You Don’t Have to Get Dementia, Here’s How

speaker-1 (00:03.758)
Okay. Well, thanks everybody for joining us. Linda, I gave a introduction to you already, but it’s always best to hear it from people in their own words. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Sure, thank you. It’s good to be here, Neil. Appreciate it, the invite. I am a neuropsychologist and a geriatric psychologist by training. And I was a clinical faculty at UCLA for about, gosh, around 27 years or so. And retired a few years ago, but I’m on recall now.

I guess one could say I’m semi-retired. So my job at UCLA was really to run a training program for neuropsychologists who wanted to specialize in working with older adults. And I did a lot of neuropsychological assessment, particularly of older adults. And often it was for…

aiding in the diagnosis of dementia, or you could say the differential diagnosis, you know, is it dementia or something else, or on the way to being dementia. And then I’ve been part of a lot of research teams in that area and done studies of like depression, dementia, and also caregiver stress. And then I, and worked in the area of caregiver education.

and the last five years have been the interim director of the UCLA Longevity Center. So now I’m back as the interim director still doing some consultation on research, but by and large, retired from the neuropsychological training program and assessment clinic.

speaker-1 (02:02.392)
So two questions that came out from all that. First off, the UCLA Longevity Center. What exactly is that? Now we’ve had Dr. Helen Levretsky already interviewed. And my understanding is she’s part of that as well. So what exactly is the UCLA Longevity Center?

Well, it has a long history of wellness and aging well for, of course, older adults. And it started over 25 years ago and in the Department of Medicine and Geriatrics, moved over to the psychiatry department about 20 years ago and was led by Gary Small for quite a while. And then when he retired, essentially I became the interim director. But what we do is we’re focused on wellness,

and lifelong learning in older adults. So we offer a menu, let’s say, of programs that educate people about ways to keep their memory and their cognitive functions sharp. And we have courses in that. We also provide webinars to the public on, again, an array of topics from more clinically focused about how to manage

does Alzheimer’s or memory loss to just learning about something new, right? And then we also host a senior scholars program where older adults sign up and can audit undergraduate courses at UCLA for really for a reduced price. And it’s like going back to school without having to worry about

tests or, you know, getting a degree. It’s about what would you like to learn about from UCLA professors and when the classes are in person, you matriculate in with the student body. So it’s really fun, it’s very popular program.

speaker-1 (04:09.902)
Okay. Now you had described yourself as a geriatric psychologist.

Mm hmm. Yeah. Right. So first of all, we’re trained as clinical psychologists, but our focus is aging. And so we work with older adults and the topics that are, I would say, seminal and frequent that come up in older adults. For me, it was cognition. For other people, it could be

What is that?

speaker-0 (04:44.226)
you know, grief, loss. And then this also is, so we specialize in working with older adults. And then the neuropsychology part is another specialty, but I focused in older adults as well, where we assess cognition. We may work with people to help them essentially cope with memory issues and educate people on

essentially how to age well, combat and compensate for age-related cognitive changes or disease-related cognitive changes. And so we do a lot of work with caregivers, geriatric psychologists. So when you’re working in that realm, you’re working with whole families usually, not just an individual.

When I was looking at your biography on the Longevity Center, one of the things that stood out was healthy lifestyle interventions. Right. Considering the group that this podcast is focused on, people entering into the retirement years,

My assumption is that it’s roughly around this time that they have to start thinking about what their lifestyle needs to be to deal with any potential issues down the road. Is that correct? Or is that something?

It’s correct, but we like to back that up into healthy lifestyle choices in younger adulthood, just to help with the risk factor and reducing risk. So the sooner one starts to reduce risk, the great effects one can have as far as your outcomes as you age. That being said, it is never too late.

speaker-0 (06:44.226)
to start a healthy lifestyle, especially because the age related changes, whether they be cardiac, cognitive, respiratory, you know, they start and later life, like we may not notice, we don’t notice these things, but, the body ages and we get wear and tear on our bodies. And some of our lifestyle in the past catches up with us as we get older. So, so you’re correct.

in that definitely people should start paying attention to these things around retirement age. If they start sooner, all the better, but definitely now is the time to start if you haven’t already.

