Secrets to Successful Aging

Brad Cooper

Welcome to this episode of the Catalyst Health and Wellness Coaching Podcast. My name is Brad Cooper, and I’ll be your host and today’s guest, you’re just going to love this one. I’m holding his book in my hand, it’s titled better with age, the psychology of successful aging. Our guests name is Alan Castel. He is a professor of cognitive psychology at UCLA interesting background. He’s 43 years old. He was born in Denmark, raised in Canada, and now obviously a full fledged, California. He has his PhD from the university of Toronto. He’s married and he describes this, I love this. He’s married to an incredible woman and has three wonderful children all under the age of 11. The oldest is 10 right now. Great stuff. Things that you can apply knowledge to your own life as you kind of go through the different phases. One of the things we talked through as well, what are you doing in your thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, to prepare to age well. So regardless of your age, regardless of the age of your clients, I think you’re really gonna really gonna take a deep dive into this one. Just a reminder, you can access additional resources at CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. If you’re interested in joining us for upcoming certification or the coaching retreat this fall, we’d love to have you contact us anytime the email is Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com, or if you’d just like to talk through this whole thing called wellness coaching, if you’re wondering how it fits into your career if you’re a clinician where, and you’re wondering, is this something I could do on the side? Anything like that? That’s what we do every day. So reach out, we’ll set up some time to chat and we’ll take it from there. But with that, let’s move on to the latest episode of the Catalyst Health and Wellness Coaching Podcast.

Brad Cooper

Dr. Castel, we’re very, very happy to have you with us. I read your book on the flight back to the some meetings they had out in the UK a couple of weeks ago, loved it. So many great insights. And we’ll obviously dive into a lot of those today. Can you share a little bit about your journey and how you got to this point in your career? The audience knows your background, just kind of some of the areas that got you focused in this and kind of the journey along the way.

Dr. Castel

Absolutely. Well, I’m a cognitive psychologist, so I’m, I’m very interested in how people think and how people remember and growing up, I had older grandparents and I noticed that they were very interesting. They told me stories that my parents didn’t share with me. So I got a lot of early exposure to aging, but I also noticed, you know, dementia and I noticed differences that they could remember prices and stories from 20 years ago, but, you know, maybe they walked a little bit slower, more forgetful. So I kind of fell into this field because I was interested in what happens to us as we get older and that’s kind of a continuous process. So just when we’re 60, 70, 80, but you know, myself and, you know, 43 aging is happening. And, um, some of these effects clearly are, you know, could be thought of as declines, but I think the better way to conceptualize it is change. We’re constantly changing and we’re adapting. So my research is really interested in how people adapt to these changes, how people’s attitudes might change either for the better or for the worse regarding aging.

Brad Cooper

Interesting. Interesting. And that was it really, if you think back and reflect a little bit, what is it really coming from that grandparent interaction or was it, that was the start, but then as you started moving into your forties, you started looking at, where am I heading? What do I want to do? What were there other things that kind of brought this to the point where you said I’ve got to write a book?

Dr. Castel

Well, I think when we’re young, we don’t think too much about aging or if we think about it, we think about it in negative ways, like how to avoid it, or, um, but I think I had some early exposure and then some of the research I started doing really showed that older adults, despite having some changes in memory were not struggling to the extent that some of the younger people were, who, you know, college students who are just memorizing lots of stuff, but didn’t have as much direction or wisdom in terms of like what’s important. And so I noticed some of the older adults seem to have a little more awareness of what’s important in life and what isn’t, you know, don’t sweat the small stuff sort of thing. And that’s almost the challenge we have when we’re younger is we worry a lot. We don’t know what’s important. We, you know, we’re distracted. So I really became caught by these changes that can happen. And I’ve noticed, you know, some older adults are really impressive role models for successful aging, but some aren’t as well. And some of it is certainly due to health, but a lot of it seems to have an attitude component. And so I became interested in when does that attitude come into play? And when is it formed? And I think it’s formed early in life and it can be formed based on our interactions with grandparents, older people in the community and role models. So we have role models in lots of domains, you know, whether it’s, you know, athletics, whether it’s in our job, but what’s our role model for aging? And that’s kind of where I got into this book where I interviewed many older adults, some of whom were, you know, public figures like John Glenn, Maya Angelou, John wooden, Jack Lalaine and ask them, you know, not just what are the secrets, but what do they do? And some of it was attitudinal. They really had a positive attitude and some things, you know, they couldn’t help themselves. Right. They couldn’t retire. So they also saw their, you know, their shortcomings or the challenges. So I really tried to present the big picture, about what it means to age well, not just focusing on kind of the genetic components.

