Five tips for better sleep for older people

The NYTs reports a link between anxiety drugs and memory problems, possibly even Alzheimers.

This is an excellent reminder that one of the best things older people can do to safeguard their health is to find non-drug solutions for sleeping problems.

Here are five tips for improving sleep.

1) reduce napping during the day

2) drink less alcohol (if you like two drinks in the evening, try one instead...)

3) get some exercise, if possible in the fresh air, but even cleaning house or going for a little walk is helpful, an age-appropriate Zumba or Yoga class could be a lot of fun - anything to move those bones!

4) do something that stimulates the mind - a conversation, a good book (a bad book!), a lecture, a movie, art, build or fix something, help someone...

5) if you are being woken up in the night and having trouble getting back to sleep, try to identify and eliminate the cause - earplugs if it's noise, less liquid if it's going to the bathroom, room temperatures, mattress etc....

Share your tips for good sleep!

Creative arts provide hope and help for people with Alzheimer's

Alzheimer’s. It’s the only disease in the top ten causes of fatalities without a prevention, treatment or cure.
In honor of November National Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, we had a chat with Berna Huebner, an Alzheimer’s advocate who has an uplifting and inspiring story about her mother who had Alzheimer’s.
Berna faced her mother’s disease with courage and creativity. Over a decade after her mother’s death, Berna is still giving back to others affected by Alzheimer’s Disease.

Dancing after Fifty by Amy Kadori

The urge to dance can strike at any time and for a variety of reasons. For me it happened in my mid fifties after breaking my hip

Ode to a Nap by Monique Y. Wells

Monique Y. Wells

Ode to a Nap

I never used to take naps.

Naps were for lazy people.

Naps were for wimps who weren’t up to the challenges of the day.

Naps were for people who were less than physically fit.

Naps weren’t for me.

Not for years.

Then, something happened.

CAMPUS RAPE Open letter to University Presidents, Administrators, Boards of Trustees and Professors

Dear Sirs,

The way Hobart and William Smith Colleges officials dealt with the rape of a freshman girl by not just one but several male students is sickening for many reasons.  

One which concerns each and every one of you university professionals is the lack of a moral compass evidenced by those in a position of authority.

When did educators start believing it was ok for anyone to have sex with an extremely drunk young person?

Featured submission: What I Learned in Becoming a Widow

Mature Women's Guide is very pleased to feature this thoughtful essay by Joan Stommen "What I Learned in Becoming a Widow". Rooted in painful experience, it will, we hope, be helpful for other women confronted with loss who are searching for ways, despite their grief, to move forward. "Nothing prepares you for having your life interrupted and forever changed," Joan says "but over the last six months I've learned to be a little braver and move a bit more forward as I face life on my own."

"What I Learned in Becoming a Widow". by Joan Stommen

Losing my husband unexpectedly last summer was like a merry-go-round that suddenly stops! Our marriage ended when he didn't wake up from his afternoon nap. I've been on an emotional roller coaster; wandering through financial mazes and unknown pathways into this world of widowhood.' You cannot start a new chapter unless you stop re-reading the old one' the saying goes. And yet I cannot put the story of our Great Adventure down. Over and over I revisit the memories and what might have been. Nothing prepares you for having your life interrupted and forever changed, but over the last six months I've learned to be a little braver and move a bit more forward as I face life on my own.

Featured submission humor: To be old or not to be old, that is the question

Jane M Handel

We are delighted to feature this humorous take off on Hamlet's famous To Be or Not To Be speech, by writer Jane M. Handel.

SOLILOQUY

by Jane M. Handel (with apologies to W Shakespeare)

To be … old or not to be … old, that is the question

Whether tis nobler to stick around longer even if you’ve lost the plot

To carry on battling with your arm in a sling or the wheelchair of outrageous agedness

Or to throw in the towel, give-up and bugger off.

To die, to sleep. To be no more

And by this sleep end the fear of heart attack and the thousand bumps and shocks that wrinkled flesh is prone to.  It is a very tempting quick fix

To die, to sleep, To sleep, perchance to dream – oh shit – there’s the rub