The System Keeps You Alive, Not Well: Caregiving & Health Span in a Longevity Era

But really it's so true because if you don't prioritize your own health, which is really what we're talking about when we come to healthspan and lifespan, how many years you live is one thing, but how well you live those years is another entirely.

So, um, a lot of times with caregivers, when you get sucked into that vortex, you end up on the other end of it, uh, when your older adult parent or whatever, uh, passes on and you said, "Wow, okay, well now my...

I'm depleted.

I'm depleted financially, I'm depleted personally, mentally, emotionally," all that kind of stuff.

And our thought process at Glowing Older is that if you plan, and then of course planning the unexpected comes up all the time, but if you plan for what matters most to you in your later years, given the trends globally about, uh, we're living much longer than we used to.

There's more centenarians than ever before, and the, and the projections are for that to keep shifting, growing.

So if you have 30 or 40 extra years, extra years, why not plan for what matters most to you? And it seems to me with a lot of times with caregiving, it's throwing your own needs to the wind in that moment.

And as you know it, uh, uh, in families it oftentimes is the oldest daughter or it's one person in the family-

Mm-hmm

... and everyone else abdicates and goes, "Oh good," you know, "thank you for handling that." But it's often at our own expense.

So I think that's one of the biggest takeaways with caregiving, is how can we manage our own self-care in the process of taking care of others.

Yes.

And in order to be able to do that, you have to learn and know about the resources and the support that's available and the services that are available so that you can add that to your plan and be strategic about it.

Yes.

Yes, and, uh, we're both in the United States.

I, I'm sure you have-

Yeah

... listeners from other countries, but most other countries, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Italy, Spain, they have government policies in place to help caregivers-

Mm-hmm

... to help older adults, and to help the caregivers manage both the younger and the older generation they're caregiving, uh, for.

But, um, the United States is really one of the toughest countries when it comes to finding policies.

So that's why it's so important, your type of podcast, to help people discover the types of resources that they need.

Because as we say at Growing Older all the time, aging is a team sport.

And, uh-

Mm-hmm

But really it's so true because if you don't prioritize your own health, which is really what we're talking about when we come to healthspan and lifespan, how many years you live is one thing, but how well you live those years is another entirely.

So, um, a lot of times with caregivers, when you get sucked into that vortex, you end up on the other end of it, uh, when your older adult parent or whatever, uh, passes on and you said, "Wow, okay, well now my...

I'm depleted.

I'm depleted financially, I'm depleted personally, mentally, emotionally," all that kind of stuff.

And our thought process at Glowing Older is that if you plan, and then of course planning the unexpected comes up all the time, but if you plan for what matters most to you in your later years, given the trends globally about, uh, we're living much longer than we used to.

There's more centenarians than ever before, and the, and the projections are for that to keep shifting, growing.

So if you have 30 or 40 extra years, extra years, why not plan for what matters most to you? And it seems to me with a lot of times with caregiving, it's throwing your own needs to the wind in that moment.

And as you know it, uh, uh, in families it oftentimes is the oldest daughter or it's one person in the family-

Mm-hmm

... and everyone else abdicates and goes, "Oh good," you know, "thank you for handling that." But it's often at our own expense.

So I think that's one of the biggest takeaways with caregiving, is how can we manage our own self-care in the process of taking care of others.

Yes.

And in order to be able to do that, you have to learn and know about the resources and the support that's available and the services that are available so that you can add that to your plan and be strategic about it.

Yes.

Yes, and, uh, we're both in the United States.

I, I'm sure you have-

Yeah

... listeners from other countries, but most other countries, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Italy, Spain, they have government policies in place to help caregivers-

Mm-hmm

... to help older adults, and to help the caregivers manage both the younger and the older generation they're caregiving, uh, for.

But, um, the United States is really one of the toughest countries when it comes to finding policies.

So that's why it's so important, your type of podcast, to help people discover the types of resources that they need.

Because as we say at Growing Older all the time, aging is a team sport.

And, uh-

Mm-hmm