Gray Lives Matter
Deep in thought, I take what seems like it has to be the last step up the stairs to my level of the parking garage.
Earlier that day, I heard a story on the radio about research done at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada that shows that climbing stairs daily can greatly improve the gray matter in your brain as you get older.
Gee, I thought, I could sure use some more gray matter, and also for sure, I am getting older.
As I reached the landing I decided to peek around the corner to see if this was my level.
The sign over the elevator said Level Two.
C’mon Level Two? I thought. How can that be?
Oh well, I needed Level Five
I continued, this time much more aware of my progress. Acutely aware I would say as I landed Level Five.
Wow, it’s amazing at this age, how quickly you lose it. Though I have been running for almost thirty years now, it’s not always been consistent. There have been periods, usually associated with times of life stress, when I have taken a break from running. Some of those breaks lasted a long time, like the year after Donny’s accident, and last year for instance.
But just two years ago I was running ten miler’s and I did my first and only half marathon.
Now, I am struggling to get to my truck on Level Five of the Reston Hospital parking garage.
The same study also showed a correlation with education in that for every year of education, the brain appeared a year younger.
I am not sure I am going to go back to school at this point but you never know. I have been obsessively reading, though mostly with audio books so I guess technically not “reading”. Maybe, however, I will get some gray matter credit for that. Or maybe I just need to double up on the stair climbing.
Though this growing old thing is something I think about a lot, I don’t obsessively worry about it. I just have so much more I want to do, and so in some ways I guess I am looking forward to it. All those things I was unable to do while “growing up”; those things that I put off until later in life when I could afford to do them in time and otherwise. I want a shot at those. But in my world it is nothing elaborate, nothing excessive. It’s just some peace, a break from worry, more time with my wife, more time with my family, more time with a fishing pole. And as the title of this website implies, Musings of an Aging Nobody: what I want to do when I grow up, more time doing this sort of thing.
So if I want to accomplish all that it will be important to stay healthy in mind and body. The truth is, we should all be climbing more stairs because let’s face it, America is graying and gray lives matter! Gray matter matters!
See you in the stairwell.