50th Birthday Reset



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Growing New Brain Cells:

We’ve discussed memory loss and dementia prevention, including how technology now allows people to Google their own minds. But what if we could simply grow new brain cells? According to neuroscientist Sandrine Thuret, we can — and she provides practical tips to help our evolving brains improve mood, increase memory formation and prevent the decline often associated with aging.

It turns out the hippocampus is aptly named: it really is a “school” for neurogenesis. This part of the cerebral cortex, which has to do with memory, can regenerate — so it is a lot like being a perpetual student. Neuroscientists estimate we create 700 new neurons a day in the hippocampus, which might not sound like much, given the billions of neurons each of us has. Yet by age 50, every person will have undergone a complete neuron exchange. In this sense, the second half of life is literally about renewal, because our brains are brand new.

reverse mortgage newsDon’t Block That Brain!

Blocking may be an asset in football or knitting, but it’s a detriment when it comes to the brain. Reverse mortgage professionals, take note: if neurogenesis is blocked, someone can appear hopelessly depressed, even on antidepressants. Thuret tells of a cancer patient who was cured of her cancer yet remained severely depressed, because the chemotherapy had blocked neuron development. Without the ability to generate new neurons, her brain retained its memory of depression and pain.

This discovery has major implications for seniors, especially those on multiple medications, who may not actually be depressed — or may be able to heal from depression — except that their brains are being stymied in creating the new neurons they need.

There are many simple choices we can make daily that will enhance neurogenesis, as both Thuret’s TEDtalk and this hippocampus post enumerate.

Neurogenesis In Action

One age-defying elder has taken full advantage of his 50th year “rebirth” to continually reinvent himself, earning him an A+ in living life to the fullest. The two-minute video inspires.

Former HeartMath CEO, Stanford University adjunct faculty, “cancer survivor and double hip replacement thriver” Bruce Cryer is another neuron new man who says, “I don’t believe in aging.” He declares, “I’m 63, feel like 33 (most of the time), and prove to myself daily that aging is what we choose to make it. I’m dancing on two titanium hips, singing like I did in my 20s, creating new businesses and developing new skills. Retirement isn’t in my future, ever. I’ve had a renaissance, a rebirth from old ways of thinking and living, and I’m having more fun and more adventure than ever.”

Nourishing Senior Neurons

It turns out that calorie restriction has a positive impact on neurogenesis, so while many may balk at eating less in order to nourish their brains (which sounds counterintuitive), what a senior eats is much more important in the long run than how much.

Diets high in saturated fat, sugar, and alcohol are neurogenesis negatives. But all is not lost: resveratrol (found in red wine) is good for the brain. As always, moderation is key.

Intriguingly, food texture plays a vital role as well. Soft food diets (which many seniors may be on due to dental issues) have been found to impair neurogenesis; apparently, regular crunching — apples, carrots, nuts — is necessary for optimal brain function.

Other brain-enhancing foods include:

• Blueberries
• Omega 3 fatty acids (found in salmon, walnuts, chia seeds)
• Curcumin (found in the spice turmeric)
• Flavonoids (found in parsley, citrus fruits, wine and cocoa)
• Folic acid (one of the B vitamins, found in leafy greens, nuts and seeds, avocados, carrots, and a host of other foods)
• Zinc (found in beef and lamb, chicken, beans, nuts, and certain seafood).

Proof that dark chocolate is good for you? Josie began working at the Ghiradelli Chocolate Factory in 1966, when she was 36. Do the math: she’s now 86, with “no plans to retire”.

So proper diet and exercise really do help the aging process — and, barring medications that prevent new neuron formation, will continue making older brains new again.

 

Death, Be Not Proud



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reverse mortgage newsDuring the dog days of summer, Betsy Davis, who had ALS (the progressive motor neuron disease also known Lou Gehrig’s disease, which theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has as well) hosted an extraordinary gathering: a two-day party for friends and relatives — at the close of which she took a lethal dose of drugs to end her life. Davis is one of the first Californians to take advantage of the state’s new End of Life Option Act for the terminally ill.