So are you talking just from a physical point of view or all aspects of life?

All aspects. that would be physical meaning diet, right? Exercise, which is both of those are essential, but also mental and spiritual. So stress reduction, feeling, you know, self esteem, feeling valuable, getting excited about new things, because sometimes people go through a

an identity type of, you know, crisis when they retire, right? Because they’re like, my gosh, there goes everything who I was and, but that’s not true. So one has to work on not just the physical, but the mental, the emotional, and the more more evidence pointing to the spiritual, not necessarily religious, but just spiritual, you know, feeling inside.

speaker-0 (08:32.684)
how you’re thinking, how you approach the world and how you approach yourself.

That’s interesting. I interviewed Dr. Riley Moynes last week. He wrote a book called The Four Phases of Retirement. The first phase is the vacation phase where everybody thinks, hey, this is great. And then they hit the six month mark somewhere in the six month to two years. They go, okay, what is this it? What else is there type thing? And that second phase then is the loss of

the loss phase. And that’s what I think is what you’re talking about with regards to loss of identity, loss of relationships. I look at my dad, he’s 94 turning 95. My aunt died at the beginning of last week at age 97. She was 97. It’s not unexpected. But he turned around and said to me, I’m the last of his generation.

Here in Canada, he was the last. Everybody he knew is gone. So now he’s lost all those relationships and that sort of thing. let’s go to, okay, so if there’s those lifestyle side of things, you’ve been focused on, and again, I’m just looking at your biography, dementia, neuropsychology.

What are some of the things that people should be thinking about doing now for preparing or dealing with that? The other question then is, I’m 61, my dad’s 94. I’m, in essence, he’s perfectly able to take care of himself, but my brother and I are now really keeping an eye on him. What are some of those things that caregivers need to be thinking about for?

speaker-1 (10:33.408)
as the age goes on.

Yeah, that’s a great question. One of the top ones on the list is falls. Right. When somebody is living alone and they fall, what is, can they get up? Why are they falling? We know that a lot of people that fall in their home may lay there for hours and sometimes days before, before somebody finds out about it.

and helps them. And then when people are down, they can, you know, they can become dehydrated. Some people die, you know, when they fall and not to mention if they break any bones or hit their head. So falls are really high on the list. And what people can think about is first of all, like what kind of condition is my loved one in, you know, do they have any trouble with their balance?

Do they have any trouble with their gate, right? With walking, like do they shuffle? Do they tend to trip? And what is their house like inside? Because there are fall risks in the house, in the home. know, throw rugs. Do they have rails to support them going up and down stairs and particularly in the bathroom, right? In the shower next to the toilet.

These are things that are assistive devices, but they’re essential because most falls happen in the kitchen, right? And in the bathroom. making sure their house is safe, or you could say not as conducive to fall risks and to make sure like how’s your fitness? Are they exercising? Can they get up from a chair? Okay.

speaker-0 (12:33.184)
Right. And usually there are tests for this. Like, you, do you have to use your hands to get up or if so, can you do it without a struggle? And, and there are metrics for this that, especially geriatricians, in other words, physicians that specialize in older adults, like they’re very aware of this. So number one is, is fall risk. Number two is isolation and loneliness.

