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Post by Ward on May 4, 2016 5:48:03 GMT -6
as young as some of us might look, we're all aging. 51 for me this year. Scary number/ And I need more sleep than I did 10 years ago. How do you graceful agers do it? How do you get your work done and put in the long hours? Coffee? Redbull? Speed? Methamphetamines? Bennies? Caffeine pills? Periodic jolts of electricity? Cocaine? This business of needing 5-6 hours sleep a night is seriously messing with my productivity. (And, Johnkenn, if this should be in "Off To[pic", I'm sorry. Please move it) |
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Post by swurveman on May 4, 2016 7:47:23 GMT -6
I'm 58. So, I qualify. I think you have to asses what "quality of life" means to you. Now that you're less productive on little sleep, can you reduce your work load and live with the reduced income? Can you negotiate your time with your clients better so that projects are spread out longer when you can be more productive?
In the short term, fixes like cocaine/methamphetamine/benzidrine/opiods etc could increase your productivity, but in the long run it could reduce it drastically- and make you a drug addict with a habit to financially feed putting more financial pressure on your self. So, going down that road is dangerous.
I rely on caffeine, but I do not have a consistently heavy work load due a measure of financial independence. "It's better to burn out than fade away" is glamorous when you're 25. At 58 not so much.
Good luck with your adjustment.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 4, 2016 8:03:01 GMT -6
Let me know when you figure it out!
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Post by Johnkenn on May 4, 2016 9:12:07 GMT -6
I just don't work as much as I used to. Other things are more important.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2016 9:13:41 GMT -6
Although i am retired, i had some good rules for my productivity and health before.
No alkohol. A beer or a glass of wine for dinner sometimes. That's it.
Coffee and cigarettes. Energy drinks, Cola. Caffeine in guarana pills.
Trying to sleep more than 4 hours - every day.
Taking time for the woman of your heart. Also every day.
That's it.
The rule "no alcohol" makes a huge difference. I am too old to waste time on beeing boozed and having a bad time next day. I drank enough, when i was young. Nowadays beeing clear and awake with sharp thinking is my drug.
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Post by stratboy on May 4, 2016 9:42:38 GMT -6
Caffeine, little to no alcohol, focus my time on what makes me the most happy: family and music, focus my spirit on kindness, creativity and living in the present (not the past).
So far, so good!
(great topic, btw)
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Post by svart on May 4, 2016 9:43:30 GMT -6
I dunno. Genetics I suppose. My grandmother just died at 93 but she looked 70. I'm 38 this year and people mistake me for mid/late 20's all the time.
I drink fairly regular, smoke socially, no hard drugs, but I do have a weakness for pizza.. So I'm on the heavy side for my frame, but I do the gym thing 2-3 times a week which keeps me fit for the most part.
I'd say that other than genetics, stress is the most likely to age people quickly. The chemicals that stress releases just wreck a person if those stay too high for too long.
EDIT:
We were actually talking about this here at work the other day.. We have a guy who is 57 who looks 40.. And a guy who is 62 who looks like he's 80.
The young looking guy lives a really stress free lifestyle.
The older looking guy is a total stress case. Every little thing sets him off.
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Post by EmRR on May 5, 2016 8:48:23 GMT -6
I wish I could do this little sleep thing, never have been able to. If I do 3-4 days of 5-6 hours, I'll easily sleep 10-12 on day 5. Always been that way. I can drink coffee and fall asleep, but if I try to sleep before 11PM I will probably wake up in an hour and be up 3-4 hours in the night.
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Post by jazznoise on May 5, 2016 9:16:28 GMT -6
Between the day job, girlfriend, gigs, recording my own band and the little bit of freelance I do I'd put myself down as 6 hours Avg. a night. I probably get a day or 2 every fortnight to recover. I'll probably be quitting the job soon to do a Research Masters, so I'm trying to get a steady client stream going to tide me over during the academic year. I've started booking holidays off work to do recording gigs, or just using my days off. Probably mean a month or 2 with no days to just chill..
..but I'm 24 next week, so I'll shut up.