Her friends called the party “the final performance” for the painter and performance artist, who could no longer stand, brush her teeth or scratch an itch. “What Betsy did gave her the most beautiful death that any person could ever wish for,” said cinematographer Niels Alpert. “By taking charge, she turned her departure into a work of art.”

Dying the way she wanted

Although Davis wasn’t a senior, her decision to take control of her dying process is becoming more common among elders who know the end is near.

While Betsy Davis hosted her farewell party in San Diego, in Chicago, 92-year-old Margaret Coleman was also preparing to die: at home, attended by her fourteen children. For the previous two years, the kids had rotated caregiving shifts as their mother grew frail. With fourteen people dividing the work, each needed to cover only a single weekly 12-hour shift, so that Coleman was never alone.

In her final weeks, the devoted children helped their mom fulfill the final item on her bucket list: a visit to the family cottage on Lake Michigan, where she’d been summering since the 1930s. They packed up her wheelchair and portable oxygen. Parked her bed next to the window, with a view of the lake. And yes, threw a party.

Once back home, Coleman smiled her gratitude, and peacefully expired. The family talked about how happy it made them that she could die at home, as she’d wanted.

Preparing for the death they choose

This is what many seniors want — and what their families and friends may be quite reluctant to face: enabling the elders they love to die the way they prefer, which is far from the dominant paradigm of being hospitalized, surrounded by strangers and impersonal machines.

The less we fear aging and death, the more helpful we can be to those approaching this passage. Reverse mortgage professionals can serve as a bridge, since you work with both a senior population and their family members. As one LO wisely states, “As we age, we become our parents and finally our grandparents, and it provides us with the unique opportunity to help guide and instill the right values in our younger family members without being judgmental.”

Holding space for the dying

The best way to prepare those who are nearing death is to hold space for their process, which will also go a long way towards mitigating the fear of dying, for them and for us.

What does “holding space” mean? Basically, to walk with someone (figuratively, if not literally) on their journey, without judging how it could or should look. Admittedly, this is not an easy task. It entails opening the heart wide in vulnerability.

Ideally, holding space happens in a circle of support and not in a vacuum, so that while you hold space for a client or a loved one who is dying, someone else (perhaps a chaplain, hospice nurse, other caregiver, or friend) is holding space for you.

By creating a container in which it is safe enough for someone to express what they want and share challenging emotions, we grant the seniors in our lives the power to choose the kind of exit that surrounds them with love, peace, and even a measure of happiness.

Elder Cool is Red Hot!



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Last month we discussed how grandparenthood is shifting radically from “the old days”. Maybe age really is just a number…

sc4Could the following elders be the next level of “whither grandparenthood”?

• Dame Judi Dench got her first tattoo at 81. It was a birthday present from her 43-year-old daughter. The actress had her favorite saying, “Carpe diem”, inked onto her wrist — although her costars, carping, you might say, on her eccentricity, insisted the tattoo said, “Fish of the day.” But even her creative achievement pales in comparison with this British great-grandfather, who got his first tattoo at 104!
• Indefatigable Betty White, 94, honored female rapper Queen Latifah by giving a dramatic reading of the latter’s hip-hop lyrics. Listening to White recite these words with such conviction is not only inspiring — it galvanizes respect.
• Norman Lear, the creator of some of the most successful sitcoms of all time, is still producing television shows at 94. Like Dench and White, he possesses a wonderful sense of humor. He says, “Often I’ll get undressed and look at myself, dissatisfied but amused — and I’ll sing and dance alone, in front of a full-length mirror. And I have wondered, for a great many years, how do we know that’s not the secret to longevity?” In this engaging 9-minute video, Lear auditions senior actors for “Guess Who Died?”, a show about the elderly that, he avers, “Nobody wants.”