So you mentioned, you know, your dad saying, I’m the last. So what’s the social circle of people? How much does the family check in with someone? What are they doing during the day? Are they sitting around all day? Are they getting out? And how are they at night? And that’s when a lot of falls happen at night too. So that’s a second feature. And sometimes people,

who are isolated don’t necessarily feel lonely. So loneliness is almost, I don’t wanna say good, but at least it alerts people to, need to do more. But social isolation, where people may not feel lonely, but they don’t have outside contacts, that really leads to decline. Because when people are isolated, they’re not reaching out, they may not be cognitively stimulated.

because maybe they’re not talking to people, things that help people stay sharp. that’s one. Cognition is always on the menu. And that you have to play sort of by watching, listening, how’s my loved one’s cognition or what are they telling me? Are they telling me they’re forgetful? Do you notice that

they’re not calling you as much or they’re not showing up for things. when you, when you visit them, they have to check on your loved ones. So how are they doing with the medications? Are they taking them and their leftover pills in the container? And, how are they talking to you? Do they repeat themselves a lot?

speaker-0 (14:50.488)
Do they seem to not really remember who people are in the family, who the grandkids are? And some of these are signs of being more advanced in memory loss, right? But people should be able to use the phone. They should be able to, if they can’t get out of the house and shop, they should be eating, there should be food that’s not expired in the fridge. Again, these are more of the extreme things, but.

when it’s less extreme, it’s still important to make sure that you check on people and look for these types of signs.

So a lot of what you said are things that I’ve seen from my father. So what I’m doing now, keeping in mind that I’m now starting to go through that life change, is I’m trying to change my habits so that it becomes ingrained over the next 30 years so I can live to his age or surpass it. He goes food shopping once a week. That’s the way our parents always did. Right.

I’ve been working from home now since 2004. If I didn’t get out of the house, I’d never see anybody face to face. Everything I’ve been doing has been like we’re doing in camera. So I, every day, will go and do the food shopping just to get out of the house. I’m on first name basis with everybody up at the supermarket. I’m right now.

because I look at my dad and I see that he’s not socializing. I’m trying to find those social groups now that I can be part of and create those relationships because relationships don’t show up right then and there. Right? It’s not like, OK, I’m 94. I’m lonely. What am I going to do? Well, it takes a while to build up relationships. So going off and doing that sort of thing. Physically, you know, I make sure I go for a walk an hour a day.

speaker-1 (17:00.984)
type thing. And that becomes a habit. So everything you’re saying from a geriatric point of view, I don’t view myself as geriatric, but I also know I’m not that far.

Right. It’s a frame of mind too, you know, I mean, we shouldn’t let other people define us. Yeah. Right. But what we have to do is be realistic about maybe what our capabilities are, but we still need goals. And yeah, I don’t like, I don’t get mixed up in a, I qualify for this organization or that organization? Hey, give me the discount. Yeah.

I found out I got an old age discount when I was 54 and I’m going.

What? I remember that. And I’d be like, bring it on then. But I don’t think I’m old, but bring it on. But you brought up a very, very good point is before retirement, it is important to start to make new connections and find new things to do because that loss, you you feel it. Like you said, at first it’s a vacation, but after a while people get bored and they miss

Not everybody does, but some people really miss, even if it’s not what they did, they may miss their coworkers and the culture and the social groups that form around work. So it is a good idea to start to explore new things and to have younger friends too. And this could be done through volunteering. It could be done through mentoring.

speaker-0 (18:47.192)
getting involved in some organization, know, a music group, or some people get politically, become politically activated, learning, you know, getting into art, music. There’s no limitation. When people are working, they have less time, but that doesn’t mean they have no time to start to explore other interests that you can shift

or transition into more if you like them as you retire and get past that retirement.

Do you see retirement sticking around? And the reason why I ask this is next week I’m interviewing Dr. Rickwood. She’s down in Australia and she’s proposing a complete restructuring of the concept of retirement. Cause then she was, and people will hear this when I do that interview, but I learned that it was originally

set up as 69 back in the 1800s by, I think it was Bismarck that she was saying. And it was, that was long past when people died. So you continue working all the way up to your, when you die. We have, the age didn’t change, but our lifespan has changed.