Brad Cooper

Yeah. Surprises. What have you been surprised to discover in your research about healthy aging or unhealthy aging?

Dr. Castel

Yeah, well, I think that’s, that was one of jumping off points is that there are really some myths about aging and some people think old age is kind of dreary or full of depressive thoughts, but if you’re healthy and active, then that often isn’t the case at all, many older adults report, high levels of life satisfaction, they feel busy, feel active. They’re more confident about themselves, and they might have greater self-esteem and might be less self-conscious. And I think emotion regulation also changes. Um, and that was kind of, one of the big things is a lot of the older adults had a more balanced perspective. They could appreciate kind of both sides of an argument, even if they were politically one way or the other. And they were curious to learn or focused on the things that at least they found interesting. So I think while habits can be more pronounced and as we get older, often as we age, we’re interested, you know, especially for active, we’re interested in learning new things or even traveling. So I think lifelong learning is really a part of successful aging and we never stopped learning just because we’re not in school.

Brad Cooper

We’re essentially most of the audience is wellness coaches or thinking about going into health and wellness coaching. Could, could we break it down by decade, maybe starting with the thirties, thirties, forties, fifties, and maybe camp out for now, at sixties, and just talk about what can people be doing in each of those separate decades that will set themselves up to have theoretically if their health is reasonably good, more successful, seventies, eighties, nineties.

Dr. Castel

Yeah, that’s a good question. And I think breaking down my decades is good or kind of life events, because there’s clearly a time in our life where we’re committed to a partner, raising children, a job, and sometimes things fall off the map and sometimes that’s, you know, exercise diet. And so I think the thirties can be a very challenging time. Surprisingly, even though you’re physically might be in good shape, um, a lot of evidence shows that happiness kind of dips around early forties, which I think many people are surprised by. So I think being aware of those things that the thirties and forties can be challenging times. And even though maybe your health is still in relatively good health, um, your level of life satisfaction, you know, has to be kind of tempered because it can be a challenging time. You can try and set up some good habits, but you are also very distracted. So I think it, it might be that if you’re aware of this dip in happiness, you can embrace what happens to you. Then at 50, let’s say you’re 60 and realize that if you’re in good health and hopefully that’s something you’ve worked towards in your thirties and forties, you can enjoy this time. You know, either you’re at the peak of your career, or you’re thinking about retirement and thinking about what things you can do to stay active, because in the fifties, sixties, people start to think about retirement, but these days it’s often kind of a change in career. Um, and you know, we’re not retiring at 65 and then doing nothing because you could have 30 years afterwards. So some of that is planning, but it’s not just financial planning. It’s more, how am I going to stay active and upbeat? You know, what sorts of things kind of get me excited. And I think when we’re at a 30 or 40, we’re more focused on how do I stay healthy? How do I raise children? How do I, you know, how is my career going to blossom? But I think there’s some, you know, reassessment again at 50 as to what we’re going to do with the rest of our lives.

Brad Cooper

So did you see that as you were talking to folks or, or breaking this down, statistically, that those who were, for example, more physically active in their thirties and forties, they saw the payoff then in their seventies and eighties?

