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You Are Too Old to Assume That All Changes Are Signs of Slowing Down
This morning, right about the time I woke up ( 3:45 am, no alarm necessary), I came across a funny meme:
You know you’re old when you head to bed at the time you used to head out.
Of course I laughed, because it’s funny. But.
With respect to whomever had posted it, I disagree with this for one reason: my entire brand is around we are never too old EVER, period. Stay with me here, I’m going somewhere with this.
Look, I get the humor, and remember what it was like to head out to dance all night long at discos in my (wasted) youth. However, there’s this: one thing that may well change for you as you age into your sixties is your circadian rhythm, or when you naturally wake.
Change isn’t necessarily bad, most especially changes as they relate to an evolving body. I chose that adjective because we have such negative energy around an aging body. I simply want to gently call this out and ask some pointed questions about how we frame things as we live them.
Some context:
I have always been an early rising farm girl like my father; my mother and big brother were natural night owls. My eyes flew open at 5:30 am and I bounded out of bed like a spring bunny. I know, immensely annoying, but some of us are built like that.
In fall of 2016, the year I turned 63, my sleep pattern shifted two hours earlier. Whaa?
I did the research. I wasn’t alone.
Now I was waking up naturally between 3:30 and 4:30 am, like it or not, regardless of what time I went to bed.
Some others wake up two hours later. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason, and it sure isn’t a function of habits or getting older per se, as in slowing down due to age. It’s also not at all universal, just to some of us. Luck of the lottery, if you will.
The body simply shifts. In some, as in this article, it’s an issue of cataracts and how the aging brain reads light. I don’t have cataracts, but this makes some sense for those who do.
I’ve got more energy than three people, so it’s not a matter of age-related slowing down. It has everything to do with those…