So I’m just wondering whether we’ve made a mistake not adjusting the concept of retirement.

speaker-0 (20:34.36)
Well, the concept of retirement, I think will change and we see it already changing. mean, first of all, people used to work for one company their whole life. Yeah. And now we see people reinventing themselves, right? Some people work for different companies. Other people go back to school. They reinvent themselves. I personally have a colleague who used to be an attorney and then she became a psychologist and

Then she retired from the specific work that she was doing and switched to another subfield of psychology. And I guess the question is, do people stop working? Because people can continue, and we’re finding, by the way, that there’s definitely that gap between how long we live and are we out.

living our savings and we’re outliving our ability to to have financial security. So this is a big thing that is going we’re going to have to address that. Because like you say, if you retire at 65 and you die a few years later, you know, people could could usually hang in. But people are living into their 80s and 90s. And then as

they get more ill. So we not only have to think about lifespan, we have to think about health span and expanding those healthy years so that the last 10, which usually are the years that people become chronically ill, we live a better life so that we don’t have as many medical problems. And so we have to think about that, but I digressed for a minute, but that factors in.

But I don’t think there’s any, any rule that says we have to retire at a certain age. But do, do people want to get paid for what they do or do they want to have just other things to do where they don’t have to get paid or they don’t have to get paid as much. I’m thinking about it in, terms of those different kind of models.

speaker-0 (23:00.02)
And I certainly wasn’t ready to retire and I certainly wasn’t ready to not get paid. So I’m like, well, let me, you know, I’m gonna semi-retire, come back, expand and sort of recreate a different niche for myself.

And that gave you new purpose.

Yes, purpose. This is the most important thing is that people need to have a sense of purpose. Even when people have dementia, they need to have a sense of purpose and whether it may not be the same that they had before, but just being able to know that they’re contributing to something, hoping with something is really important. So yes, a sense of purpose is, I think at the foundation of retirement is what is

your sense of purpose. And also we cannot ignore that people are in need of finances, financial viability as they live longer. And then there’s ageism. Sorry. One more thing is people want to work, but we need people to be valued, right? As hireable.

Yeah.

speaker-1 (24:14.362)
It’s okay. That last one. Yeah. Just to decide, I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole, but I’ve been in technology since 88. So what’s that? 37 years. Yeah. And my experience, my knowledge of why we’re where we are, vastly surpasses anything of anybody coming out of school. I’ve had PhD students work for me.

I grew up in this industry, but I found that as I got into my later 50s, it was getting harder and harder to find contracts to work on. because I remember very distinctly meeting up with Amazon, the recruiter, the people that were interviewing me were in their early 30s. And their statement was, sorry, you’re not going to fit in with the culture here.

even though I had so much more experience. that ageism side of things, think we as a society need to change things. Let’s shift over to your work is focusing on dementia or has been. Yeah.

testing.

speaker-1 (25:34.574)
Tell me what dementia is. Like we hear about the word dementia, but nobody really talks about what it is. What is it?

It’s an umbrella term for the loss of cognitive functioning that is so severe that people cannot live or function independently anymore. That’s the umbrella term. Often with dementia, depending on the type of dementia one has, it’s really way more than just cognitive.

loss. So when we say cognitive, we’re talking about memory loss or what they call executive functioning, reasoning, planning, judgment, sometimes, well, oftentimes slowing down so that it takes people a long time to think, right, and complete something. it’s really to the point where

one becomes disabled from it. They can’t live independently. So that is a lot different than just saying, I have, you know, I’m having a senior moment. And with dementia, depending on the type of dementia, because dementia is a generic term, but there are different types come different other symptoms. So some people can become depressed or very anxious. Some people have

drastic personality changes where they become inappropriate or they become very withdrawn. some dementias have a lot of motor disturbances with them. So prime example is if somebody with Parkinson’s disease gets dementia or a Lewy body dementia, those aren’t just thinking and cognitive, but they have strong motor components, meaning slowness.

speaker-0 (27:37.31)
stiffness, falls, tremors, and even what we call autonomic changes where people might have trouble regulating their incontinence, their continence, certain blood pressure spikes. So it’s really a big physical picture. But then under the umbrella comes your Alzheimer’s disease, frontal temporal, Lewy body.