Dr. Castel

Well, I certainly interviewed people who reported that physical activity was something that was critical and it wasn’t just, um, you know, it’s interesting because a lot of times in talks, speaking of triathlons or marathons, that’s one way to motivate people, but it doesn’t have to be something that extreme. And in fact, the people who seem to do the best had fairly consistent goals for exercise, whether it was walking, swimming, biking, and, you know, getting on to another topic, being selective about these things happens as we age, you know, when we’re 30, 40, maybe we’re doing triathlons, maybe we’re focused on really endurance, you know, extreme exercise, but in our fifties or sixties, we might have knee problems or hip problems. And do we then say, well, I can’t exercise anymore, or I can’t do the things I enjoy, or do you shift into saying, well, I really enjoy walking or maybe I’ll do stationary bike, or maybe I’ll join a class where I can still have that group activity, but it’s not going to be the same extreme level of exercise. So a lot of the people I interviewed said, they couldn’t run as fast as they used to, or they traded walk, jogging for walking, or they started walking with a group instead of, you know, running. Um, and they still reported high levels of enjoyment even to the point that they kind of wished that they started this earlier so that they didn’t blow out a knee. Um, and so I think those goals really do change as we get older. And I’m not just talking about when we’re 60 or 70, even thirties or forties, because, you know, when we’re 20, we don’t really think about aging. We can do all these things there, but injuries start to crop up. And then how do we adapt to those things I think is really kind of important, especially around midlife.

Brad Cooper

Okay. So now we’ve got somebody in our, in their sixties and they’re looking back and going, you know, it’s too late for me to change what I did, in my 30s, forties, fifties, what could they be doing now, knowing that that 70 year old is just kind of looking over the corner at them?

Dr. Castel

Yeah. I think that’s kind of a shift and this is one thing that I review in the book called selective optimization with compensation. And that’s where you kind of reassess and saying, what are the things I enjoy and are the things I can do and how can I then incorporate that and maybe, you know, give up some of the other things. And ideally those things you’re giving up are things that you didn’t really enjoy, or you did because you had to, and, you know, in terms of exercise, you might even focus more on things you hadn’t thought of. Like one thing that’s very critical, especially around 60 is, um, balanced. In fact, one in three Americans will experience a fall after the age of 60. And we don’t really think about that. We think about, you know, exercise, but, um, staying on your feet is probably the most important thing to think about. So having good balance is really critical. So training balance can be really important even before 60, but that’s when you might experience this fall. So, um, balance training can be pretty simple. You don’t need to go to a yoga class. You can just, I do it actually, when I’m brushing my teeth in the morning, I stand on one leg for one minute and then switch legs. And clearly some days I’m better at it than others. And I know, you know, maybe I’m not feeling well, but it gives me some sort of insight as to one of the most basic functions, which is balance, staying on your feet. It’s, you know, the cerebellum, these are things that are so important in terms of being active is, is being able to, you know, avoid injuries and, uh, fall, you know, at 60, 70, 80, um, can really be kind of a cascade into murky waters because a fall means you’re less likely to be able to be physically active. We know being physically active is related to memory performance. Um, and so all of these things, you know, it sounds simple, but just being on your feet is, is a really important thing. Yeah.

Brad Cooper

Just being able to be on your feet. That’s an excellent point. You kind of led into my next question. Exercise is obviously a consistent theme throughout your entire book and for our listeners, that’s good news. Cause that’s a lot of times what they’re talking to their clients about. Uh, can you dive in a little bit more into those findings in the applications and implications of that?

Dr. Castel

Yeah. And you know, exercise is kind of a vague thing. You go to a doctor and they say, you should get more exercise, you know, like, okay, I’ve heard that so many times, but the research is really critical here because it’s hard to really know, do crossword puzzles help do eating blueberries help those research studies. It’s really hard to determine if the effect size is meaningful. Um, and I can talk more about that. But the one study or set of studies that is really convincing is studies on walking and walking is good for your body and your brain. And several studies have found that people who have walked, let’s say three times a week for 40 minutes, show an increase in the size of the hippocampus. And that’s a key part of the brain involved in memory. And this part of the brain typically declines after the age of 50 by about 1% every, every year. Um, and in the walking group in this study, they found after one year, a 2% increase in the size of the hippocampus, the volume. So literally your brain is growing and that’s related then to better memory performance. So this is a randomized controlled study where they had one group walking and one group stretching. And then they followed up with them at six months and one year. And the walking group showed that the increase in the hippocampus, but the stretching group did not. So there’s something about cardiovascular activity, getting more blood flow to the brain, cleaning out the brain. It probably leads to better sleep as well. And you know, and so all of these things are connected and that’s why I think walking or any form of physical exercise has a really big effect on mood, on memory, on balance. Whereas some of these other things, you know, like eating blueberries or, you know, something very specific is not going to have these big effects that, that can really change your life. And there’s something important of doing this, especially in midlife, I think, um, because you don’t just want to say, well, when you’re 60 or 70, that’s when I need to start walking, these are habits that you develop and some of the habits are, you know, walking because of where you live, but maybe it’s trying to hike with a friend and there, there can be a social component to it as well. So I think we need to be specific when we talk about what exercise means, especially from a coaching perspective, give people specific goals. Like I’m going to walk 40 minutes a day. I’m going to walk with my friends. These are the friends that I’m going to call. We’re going to go hiking on this trail. And that can lead to very good outcomes.