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Post by svart on May 5, 2016 9:28:38 GMT -6
I wish I could do this little sleep thing, never have been able to. If I do 3-4 days of 5-6 hours, I'll easily sleep 10-12 on day 5. Always been that way. I can drink coffee and fall asleep, but if I try to sleep before 11PM I will probably wake up in an hour and be up 3-4 hours in the night. I typically sleep for 9-11 hours straight if I don't have to get up. I almost always give myself 8 hours of sleep on workdays. I really feel awful if I don't get at least 8 hours. But then again I've always slept a long time and had a really hard time waking up in the mornings. I also don't nap during the day either though. |
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Post by EmRR on May 5, 2016 9:35:16 GMT -6
Yeah, it's a rare day that I wake up feeling anything less than slightly drunk for the first hour or so. It's kinda weird if I wake up and feel alert and refreshed, which is apparently what your average Joe experiences around 6AM. I am most awake and alert around 9PM. OTOH my wife is the wide awake and ready to go at 6AM type, and you can see her awareness/alertness degradation kick in after 7PM.
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Post by svart on May 5, 2016 9:44:08 GMT -6
Yeah, it's a rare day that I wake up feeling anything less than slightly drunk for the first hour or so. It's kinda weird if I wake up and feel alert and refreshed, which is apparently what your average Joe experiences around 6AM. I am most awake and alert around 9PM. OTOH my wife is the wide awake and ready to go at 6AM type, and you can see her awareness/alertness degradation kick in after 7PM. What time a day were you born? I read somewhere that there was evidence that the time of day you're born determines the time of day you feel best. I was born at 6pm, and I certainly feel my best around that time of day. |
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Post by EmRR on May 5, 2016 9:49:44 GMT -6
Hmmm....not certain, but I think it's evening.
I just did a gig that had me up at 6AM every day for the last 3 months, I never get used to it.
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Post by henge on May 5, 2016 10:19:23 GMT -6
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Post by chasmanian on May 5, 2016 12:45:35 GMT -6
Cool thread Ward.
Not a direct answer. Just a couple thoughts I've heard through the years:
- age is mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
(So, its not scary.)
- old age is not for sissies.
This refers to pain which sometimes accompanies aging.
- aging is just part of the cycle of life.
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2016 13:09:34 GMT -6
How is the old saying: If you are over 50 and you wake up and nothing hurts, you are most probably dead.
Another thought about getting old...
Try to do new things very regularly. You will get more subjective lifetime.
If your life has little to no change, when you get older, the time subjectively runs much faster.
If you do lots of new things always, you will have the subjective impression, that time goes much slower. You really gain lifetime if you stay curious and do and learn new things still, when you get older.
Each time something interesting happens, this is a memory. The more memories you have in a fix period of time, the longer your internal CV gets.
If you do nothing new, your brain has nothing worth to memorize. In this case, time runs fast for you. If you remember something interesting then, it will be like yesterday but could have been years before.....
This subjective experience of time has actually been verified in statistically relevant surveys of older people.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 5, 2016 15:21:06 GMT -6
Cool thread Ward. Not a direct answer. Just a couple thoughts I've heard through the years: - age is mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. (So, its not scary.) - old age is not for sissies. This refers to pain which sometimes accompanies aging. - aging is just part of the cycle of life. In my case it's matter over mind , my mind thinks it's 48 my body says its at least 30 years older ! |
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2016 20:03:26 GMT -6
I read a nice story about getting older and how you see yourself often beeing much younger, yesterday - in an email of an old schoolfriend.
"While i was grocery shopping, a few weeks ago, i suddenly heard something familiar in a voice. Could it be? Could it be my old schoolfriend Jenny?
I turned my head and looked around. I saw the person which belonged to the voice.
No, this can not be my schoolfriend. This person had grey hear, she had wrinkles over and over She was at least 10 pounds more of weight and looked tired. But this voice....
I went over to this person and kindly asked: 'Could it be that we eventually know each other from school? Your voice has something very familiar to me. Forgive my curiosity, but is your name Schroeder?'
She answered: 'Yes, really, my name IS Schroeder! And you? What's your name, and which subjects did you teach?'"
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Post by yotonic on May 5, 2016 21:22:25 GMT -6
Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Post by kcatthedog on May 6, 2016 4:24:25 GMT -6
Hmm hitting 60 in a few months was an amateur bike racer in my youth so fitness and exercise outside has been a constant:never smoked nor drank excessively and drugs were a passing fancy in my teens.
I'd suggest some regular cardiovascular exercise like svart 3-4x a week, try some meditation as it seems you may be on the threshold of an inner journey (enjoy the trip)and fundementally care for yourself.