Sorry, what’s lulugladi? I’ve never heard that term before.

Yeah. So Lewy body is a, is a dementia that kind of is in the, sort of like a Parkinson’s disease, Parkinson’s disease plus family where, where people have, visual hallucinations. They have very slow thinking. they can be forgetful and the Lewy body pertains to, abnormalities that are found in the brain at autopsy. So they, named it according to the

to the brain pathology, but people with Lewy body can get stiff, they can fall. It’s really physical disease. It’s a lot like Parkinson’s disease, what they call plus when people have Parkinson’s disease, but then they develop dementia. They’re very similar. And so it’s a rough disease to have because of both the physical and the cognitive, not to mention people can get depressed.

Whereas in Alzheimer’s disease, people typically start out with, you know, being forgetful, but physically they’re pretty healthy until later stages.

speaker-1 (29:24.398)
Okay. Are these… So these are all brain-related situations?

Yes, they’re all brain-related. They call them neurodegenerative dementias. And that’s because the brain is degenerating. There’s no cure and people get worse over time. another famous example, you we have examples now of people like, unfortunately, Bruce Willis got from the temporal dementia and it started really with not being able to speak, right? It got worse.

and worse. But now, you know, those kinds of things, again, progress and they start out with a symptom, but those symptoms expand and get worse over time. that type of dementia, those kinds are what they call progressive and neurodegenerative. And then there are other kinds of dementias that sometimes are a

wired differently and may or may not be reversible. an example might be sometimes people that are heavy drinkers, mean, really heavy drinkers and they don’t eat and they destroy a place in their brain that is essential to memory. They can get a dementia.

So that then begs the question, is this a cause from diet? Like I’ve heard, for example, it’s related to zinc. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. Again, this is just a lay person hearing things like this. I guess, yeah, yeah.

speaker-0 (31:01.934)
Yeah. You’re talking about Alzheimer’s disease. Well, I, know, there are a number of theories going around. don’t, I don’t think there’s really one cause for Alzheimer’s disease. There are, there are concerns about toxicities. And we certainly know what Parkinson’s disease there, they call it the exposome. People get exposed to toxins like pesticides.

there are genetic variants of diseases. Like for example, there are people with frontal temporal dementia. Some of those types are genetic Huntington’s disease. It’s typically, it’s genetic and some forms of Alzheimer’s disease, especially some of the early onset forms where people get the disease in their late forties, early fifties.

those can be genetic. And so how do you know, first of all, like you look back on your family and a bunch of people get Alzheimer’s disease young, right? Right. As opposed to grandpa got it at 85. And, and now we have genetic tests for this. Okay.

No, I just think of my mom had a bit of the Alzheimer’s starting to come on before she died. She died of cancer though. But a lot of that is, I suspect based on everything you’re saying, it went to her diet because she was a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, did not eat properly and had no exercise. So a lot of that was the physical side of things.

Yes. So what can happen in conditions is also what they call vascular dementia. But you know, vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, I they co-occur often. But what happens in, let’s say, when people have blood flow issues to the brain and they’re having lots of plaque and tangle build up, not plaque and lots of plaque.

speaker-0 (33:19.754)
in the arteries and gets down to the capillary level. Well, somebody can have multiple little strokes that eventually add up to create a dementia. And then, so we have diets that are unhealthy, lack of exercise, smoking and alcohol, all of these contribute to cerebrovascular disease.