Brad Cooper

We may get into this later, but you just touched on another thing in your book about the connection piece, the critical nature of that connection. As you’re talking about exercise, you said, we’re going to do this. You call up people to do that. Can you, can you walk us down that path a little bit and then we can revisit it later?

Dr. Castel

I mean, we’re social creatures and, um, and we’re also, you know, connected and those connections can be important to prevent loneliness, but they can also be important to kind of satisfy goals and motivate people. So as we get older, we tend to kind of lose our social circle. When we’re young, we have lots of friends, we’re connected sometimes through Facebook, but as we age and move around the country or people pass away, there’s fewer people and those connections become more important. So you really need to focus on who you want to spend your time with, who is, you know, giving you, you know, making you feel good or challenging you. And, um, and that can lead to really good outcomes. If you have a friend who you can walk with, or a friend who checks up on you, like, you know, what are you doing tomorrow? Do you want to go and do this? Um, that can give you kind of some specific things to, to think about, um, which can really be important, especially as we age. And we know, um, loneliness is kind of, there’s some stigma associated with saying you’re lonely. So people might not talk about it. And it really makes it a silent issue. And, you know, family, friends, even pets can help, but often people need to have some regular interaction that makes them feel valued or understood. And, and sometimes that’s just being a regular at a coffee shop, library, volunteer group, but you know, an exercise class can be a great way to stay connected.

Brad Cooper

Excellent advice. One of the things that I don’t remember seeing in the book, but I’m curious about it. We’re essentially seeing the first generation of people that are doing endurance activities. So the walking, best thing you can possibly be doing, but we have a lot of people now that started running in say the seventies with the jogging revolution and the aerobics things that Ken Cooper brought in. Any thoughts on that? Or did you interview some of these folks that are involved in some of the, in endurance sports or, or even the shorter stuff? The masters tracks events, which are a 400 or a 3,200 or a 1500 or something. Any insights there, cause these folks seem to be throwing the, the former history of what it’s like to be an 80 year old. I think I saw a guy that was 90 ran a 90 second 400 the other day. Like that’s just amazing, 97% of the population can’t run a 90 second 400, this guy’s 90. So any insight?

Dr. Castel

Yeah. I mean, some of these stories are amazing and that’s kind of what motivated some of the interviews I did because people can do incredible things at any age. Um, however, I think, you know, to motivate a more general audience, you want to say, you should compete against your age group, not your younger self. And, um, you know, running’s a tough one because we know people tend to get slower as they age, but endurance can kind of peak later in life as well. So I think it’s a balance in terms of what motivates people. Um, I was certainly motivated by talking to Jack Lane who, you know, the guru. Um, but he, he said he, he, you know, was an extremist and it’s true, you know, he’s, you know, handcuffing himself and pulling rope, you know, boats across the Bay. And he said, he exercises, you know, eight times a week, but he said that that was for his ego. And, you know, the truth is, I think, you know, people do struggle with balance. And sometimes people, when they see those amazing endurance feats, they say, wow, well, I could never do that. So they don’t engage in these behaviors. Um, and so it’s not like you need to be running marathons at 70, 80, 90, but if you’re, if you’re getting activity, um, kind of that’s the key. And so you want to make sure people are motivated, but you also don’t want to turn people off things simply because they can’t compete at these high levels.

Brad Cooper

Good. That’s really good. All right. So cognitive decline is, is a huge focus of the book, obviously beyond physical activity. What would be some of those important suggestions to consider? I jotted some things down from your book, like, uh, learning an instrument or expanding into a new language, learning new language, or you mentioned brushing your teeth with balance, using the opposite hand to brush your teeth. I didn’t know if you do that while you’re balancing, or if you just do the balance and stay with the right hand, but any other things? Or if you want to expand on any of those?