Yet death itself is apparently becoming cool. Thanks to the Internet, obituaries now have an afterlife. We’ve discussed what happens to someone’s digital assets when they die — but the obits are going viral.

The weekend after legendary boxer Muhammad Ali died, Legacy.com published a 600-word obituary. However, nearly a million obituaries on the site received hits from the curious. The Legacy.com stories read like lifestyle blog posts and include pictures, which help draw readers in. The departed live on, in digital perpetuity.

The Second Half May Be the Best

Granville Stanley Hall, who essentially invented adolescence at the beginning of the 20th century with a landmark book by that title — when he himself was 60 — subsequently created the concept of senescence as well, publishing Senescence: The Last Half of Life at age 76. Even a century ago, Hall viewed later life with the same sense of renewal and possibility as Dench, White and Lear. He wrote,

“Modern man was not meant to do his best work before forty but is by nature, and is becoming more and more so, an afternoon and evening worker.” (And he’s not referring to shift work!)

“Not only with many personal questions but with most of the harder and more complex problems that affect humanity we rarely come to anything like a masterly grip till the shadows begin to slant eastward, and for a season, which varies greatly with individuals, our powers increase as the shadows lengthen.” Indeed, Hall’s greatest creativity and achievement came after age 50.

Hall’s words will be heartening for reverse mortgage professionals and the seniors they serve. Clearly, with the right perspective, we can use our gifts fully right to the very end (Hall published Senescence just two years before he died.)

Oh — and if you or an elder you know is considering getting that first tattoo, be sure you get the spelling right. Carpe diem!

Whither Grandparenthood?

Aging in the Third Millenium: Part 3


My father’s parents adored being grandparents, and wanted us kids to call them by their first names because it “made them feel young”. Growing up, I didn’t see anything unusual about this.

Today, grandparents — especially younger, chic grandmothers — are youthifying with a vengeance. “Glam Grams” Goldie Hawn, Susan Sarandon and Kris Jenner prefer the monikers GoGo, Honey, and Lovey, respectively.

It isn’t only the famous and fabulous who are remaking the image of what a grandparent looks like, or is called. One 80-year-old grandmother now refers to herself as “Glam-ma” after her stunning style makeover. The Croatian grandma’s metamorphosis took place courtesy of her granddaughter, a professional make-up artist, and the before and after photos are stunning.

On Their Own

younger-grandparentBut as reverse mortgage professionals who work with this cohort every day are no doubt aware, the desire to transform the image of elders is not just physical. As seniors look ahead to possible decades of life left to enjoy, they may want to focus on their own pursuits a while longer — especially if they’re staying trim and fit.

AARP reports that the average age of first-time grandparents is now 47. Not exactly an age when most people are ready to spend all day on the golf course (unless they retired early to do just that!) or by the pool. And if these young glam-mas and go-get-’em grandpas still work, they may want to reserve their weekends for relaxing or travel.

In fact, according to Paul Cronin, partner in The Platinum Years, the concept of retirement itself is a big, fat lie. “It’s time to replace ‘retiring’ with ‘purposeful living’. It’s a time to reflect on your values. It’s a time to dig into the person you are today and ask if that is the person you wish to be in the future? So instead of thinking ‘when am I going to retire?’ ask yourself, ‘How am I going to get the most out of the rest of my life?'”

Is 100 the Magic Number?

Perhaps grandparents will have more bandwidth for the youngsters in their lives a few decades hence — when they’re 100. According to the National Institute on Aging, “The global number of centenarians is projected to increase 10-fold between 2010 and 2050. In the mid-1990s, some researchers estimated that, over the course of human history, the odds of living from birth to age 100 might have risen from 1 in 20,000,000 to 1 in 50 for females in low-mortality nations such as Japan and Sweden.” So the odds are good that some of your reverse mortgage clients and prospects may eventually become members of the Triple-Digit Club.