So one of the known ways to reduce our risk for getting dementia is to essentially curb the things that add up to kill us later, right? So not exercising, high fat processed foods, and a lot of alcohol. Even now, you know, the whole…

recommendations about alcohol. Here’s the bottom line is if you don’t drink, don’t start. And if you do drink, you know, limit your alcohol intake. So these are things that people can control. That’s what Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

Is there, I’m just wondering, you keep hearing about, for example, some of the Mediterranean cultures where they have a very different lifestyle, very healthy foods. Is there any statistics or anything that’s looked at the rates of dementia, of Alzheimer’s, of these various different diseases around the world?

that we can take away from those cultures.

speaker-0 (35:10.328)
Well, I don’t know the statistics off the top of my head, but I can, I think what people are looking at too is longevity as well. So definitely in India, there is a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease. And one of the hypotheses about that is that people have a lot of turmeric in their diet, which is a major antioxidant, right? has.

antioxidant properties. And so we know antioxidants help kind of clear out the, I call it the debris, take out the garbage in the brain that results from, first of all, we have our own system that helps us do this, but it assists the system and these types of damage of oxidative stress in the brain that eventually

if it’s unchecked or not, you know, not cleaned up will result in cell loss and cell death. so these antioxidant foods really help kind of clear that those toxins out of the brain. And again, they come from just regular cellular operations, but also from the environment too. So,

Anyway, so we know in India, the rate of Alzheimer’s is lower in countries where they have longevity and there are a number of countries where they have these blues, blues owns that people live longer. So we have one here in LA it’s called Loma Linda and we there is one in Okinawa, Sardinia. I’m leaving a few out. There’s like six or seven blue zones. And these are typically places where people

don’t have high fat diets. They don’t eat a lot of processed foods. eat vegetables, right. And fruits. but they’re not going to get their box of, you know, hamburger helper or something. That’s not how people eat. Everything is, is really fresh or non-processed. Some people do drink a little bit. Some people don’t drink at all. and.

speaker-0 (37:35.286)
Also in some of the blue zones, people don’t believe in eating until you’re stuffed. But they eat till they get about the 80 % kind of full level.

Yeah. No, I’ve, it’s read years ago that your doesn’t know you’re full till like 20 minutes after you pass that point.

That’s right. That’s right. Cause it takes a long time. we have, we have stretch receptors in our stomach and you know, when they stretch out, they’re like, okay, you’re done. But there, also, you know, depending on what gets released into the, into the bloodstream that says, I’ve have enough, but you’re right. These are not instant, you know, instant feedback mechanisms.

Does, so everything you’ve said here goes to the physical body side of things. What about the thinking side, the mental acuity side, keeping your brain active? And what about purpose? Thinking in terms of the soul, the spirit, so to speak.

So let me start with the cognitive part.

speaker-0 (38:54.412)
The brain likes things that are novel or new. And so doing new things is good for the brain. Whether it be taking up a musical instrument or just reading different books, New is good. And another is just having discussions with people is great cognitive stimulation. So if you read a book,

or you go to a movie, it’s even better to talk about it with somebody. having discussions. So some people join book clubs. There is no like one thing or recipe like, should I be doing crossword puzzles every day? Is that going to do it? Well, certainly it’s a form of cognitive stimulation, but it doesn’t matter so much what you do. It’s that you do and you keep it kind of novel.

You know, so another thing is volunteering is very good for people cognitively stimulating and Dr. Teresa Siemens who researches this among other things talks, she runs a whole kind of program where she connects older adults to kids and tutoring. And what they found is that

you know, it’s not only good for the kids, but it’s great for the older adults. There’s a study called the experience core where older adults were, had to commit to about a year’s worth of tutoring and they would have to put in so much time. You have to get the right, you have to get a dose, right? You can’t just do it once. And, they found that, the older adults,

especially the ones who were a little less cognitively sharp, really benefited, became sharper from this volunteering and their brain scans showed an improvement. They were looking at, I believe it was brain volume of the white matter of the brain. And again, very supportive evidence that the stimulation, the social exchange from

speaker-0 (41:18.528)
that type of an activity is really beneficial to people, cognitively and emotionally as well.

So this movement towards working from home, doing things from home, not really getting out of where you live that much, that could actually be detrimental for where people are going.