Dr. Castel

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, the big one is walking and being active and beyond that, these other things can be good to challenge your brain, but they’re more specific. So, you know, brushing your teeth with your opposite hand can be challenging, but we don’t know if there’s big payoffs for those sorts of things. Having variety in your life can be a good thing. It challenges you, um, it makes you think about things differently and use your brain in ways that you might not normally use them. Some people report learning a language to be very challenging. And there’s some research showing that being bilingual can have benefits, but that doesn’t mean that’s the, you know, the trick or the only thing. And I think, um, the one thing is to not look for the one thing, because, you know, dementia is such a big kind of process that you really want to combat it with as many things as possible. And I think that’s kind of the, the big picture right now is we don’t know what causes it, but we know how to prevent it. And that prevention program really does consist of exercise, variety, connection. And those are, those are kind of the big three. If anything, it’s being physically active, being socially active and being cognitively active and the types of activities you do, you know, if you’re into birdwatching, great. But if you find that boring, that’s fine. If you love, if you love chess. And I think that’s the critical thing. A lot of people say, well, crossword puzzles. That’s what, that’s what you have to do. And there’s actually no good evidence that shows that crossword puzzles is the, you know, activity. In fact, if anything, you know, that might be something that gets better with age as your ability to, you know, work with the vocabulary. Sometimes we struggle with retrieving words, but our vocabulary tends to increase. So you might be strengthening a strength when you do those sorts of things and that can, you know, feel, feel good and feel, but if you don’t enjoy crossword puzzles and I, and I don’t, you, you might be better off organizing your closet or, you know, doing something that has some productive payoff. That’s still challenging.

Brad Cooper

One of the things I think you said this in the book, was this idea of struggling for that word. Well, part of that is you’ve got so many more words in your toolbox to pull from that it’s like me trying to look through my toolbox that has, you know, 10 tools and an 80 year old has 57 tools that was intriguing. That was an interesting perspective.

Dr. Castel

Yeah. And I think that analogy does hold that there’s just more stuff in your brain and it’s more distributed. So it’ll take you longer to find that one thing. But at the same time, you might be retrieving related things. And that’s why things like creativity can blossom with age, wisdom, you just have more that you can access. Now you might not access it as quickly. And as precisely as a younger person who might remember, Oh yeah, that guy’s name is Paul, but you’ll remember things like, Oh, that person’s trustworthy or I’ve worked with this person before. So you might be retrieving more general things that are actually more valuable as opposed to kind of more precise things. And that’s another thing that sometimes we just need to be a little more patient as we get older, like, Oh, that will come to me. Or I can’t remember it now, but I’ll get it later. And the truth is, it’s very rare that we need to remember something specifically instantaneously. And especially these days with Google and Wikipedia, you can always look something up. So, so I think, you know, being, being savvy, knowing how your memory works, which we call metacognition might actually improve with age, that you’re more aware of, you know, your memory strengths, but also the shortcomings of how memory works. And that might make you kind of a better user of your, your information. Whereas a younger person is just accustomed to being able to learn and remember quickly, and there might be costs to that.

Brad Cooper

Great advice. I love that quote, you said a minute ago, the one thing is to not look for the one thing that that’s, that’s going to be my, my takeaway. So you, you address a whole bunch of myths in your book, which that was a fun part of the read everything from red wine to dark chocolate, the brain games and crosswords puzzles that you already mentioned here. Can you share a little bit more about those and maybe some others that you’ve taken a deeper dive into and what they mean for our audience?

Dr. Castel

Yeah, well, I, you know, there are some myths out there and it’s not that these are myths and they’re completely wrong. It’s just that the science doesn’t really support them yet or might not. But people seem to like really grasp the crossword puzzle one because it makes sense to them, like you’re using your brain and that’s, but doing more crossword puzzles, doesn’t translate to then better memory for, you know, where you parked your car, where you put your keys. And it’s the same with a lot of the computer-based brain training. It’s very sophisticated. It’s very compelling. And, you know, we could spend hours doing it and we feel like we’re getting better. And the truth is we are, we’re getting better at the game, but there’s not much evidence yet that, that transfers to the things that are meaningful, again, finding your keys or remembering a grandchild’s name. And if anything, we need to be cautious because more screen time means being sedentary. And that can take away time from being physically active from walking, from being on your feet. I think it’s not just myth-busting, but it’s also thinking through the implications of what this means. Um, you know, it’s the same with red wine and, you know, sure. We’d love it if there, there certainly are ingredients in red wine that can be protective and help your brain. You just need a large amount of them to make a meaningful difference. And we know,

Brad Cooper

I mean, your number was hilarious in the book.

