get into your account, you are opening the door for them. Their intent with these emails are , they are hoping you do exactly that, open it!
I’m beyond recognizing these scams because they are so frequent. I just auto delete and don’t even bother going over to Amazon to check anything because I know the ruse. But for those of you who get startled and alarmed by such scary information and feel the need to verify, just GO directly to Amazon URL and log in to your account DIRECTLY FROM AMAZON. You are going to the source direct. If there is any problem with your account, Amazon will be only too happy to leave a notification on your account.
How to recognize scam mail –a huge tell of a scammy email is to look directly within the URL address from the sender. Any reputable company sending email will have no extra gobbledygook attached to the sender name. When you receive email from Amazon it will say something like -“Amazon dot com@support or something of its ilk, but it WILL NOT HAVE any other tails attached to the URL, such as random letters and numbers or names – like this: –Please continue reading at Sally’s Smorgasbord.
My good friend and multi-talented author AND Nutritional Therapist, Sally Cronin, has a few new series and promotions going on at her Smorgasbord for 2021, so I wanted to share with everyone because she invites you all over and will even promote your books in her vast Smorgasbord Cafe and Bookstore!
In this reblog, Sally is setting the year off to a healthy start. Sally has been updating her book -Turning Back the Clock, and sharing some of her excellent articles on how to maintain good health through aging. AND, she is offering a FREE copy of her book, Size Matters, and all you have to do is email her your request! Have a look!
Smorgasbord Health Column – Turning Back the Clock 2021- Anti-Aging without the Botox by Sally Cronin
Background to the series.
Sixteen years ago I had a series on radio called Turning Back the Clock, which I presented in response to listeners in their 50’s and 60’s looking for rejuvenation and tips on staying young. Like me they were exasperated by the claims of the cosmetic industry that the various ingredients in their products could knock ten years off their age. I was asked to design a diet that would help reverse the signs of aging and this developed into a weekly challenge that was undertaken by nearly 100 listeners. The series became a book in 2010.
I try to practice what I preach! And certainly so far I have managed to maintain healthy key indicators such as blood pressure, blood sugar levels and cholesterol without medication, much to the surprise of my doctor!
In my opinion the answer to turning back the clock by several years is to consider and address a number of factors which include physical, emotional and mental age markers.
I wish that I could say that my internal key indicators were reflected in a wrinkle free face and perky underarms… However, recently when I mentioned my age to a cashier in the supermarket, she uttered the wondrous words ‘I don’t believe it’. I have to say that wearing a mask does have an upside.
There are some downsides to getting older however, and this is to do with our operating systems. Much like an older model of car, things begin to seize up, the petrol does not seem to be able to ignite quite so much power under the bonnet, and parts seem to need replacing much more often.
For example: The Digestive System as we get older.
We don’t taste foods in the same way, requiring more sugar and salt. Certainly fueling a rise in diabetes and certain other sugar related health issues.
Our appetites change, unless we continue to be very active. We eat less, reducing the amount of nutrients we consume.
Our systems are not as efficient, so the nutrients we do consume are not processed as effectively as they need to be.
We begin to suffer from nutritional deficiencies which lead to more age related health issues.
That is just one area that focusing attention may increase energy and improve common age related health issues.
During this series I am going to be looking at the physical, mental and emotional elements that contribute to the aging process.
We have all met people in their 30’s who already seem staid and middle aged and it has nothing to do with the wrinkles on their faces. A positive attitude to life is key if you are to beat the clock and how you interact with the rest of the human race will determine your real age.
Certainly our diet plays a part in the health and fitness of our bodies but it is also about our emotional health and how we feel about ourselves that can make all the difference when looking in the mirror. A smile can knock years off as people are deflected from any lines you might have around your eyes.
Why do we all want to stop the aging process?
It is not just about the way we look. Most of us will develop grey hair, expanding waistlines, wrinkles and a somewhat world weary appearance. Of course this is important but at the end of the day no-one is unique and everyone will face this process one day.
I don’t believe that we can stop the aging process, and unfortunately in this modern world, that aging process is accompanied in most cases with degenerative diseases of the body and the mind. Poor quality of life and a dependence on prescription drugs to get us through the last 10, 20 or even 30 years of our lives. However, I do believe that we can slow the process down and ensure that we are as pain free and as vital as possible to the very end.
Now that I am 68, I realise even more, that our age is not just about wrinkles on our faces but the way we approach life and others mentally and emotionally. I want the next twenty to thirty years (and more if I have a good quality of life!) to be fun, and full of new experiences and great people. I have often said that if I get to 100, I will take up some of the habits I gave up to get there!!! . . .
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