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Post by iamasound on May 6, 2016 10:16:18 GMT -6
I will be 58 in October. People are always telling me I look great for my age, most probably because I have the world's fastest metabolism on the planet and it impossible for me to gain very much fat weight, that and my fairly full head of hair is not graying much except on the sides a little. I have meditated for 35 years, don't drink or eat junk food, eat mostly bio (organic to my USA friends), drink quarts of good water and down just one cup of coffee a day, excercise, thus keeping my blood pressure at 110/70 with a resting heart rate at about 60bpm, sleep plenty every night and no longer smoke tobacco (although a toke a day of the green keeps the doctor away). However,this past year and a half I have been feeling a bit older after fracturing my sacrum and doing a bunch of nerve damage to my coxyx after a stupid fall. Oxytocin has been the only thing that has kept me from being in a constant high degree of pain. I keep myself to the bare minimum and slide back down to lower dosages after needing to ramp up from time to time due to my body becoming used to regular dosages so not as to become a total and maniacal addict. I still exercise to keep my body strong, but cannot really work as sitting becomes quite painful after a short amount of time. Although the pain thankfully has lessened since my injury, walking too becomes uncomfortable. Working could be great although my reaction to the medication kind of leaves me fairly mindless and functionally unable sometimes to think steps ahead when it comes to problem solving, and my creativity which has been seriously on the nadir during this time in my personal purgatory is more than a bit frustrating. It however doesn't slow down the gear-lust, something my wife would like to see healed and cured also.
So, in order to keep the energy and mindfulness of youth one must drink plenty of water, sleep at least 7 hours a night, don't drink or smoke tobacco, meditate and exercise, and whatever you do, do not fracture your sacrum and damage your coxyx. Words to live by.
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Post by chasmanian on May 7, 2016 8:20:31 GMT -6
wow, cool bro.
God bless you Shannon.
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Post by tonycamphd on May 7, 2016 8:33:25 GMT -6
Well, there is no doubt that I feel more like I do now, than I did when I first got here..., I get about 6-7 a night, I have 2 alarms set, one at 5:00, one at 6:00, sometimes I'll reach the 6:00 alarm. I'm like Doug, I need coffee and an hour to ramp up, everything hurts all the time, I have a seriously effed up back, but too bad poops, learn to love the pain and get busy, I come from the school of "if u ain't bleeding, u ain't workin" construction style, physically Im 6'-230lbs(at least), I can break about anything haha, and can still practically do a split, i can/do work 20 somethings to their exhaustion, I laugh at them and say old guy things like..."smarter not harder, use it or lose it are real things!"Haha Music and construction were always there, in my 20's I'd often work all day, play till closing somewhere, and back to work after a few hours of sleep in my truck, I went to the Dick Grove College of music in LA and still worked full time, and did the same gigging(boss ruled and was lenient with me splitting for a couple hours here and there for classes), I was never willing to be the starving muso, I never had the structure to support that, I started getting grey hair at 19 years old, I decided to dye my hair all grey and tell people I'm 65years old, then they would surely say "wow! U look great for your age!!!", ok, last part not true, I'm late 40's now, and have felt society old since 25, I remember when I was 28 and I hooked up with my second long time girl friend, I asked her "why does a beauty 24yo want to hang with an old guy like me?" which was rightfully met with a  , so whatever, I fear nothing but losing people I love and heights, which can be tough when uve lived through early 2016, or ur on the second floor of a structure you're actively building the floor of 8) |
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Post by unit7 on May 14, 2016 19:25:01 GMT -6
Surprised to see many older guys here. I'm 52. Just as Tony the big difference for me nowadays is the need for time to ramp up. Those first minutes every morning these days I feel like 80.. very annoying! :-) But on the positive side unlike Ward I need less sleep, and if I see or suspect it is going to be a long day and night working I believe I'm even better now at putting myself in a focused state of mind, ignoring/blocking stuff that isn't important and just keep working until ready. Perhaps my perseverance is even better now..as long as it isn't too many working nights in a row..
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Post by Randge on May 15, 2016 13:12:25 GMT -6
Not smoking cigs should be high on the list. I'll be 45 next month and have seen way too many friends and family go down because of them. I still am putting in some long hours but not as long as I used to.
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, so whatever, I fear nothing but losing people I love and heights, which can be tough when uve lived through early 2016, or ur on the second floor of a structure you're actively building the floor of 8)
