You are forever hearing older people say that waking up each and every morning is a pleasure. Folk sayings like “Any day above ground is a good day,” “Growing old is a privilege denied to many,” and “Today I woke up. That’s the win; the rest is gravy.” Lots of comedians like to riff on their age, but the most famous for doing that were George Burns and Bob Hope, both of whom live to exactly 100 and actively worked until their late 90s. One of the two (no one seems certain which) used to say, “I check the obituaries every morning. If I’m not in them, I have breakfast.” There are many more great expressions that are not so attributable to specific comedians. My favorites are, “Past seventy, every sunrise is a standing ovation” and “I don’t need a reason to get up. Getting up is the reason.”
I really am not yet old enough to feel morbid about aging (though it never helps when someone close to you dies), but I do find myself spending more time asking myself if I feel good…or at least noticing whether I feel good. Unless something is specifically bothering me, that sort of self-assessment usually happens first thing in the morning, which is why I reference all those comedic expressions about waking up above ground. I suspect that a lot of that has to do with good sleep. Sleep is one of the biggest single levers you have. Poor sleep in older adults is linked to worse mood, slower thinking, more pain sensitivity, a weaker immune response, a higher fall risk, and, over the long run, a higher risk of dementia and heart disease. Many people find a bad night colors the whole next day more than any ache does. I benefit from having started using a CPAP machine more than 30 years ago (shout out to the wonderful Deb Wells for suggesting it to me after a particularly sleepless night at altitude in my Park City, Utah home). Even though I can now sleep without it, I continue to use it to make sure I get the best night’s sleep possible, even while traveling. Needing less sleep as you age is a myth. The need stays about the same. Adults 65+ still do best on roughly 7–8 hours (I WISH! If I get 6.5 like I did last night, I pat myself on the back). There is no doubt that with age, sleep quality drops, deep sleep shrinks (they say for my age it should be 5-15%, and last night it was 10% for me). Waking up during the night has become normal for me and they say that’s not unusual. Older people see a timing shift to earlier bedtime. They say your body clock tends to push toward early to bed and early to rise (Ben Franklin was smarter than most and he figured that out at age 28 and published it in Poor Richard’s Almanac…note the irony in the publication name). So the goal at my age isn’t perfect, unbroken sleep, it’s waking up feeling restored most days. If that’s happening, sleep is doing its job. What helps most, they say, is a consistent wake time (6-7am for me), morning daylight, exercise early in the day (the only way to go for me), no alcohol in the evening (easy for me since I do none…ever), and a cool, dark bedroom (always).
What has really helped me in my thinking about that all is my little Oura biofeedback ring that has now, after four months of wearing it, become a fixture in my daily life. I consult my Oura app first thing every morning to tell me how I’m doing. The three things I look at on the dashboard are Sleep, Activity, and Readiness. They give me a score out of 100 and rate me between Optimal and Needs Attention (why be too negative, right?). The score is like you got with school grades if you weren’t a super over-achiever. For instance, this morning I have an 84 (Good) on Activity, based on yesterday’s reasonably active workout and yardwork. There is lots more granularity to that if you want it, but much of that becomes noise to me. The Sleep score was 77 (Good) as well. I regularly score 80s or even 90s in activity, but rarely go above the 70s on sleep. I do spend more time on this element and the scorecard give me total sleep time (6hs 19mins), efficiency (79%), restfulness (needs attention…because I wake up and stay up too much), REM sleep (14%), Deep Sleep (10%), latency (6mins…I fall asleep easily and quickly), and timing (Optimal, since I go to bed regularly at 10-11pm). It also give me a Sleep Debt score, which I hate since it always seems to run high (13 hrs at present) and I never seem to catch up like I used to in my youth by “sleeping in” on a Sunday or something. Who can “sleep in” with old guy aches and pains? In any case, while I’m sure biofeedback rings ain’t for everyone, I am really finding mine useful and I think it helps me focus on how to improve my sleep and keep up my activity level, both of which seem pretty important to feeling good these days.
Oura also give me a Readiness score (76 Good for me today). To be honest, I don’t really get this part of the biofeedback. I think its trying to tell me how I feel and I’m not sure that is so useful given that I should be able to judge that for myself…and, indeed, would really rather determine that for myself. I am not Steve McQueen in Papillon, having to turn to the prisoner in the next cell during his annual shave and haircut to ask, “How do I look?” I do not need Oura to tell me how I feel. Oura throws in resting heart rate, HRV balance (heart rate variability compared over time), body temperature, heart rate recovery index (?), sleep, sleep balance over time, sleep regularity, previous day activities and activity balance. That’s a lot of biofeedback and probably a bit more than I find useful, but I put it in the overall “good to know” category and since Oura tells me my Readiness score is 76 Good today….I guess I an feeling good.
Satchel Page once said, “Age is mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” I prefer, “I’m not getting older, I’m getting better”, which reminds me me of my dear departed step-father, Irving, who used to say, when asked how he was, “Better and better.”