A New Pair of Genes

Then again, after a health and style makeover, glam-grams might decide to turn back the clock for real, by shopping for a new pair of genes: the first human gene rejuvenation has lengthened shortening telomeres, resulting in “younger” cells. Up until now, these DNA segments that shorten naturally with age couldn’t be genetically modified.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the company that piloted this gene therapy has received strong interest from around the globe.

All of which might prove very good for your reverse mortgage business, as time goes by…

Staying Fit as We Age

Aging in the Third Millenium: Part 2


If we’re going to live longer and make new friends to help us enjoy the journey, it only makes sense to keep our traveling vessels in excellent condition. Not the car; a vehicle we use even more often, but may not service as well: our bodies.

This fantastic four-minute video demonstrates how to “disrupt” aging, no matter what our age. It illumines the truth that how we perceive “old” has more to do with how we feel than with our chronology. And how we feel begins with taking care of the body. In fact, physical fitness is the highest projected growth area for senior health and wellness, with a predicted $8.2 billion in cumulative revenues between 2015 and 2020.

Stride Right

You know that “old person” shuffle? A new university study of masters level runners reveals what causes it. Stride length and running speed slow by about 20 percent from age 20 to 59 — and ankle power decreases by almost half during the same period. As we age, strength training can make a big difference.

The National Institutes of Health suggests a range of senior exercises to build endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility, for both upper and lower body. You can try this simple test for musculoskeletal strength if you’re over 50. The results might shock you.

Cut A Rug

Hiking the Appalachian Trail
Hiking the Appalachian Trail

One reverse mortgage professional, a longtime ballroom dancer, maintains that dancing is one of the best activities to help seasoned adults stay fit, as well as to meet new friends and have fun, and the research backs him up — for mental health as well as physical fitness. A study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine found that seniors who danced three to four times a week — especially those who ballroom danced — had a 75 percent lower risk of dementia compared with people who didn’t dance at all.

Despite a recent New York Times article debunking the “myth” that exercise builds strong bones, it’s still essential for good health, particularly for the older set. While bone growth may be minimal, weight-bearing exercise does decrease the risk of bone fracture, thanks to stronger muscles. And exercise has been shown to slow brain aging by a decade. So your reverse mortgage clients would be smart to tie on those dancing shoes.

Jump into Health and Fitness

A step back from dancing is bouncing. I’ve been rebounding, or jumping on a mini-trampoline, for more than 20 years. Like dancing, rebounding increases cardiovascular functioning, flexibility and balance, so seniors can jump for joy that they’re heart-smart, toned and able to touch their toes. The rebounder’s small size and taut mat make it easy to control movement, and it’s not necessary to bounce high for benefit: you can bounce without your feet ever leaving the mat.

Eighty-year-old cancer survivor Dr. James Rota explains the benefits of what he calls Bouncercise in this short video. My personal favorite rebounder for health and detoxification is made by Needak Rebounders, which offers an optional stabilizing bar attachment that creates a handhold for those who need additional support. Bouncing is a great way to protect precious elder knees, ankles and other joints while getting a full-body workout.

Take A Hike

If dancing or bouncing doesn’t get a senior’s groove on, perhaps the great outdoors holds more appeal. One septuagenarian hiked the 2180-plus mile Appalachian Trail in 2015 with his son, and brought home a backpack full of photos and once-in-a-lifetime memories to share at his local senior center. “Ironman Bill” braved ice, snow, and other weather challenges, took a brief break to nurse a knee injury, reveled in the astonishing beauty of nature, and returned with a strong sense of accomplishment.

Whatever form of fitness seniors choose, it’s important to stick with it as though they’re in training for the contact sport called aging — because we are.

 

Aging in the Third Millenium

Making Friends with Age, As We Age




“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?”