Dr. Castel

I mean, it, I mean, a lot of this has been done in lab animals and you can find these benefits and at the theoretical level, that’s very interesting and important, but you know, you’d have to take, you know, be ingesting a lot of chocolate and wine, which, you know, it has that appeal, but it’s going to have side effects and it’s going to have, so that’s, I still think the one thing is it’s not going to be one thing and even exercise, I don’t think is one thing because walking and balance and talking to someone, those are a lot of activities it’s very complex. And I think that’s why it has big benefits because, you know, it’s not just one thing there. Whereas if you’re really focused on just crosswords or just blueberries, you know, if you have a balanced diet, I think having a conversation with someone can sometimes be just as complex as, uh, you know, doing a crossword puzzle. And so I think those sorts of bigger activities like being social, um, you know, physical activity are going to have bigger effects than these more specific kind of computer-based brain games, crossword puzzles, or, or eating one specific food

Brad Cooper

You seem to be leading into, in your book the idea of combining a couple of these. So taking some of those since we’re not having them do a very serious bike workout, they’re literally just on the bike, riding at a reasonable pace, like a walk would be combining that with some brain games, are you seeing some developments in that area?

Dr. Castel

Definitely. And I think that’s where some of the breakthroughs have been is where you combine these things and you see benefits. So the frustrating part is you don’t know what causes what, and so kind of the very low scientific level you want to know, you know, what is the critical thing. But I think for people in general, if you know that combining these things are going to have some beneficial effects, you, you know, that’s, that’s the critical outcome. So brain training can be great if you’re not, you know, doing excessive amounts and not walking, um, you know, those, you, you need to look at the cost. So I think that the few programs that are out there involve a, a large combination of things. And the other thing is you, you don’t need to spend tons of money. You don’t necessarily need to buy these supplements and go to these yoga classes. You can do balance training, you know, on your own. You can do it with a friend. You can walk with a friend outside, being in nature is great. Um, you know, bike riding is really good for balance. Um, I think the reason there’s a lot of focus on walking is that you can randomly assign people in a study to either walk or stretch, but if you can bike or swim, these sorts of activities can really be beneficial. Dancing is a very complex behavior and can have huge benefits as well.

Brad Cooper

I’m in trouble if dancing is the call. My wife will tell you. Okay, let’s, let’s flip the mirror around a little bit. We always like to ask our guests, how about you? What, what, what aging aside, is there an area of your own health and wellness that you’re working on? Some struggles maybe you’re going through and how you’re addressing those?

Dr. Castel

I mean where to begin, I think mid life, is a strange place because you’re doing a lot of things and you’re not sure if you’re doing them well. Um, and so I wish I could focus on kind of the, the things that are most important and really, you know, make sure that those things are being addressed. And so sometimes we give up on our diet for a week or two we’re traveling and then we switched back into something else and then we spend more time at work and then we vacation. So I think the big thing is balance and you know, both at a personal level, but then kind of more generally, I think that’s what happens with age is we have more balance, um, you know, not necessarily the physical, but we know what’s important and what’s not important. So I, I think I still struggle with that. Like I can, you know, spend hours on some project and it really doesn’t have big consequences. Um, whereas you really want to spend your time wisely. And I think that’s what happens with age. It may be because as we get older, we know our time is limited. So we don’t want to waste our time on things that are really not critical. And when we’re younger, we’re focused on, you know, careers or how can we maximize something. Um, so I think that’s a constant struggle and it’s, I don’t think it’s specific to myself, but you can see it when your diet, you can see it in your exercise routines. It’d be great if every day I could do my balance training and walk for 40 minutes, but I don’t. And so having a little more consistencies is probably critical.

