2young2retire

When Michelle Obama does yoga as part of her recent President’s Council on Fitness initiative, you know yoga has gone mainstream.  In the 15 years I’ve been a practitioner (including the last 12 as a Kripalu Yoga-certified instructor), I’ve seen yoga grow from the culture of the ashram, dependent on the guru-disciple relationship, to a [...]

Neuroplasticity.  Until the late Dr. Gene D. Cohen mentioned it in his keynote speech at the First Positive Aging Conference at Eckerd College, I had never heard of the term.  It describes the brain’s ability to regenerate and rewire itself throughout the lifespan — a pretty radical idea not too long ago.  You’re going to [...]

Singer and songwriter, Paul Simon has a line in his wonderful poem set to music, American Tune, that has always resonated with me. “For we’ve lived so well, so long…” it goes, and later in another verse, he cautions, “…you can’t be forever blessed.”  We have been blessed here,  in the safe, secure, wealthy nations [...]

A report just released by the PHOENIX CENTER POLICY PAPER SERIES indicates that Internet usage can significantly reduce depression among older adults.  Of course, since I’m writing this and you’re reading it, we are in the minority of older adults who are already online (42% of people over 65).  Chances are you, like me, regularly [...]

The last time a movie made me so hungry was when four of us went to see Eat Drink Man Woman in New York City and arrived so late, we had to take seats in the first row.  Fortunately, this was on the Upper West where relief for a rumbling stomach was available on about [...]

There used to be a special category of collective wisdom called “common sense,” something that was usually hard-earned and came with a degree of maturity.  But that was when the world was far less complicated than it is now, before the 24/7 news cycle, before the personal computer, the Internet, and certainly long before the [...]

Sounds like a question, but actually it’s much more. These three little words suggest that there is always an answer even if it is not immediately apparent. In fact, how-might-I/we? encourages us to dig a little deeper and get beneath our preconceived notions and cultural conditioning. It’s a radical, mind-opening approach that [...]

Here’s some very good news. Positive aging — a discipline that focuses on mature creativity, adult development, lifelong learning, and the opportunities available to older people — is fast becoming a movement, with its own conferences, speakers, books, and experts. Last year, the first Positive Aging Conference was held at Eckerd College in [...]

If you’ve been there, done that, perhaps you are ready for a different kind of travel experience, one where you quit being a tourist and actually contribute something to the people and places you are visiting. Some folks have found an outlet lecturing and teaching on cruise ships in exchange for the voyage, which [...]

You know something is changing in the culture when you start to see full page ads with words and images that deliver a new message. When I was contemplating a next career as a yoga instructor 10 years ago, it still seemed a rather esoteric, out there endeavor. Today, Yoga Journal is fat [...]