~ Satchel Paige

Who retires at 65? Far fewer people than just a couple of decades ago. According to the World Economic Forum, in 1994 a forth of American men aged 65-69 participated in the labor force. That figure had risen to 36 percent by 2014 — and is forecast to reach 40 percent by 2024.

reverse mortgage newsThe trend is similar for even older men, with 17 percent of those aged 75-79 expected to still be working in a decade, up from just ten percent in 1994.

“Clearly, these older people did not get the message that they were supposed to become old-age dependents when they turned 65,” states the Forum.

I know two 70+ entrepreneurs (one of whom is 76-year-old prosperity coach Joan Sotkin, just to even the gender playing field a bit), who are thriving in their global businesses, with no plans to retire. Veteran broadcast journalist Morley Safer said goodbye to 60 Minutes last month — at 84. After 46 years, the celebrated correspondent observed, “It’s been a good run”. Safer then said goodbye to life a few weeks later. Perhaps, for those of us who truly love what they do, retirement is a final farewell. There’s Ron Lehker, becoming a Reddit guru at 90. Many reverse mortgage professionals reading this blog are also well beyond traditional retirement age.

On one hand, this means the economic and health care “burden” of today’s retirees may be less onerous than projected.

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

On the other hand, living longer, healthier lives also means adapting to change — and finding new friends.

Last month we looked at the importance of accepting change as a key to later life happiness. Losing friends as we grow older is a fact of life: they (or we) relocate, become busy with family, or in some cases, become ill and leave the Earth plane (any of which, of course, can happen at any age).

Making new friends is not something to be left for a rainy day. Being open to and seeking out new friendships throughout the life spectrum is vital. One enterprising Wall Street Journal reporter refers to this quest as “friend dating,” and suggests five steps to starting a friendship:

  • Mine existing friendships for “bridge” friends.
  • Expand your horizons: don’t just pursue people like you.
  • Release expectations; friendships develop over time.
  • Share who you are, and welcome the other person’s sharing. It’s a mutual dance of discovery.
  • Follow up! Just as with reverse mortgage prospects, the initial contact, or friend date, simply sets the stage. Keep connecting with people who seem like good potential new friends.

There was a point in my life where I counted among my friends at least one person in almost every decade of life: I had friends in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 70s, 80s and 90s. While this has shifted over time, I still love reaching out to those younger and older than I am, as well as to those nearer my own age. It’s refreshing to serve in a mentoring role, and to adopt elders as role models.

The Conscious Elders Network is one such organization of chronologically gifted adults who are joining hands, hearts and intention to help revitalize the planet. Working cross-generationally, the educational non-profit’s website states, “Our vision is to initiate a cultural shift wherein conscious elders reclaim our place in providing education, wisdom, and guidance within our communities. We have the benefits of time, talent, experience and know-how to guide making the needed transformations.” For anyone who’s interested, CEN is holding its annual conference in northern California in September.

It might be a wonderful opportunity to make new friends.

Looking for more reverse mortgage news, commentary, and technology? Visit ReverseFocus.com today.

Recommended Reading for Reverse Mortgage Clientele

We’ve covered retirement websites and family resources, but not books to help elders prepare for later life living. Here are thirteen suggestions, broken out by category, for timely and timeless reads reverse mortgage professionals may want to keep on their office shelves, or have as a handy list, to share with clients and prospects.

Note: While we’ve included Amazon links for easy reference, most of these titles will be available through local libraries, or via the nationwide interlibrary loan (ILL) system, so there’s no need for seniors to purchase a book unless they wish to own a copy.

Italicized passages are direct quotes from the books.

reverse mortgage newsPositive Aging

The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife by Mark Freedman

In his landmark book, social entrepreneur Freedman, who coined the term “encore careers” to describe jobs people embrace in the second half, says our extended life span has introduced a new life stage.

The end of middle age is no longer, for most people, attached to the beginning of either retirement or old age. We’re in the early stages of a great migration…across time and the life course, as tens of millions (8,000 Baby Boomers turn 60 every day) reach the spot where middle age used to end and old age once began.