Brad Cooper

And so as a professor of cognitive psychology, do you pull some of those tools and you say, okay, come on, Alan, you got to get this. What, what would you tell somebody, you know, is there any of that kind of internal conversation going on for you? Just, just out of curiosity

Dr. Castel

I mean, I, you know, I’m a memory expert and I forget things all the time and my daughters will even tell me, you know, maybe you shouldn’t go and do these memory presentations when you forgot to brush your teeth this morning or forgot, you know, you know, called me by my sister’s name. And so I think the critical thing, especially again, or, you know, midlife is distraction. And if you really want to remember something, I know all the ways to do it and I can do it, but I don’t always employ it because it’s time consuming, it’s effortful and we’re on our phone and we’re juggling 14 different things. So if I really want to remember something, especially as I’ve noticed, my memory has changed, you know, I really have to be more focused about it and more effortful and I can do it, but it takes time and energy. And it’s embarrassing. I even tell people, well, you know, I know memory how it works, so I know why I forget these things. I really have no problem saying, you know, I know, I know you, but I forgot your name. You know, whereas some people are so mortified about forgetting names that they pretend they didn’t forget the persons name. And, but I can say, you know, I studied memory, so I know memory is reconstructive and that we forget rapidly. So, you know, it turns into a little joke, but yeah, it’s frustrating, you know, forgetting names, especially in a professional setting and people appreciate it when you remember names. But I wouldn’t say I’m suspicious when people remember names, but I’m like some people, they say they’re good at remembering names, but the truth is they focus on it. They do something with the name and they retrieve it frequently. You know, I know these strategies and that’s exactly what I teach people. Um, but it takes time. And I think you’re better off remembering how, you know, the person, whether the person is someone you’re interested in spending time with these sorts of things are probably more important for the long run.

Brad Cooper

Well, and for our audience, Dr. Castel has, uh, three kids under the age of 10. So that’s a little bit of a, uh, play in this too. So what, what can wellness coaches specific, health and wellness coaches do to help their clients as they move into a different phase? And you, you kind of touched on this with our earlier discussion about the decades, but is there some general guidance as we think more phases versus ages? Cause a lot of times we go through them at different ages, any guidance you could give them to kind of consider or for their own life as they are going into a new phase?

Dr. Castel

I think transitions are always difficult and kind of the biggest one, you know, as we age in our 50, 60 seventies is retirement and that’s kind of a moving target now because people retire early, they don’t completely retire a, you know, move into a new lifestyle, a new career, a new job, a new location. So I think having some specific goals is really important. And I think it even starts with exercise. You know, when a doctor says you should get more exercise people don’t, you know, they hear it, but they don’t know they don’t do it because it has to be concrete and specific. Like you need to walk three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday with your friend around the neighborhood that can be attainable and you can see yourself doing it. You have to ask yourself, is that realistic? Can I do it? Because if someone says you need to be jogging, you’re like, I’ve tried it. I don’t like it. Why would I start again next week? And so I think it’s the same with retirement. You can’t say, I can’t wait to retire. You say, well, what are you going to do when you retire? And if someone says things like travel or play golf, you have to say, well, where are you going to travel? And what’s your budget and who are you going to travel with or play golf like with who and how many times a week and give yourself this challenge of, I need to set these specific goals. And you know, when you start thinking about goals, you can obtain them. Um, but when you have very abstract ideas of what you’re going to do, you’re going to be confused and likely disappointed because you don’t, you don’t really know how to achieve these things. And you don’t know how you’ll feel. Um, when you do these things, it’s called an affective forecasting. How do you know what you’ll feel like when you’re doing these things? And so kind of making specific goals, having people, you know, there’s a social component. Having people, that’s probably what coaching is helpful for as someone who’s going to check up on you, you know, ask you how you’re doing. And sometimes it’s good to have someone who’s in the same boat as you as well. So someone who also wants to walk three times a week or wants to retire, or, um, you know, sometimes when people move, when they retire, they’re not as happy as they thought they would be. Even though the weather is better, they’ve left behind a social circle or they’ve left behind a job where they’re, they feel valued. So sometimes that can be very surprising. So I think thinking through those things can be really important.

Brad Cooper

Clarifying that vision, having a clear vision of where you want to be, what you want to be doing almost beyond the goals piece.