Yes, and in fact, some research has pointed to risk factors for loneliness. And for example, and you know, if you’re lonely, you know, and you’re not getting stimulated, then it has repercussions for cognition. But are people that work remotely? And gig workers.

speaker-0 (42:09.784)
So I mean, there you have it. And they’re at risk. But I think what you said about working at home and needing to get out every day. mean, honestly, when I work at home, I follow the same recipe. And I have to get out for a little bit every day, whether it be going to the grocery store or going for a, you know, an iced tea somewhere. And

Because yeah, you can become very isolated at home. I mean, that you’re working, that people work from home is very good, but it’s not the only part. It’s not the sole part of the picture for cognitive stimulation.

Well, that’s part of the reason why I like doing this podcast is I get to speak with a whole bunch of new people and learn. For example, everything you’ve been talking about today is stuff I suspected, but it gives me a foundation to build on, so to speak.

Yeah. Everybody has to do their own work. and, and so when you talked about purpose, just to address that and spirituality, I mean, we have research that, I’m not, I’m not an expert on this. Probably, Dr. Levresky is a much better expert on this than I would be, is about, about having, you know, spirituality because it helps with stress and,

really self-compassion and being less, you know, more focused. what I also found is that the sense of purpose that people need and have, you make it up, you build it yourself. You don’t have to do what someone else suggests, right? Where do you get your satisfaction? might be

speaker-0 (44:07.478)
with animals, might be with children, it might be some other way. So there is no right or wrong way that anybody has to pursue to, to find their sense of purpose. But it does take some courage and, coming out of the pandemic when we were all holed up for a couple of years, right. And coming out of that, that wilderness,

same thing when we have to redefine, when we want to maybe not redefine, but expand our horizons. It’s trial and error. And sometimes it’s not about jumping in with two feet, but just stick your toe in the water and try things and yeah, give yourself credit for doing it. Cause it does take courage.

that testing things will, you’ll eventually find what you like and that becomes what you stick with. So, Okay. So we’ve been at this for quite a bit. I’m going to have to wind down the a botcast now. there was last, last question. If there were some last piece of advice for somebody that’s coming into about to approach retirement.

and they need to think in terms of how do I keep myself going in a specific direction. What were some of the pieces of advice beef that you would give them?

Start thinking about it ahead of time. Okay.

speaker-0 (45:49.122)
You don’t have to do it all at once. It’s going to unfold over time.

speaker-0 (45:58.348)
If you don’t like something, you don’t have to pursue it.

It’s okay if you’re scared.

speaker-0 (46:12.022)
to think about that. It’s okay if you’re scared.

And you can go back to old things that used to make you happy. That’s okay. Or you can try something new and give yourself a little grace. You know, don’t expect yourself to find a whole new you. there doesn’t have to be a whole new you. Right. And try to find some form of fulfillment, but how people are fulfilled.

really varies. you know, there’s no, what do you think might make you feel good? What do you think would make you feel good? Whether it be to learn something new or give something to someone, think volunteering is great because you give, but when you give, you get. And one more thing I’m going to probably close with this and I had a dear friend with Parkinson’s disease and I helped take care of her.

And so we were at the neurologist one day together and the neurologist said to her, if there are things that you would like to do, do them now, because there is no guarantee that you or people in general are going to be in the physical or mental place to put those things off to later.

And I never forgot that. And I think this is what a lot of people do. They say, well, I’ll wait to do that, you know, when I’m retired or I’ll wait to do that when I’m filling the blank and there may not be that opportunity. So if you want to try something different, like give it a shot.

speaker-1 (48:07.97)
Yeah, wise words.

Yep, those are wise words that that doctor spoke.

Linda, thank you very much for taking the time. really appreciate it. Linda is the second person from the UCLA Longevity Center. We have another one, April Thames, that we’ll be meeting with, I think it’s next week. And we’re going to have an ongoing relationship with the Longevity Center. So, you’re always reaching into them. Linda. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Neil, and thank you for what you do. This is great service to people. All right, take care. Bye bye.