Dr. Castel

Absolutely. And you can even simulate it and try it out. You know, sometimes people say, well, I’m going to retire to Florida. It’s like, well, why don’t you go to Florida for a month and see how it is or talk to someone who’s there. Um, because again, this forecasting becomes really important and we can set goals and often these goals are like financial, like to save this much money and then you can retire and so on. But you also have to understand, you know, what’s my level of happiness when I move and leave behind these people, maybe the weather’s going to be better, but I don’t know anyone. And maybe playing golf three times a week is a little too much, even though, you know, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. So, you know, I think again, achieving some balance is critical. Like you don’t want to be a workaholic, so you can then retire and do nothing. That’s, that’s a really extreme, difficult thing to do. So yeah. Having a vision, but some balance with that vision is probably going to lead to, to some level of satisfaction.

Brad Cooper

Last question. Any final words of wisdom, something I haven’t asked about that you’d like to share you think for this audience would, would be really helpful?

Dr. Castel

Well, I often share what John Wooding shared with me. He was the famous basketball coach at UCLA. Um, and when I asked him what are, what are the important things for successful aging? He said, well, the two most important words in life were, are love and balance. And he said, you know, find who and what you love and then have balance in your life, both mentally and physically. So I think that kind of sums up a lot of the things we’ve covered. And I think, you know, focusing on these two things can lead to a healthy and happy and hopefully long life. And he lived to age 99.

Brad Cooper

And he made a lot of use of those 99 years.

Dr. Castel

He did both for himself and the people he was around. So he had a big impact, which I think is, you know, another way to think, instead of thinking about successful aging, we can also be thinking about meaningful aging, you know, adding meaning to our years, not just, not just years.

Brad Cooper

Yeah. I love that meaningful aging. So Dr. Castel, better with age, the psychology of successful aging. Thank you so much for joining us today. Great stuff.

Dr. Castel

Thanks. It was great talking to you.

Brad Cooper

What do you think? What I took out of it was in spite of him being a professor who studies this on a daily basis and writing, uh, an exceptional and relatively large book, he brought us back to the basics. He, two of the things that he talked about several times were things like balance training. If you fall, it affects your ability to successfully age. If you’re not active, if you’re not exercising, not running a marathon, but active walking, 40 minutes, three, four times a week. That’s what leads that successful aging. So I like how he kind of debunk some of the things we hear about red wine and dark chocolate. And he said, no, those aren’t bad things. It’s just at the level they’re being studied, you’d have to drink 70 gallons of wine or eat 50 pounds of dark chocolate on daily basis to really have the same impact of these studies. So they make for good headlines. But as we know here, headlines don’t make us healthy.

Brad Cooper

Couple of things coming up, the date that we’re going to release this will essentially be the week of our next coaching certification. So that one will be full. If you’d like to join us, we have two coming up in August. We have one, our very first one on the East coast, in New Jersey, August 16th and 17th. And then we follow up that following weekend, back in Colorado, August 24th and 25th. So if you’re interested in the wellness coach certification that does lead you toward the national board certification, if, if that’s something you’ve been looking at, and then we also have a coaching retreat, and you’ve heard me talk about this a couple of times, it’s the first time it’s ever been done by anybody. It’s the coaching retreat and symposium Estes park, Colorado, September 6th through the 8th. And we’re just really excited about this, for a lot of reasons. But one of the biggest ones is I don’t know about you, but I come out of these conferences exhausted and we wanted to create something where you could get the information, you get the education, you get the CEU credits, but you come out refreshed. And that’s the way the schedule has been designed. You can see it, there, there is a full list of some great courses and you’re going to get all kinds of options. You’ve got a couple of different tracks you can follow with that, but we’ve structured it so you have some downtime to relax, to journal, to go for walks, to take in soak in that beautiful mountain air in September. And hopefully it works out for you. That is limited to only wellness coaches. So if you’re, you don’t have to be board certified, but if you’re a wellness coach you’d like to join us, you’ve got questions about it. Feel free to reach out Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. Any questions, let us know. You want to talk to anything about your career, where things are heading, how this all fits together. That’s what we’re here for. CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. Otherwise I’ll look forward to seeing you next time on the Catalyst Health and Wellness Coaching Podcast.