The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life by Gene Cohen

The unique combination of age, experience, and creativity can produce exciting inner growth and infinite potential for everyone, says Gene Cohen, MD, PhD. Weaving research with inspiring life stories and fresh insights, Dr. Cohen takes the reader into previously uncharted territory of human potential in the second half of life.

Creativity is a powerful inner resource that is not only possible in later life, but common.

From Age-ing to Sage-ing by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Growing older does not automatically confer wisdom, but growing wiser is always possible, says Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi. To put an “s” in front of age, someone must consciously choose the path of “spiritual eldering.”

By activating their dormant powers of intuition, they become seers who feed wisdom back into society and guide the long-term reclamation project of healing our planet.

Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton

At 61, Sarton, already an accomplished poet and author, published this diary-like memoir that pulls no punches about life, living alone, romantic love, and the creative process. It’s the kind of book one can read and re-read at various life stages (I first read it in my twenties.)

Friends, even passionate love, are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore what is happening or what has happened. I hope to break through into the rough, rocky depths, to the matrix itself. There is violence there and anger never resolved. My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of what will happen when suddenly I enter the huge empty silence if I cannot find support there.

The Measure of My Days by Florida Scott-Maxwell

I read Scott-Maxwell’s classic at age 24, when her perspective was sixty years in my future. A playwright and Jungian analyst, she discusses the unique predicament of one’s later years: when the body may rebel but the mind is still vital and passionate.

You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done … you are fierce with reality.

Ripening Time: Inside Stories for Aging with Grace by Sherry Ruth Anderson

How do we become elders in the truest sense, and not simply old? Anderson, who wrote this book in her 70s, says it’s an inner sense of relaxation, a letting go of thinking we’re the center of the universe, a generativity towards those who will follow.

We’re a new fruit. To reach the true harvest of our lives, the point is not to know the map but to be the map. The point is to mature not for ourselves alone but for all our kin, all those who have gone before us and the children of the future.

Health/Nutrition/Fitness

Loving Yourself to Great Health by Louise Hay

At 89, best-selling author and personal growth pioneer Louise Hay is in exceptional good health — and decades ago, she conquered cancer. In this book that transcends fads, diets and dogma, Hay, together with two health and nutrition professionals, shows us how to take our health, moods, and energy to the next level, whatever our age.

Safe 4 Retirement by Jack Tatar

When Tatar lost both his parents within six months, it set him on a course to discover what really makes retirement work. In this book, he covers the four pillars he believes make for a successful retirement: financial preparedness, health/wellness, mental attitude, and social involvement. A friendly, informal read packed with research and experience you can use today to enrich your retirement tomorrows.

Preparing for Death

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

Old age is not a disease, though modern medicine has been treating it as one, argues Harvard Medical school professor and surgeon Atul Gawande in his compelling bestseller. Worth reading at any age and life stage.

“We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think [it] is to ensure health and survival. But really it…is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way.”

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

In this graphic memoir, New Yorker magazine cartoonist Roz Chast tackles her parents’ decline into old age and death with a humor and humility that makes the book an astonishing read, filled with more beauty than pathos, poignant yet positive. Her signature drawings balance the serious subject matter.

My mother belonged to a Poetry Club. She also played classical piano in a group that, to all the members’ amusement, was called Classical Pianists in Retirement: CPR.

Deathing: An Intelligent Alternative for the Final Moments of Life by Anya Foos-Graber

This is a stunning work, especially comforting for people who may have no belief system or structure for facing life’s final ascent. It is an actual instruction manual for how to prepare for dying, and can be used to support a loved one who is close to transitioning, as well as for preparing for one’s own passage.

Ordinarily when people die, they are unprepared and uninformed; probably they are bewildered or frightened, especially if they are alone. Deathing offers a way to free up dying people so they can utilize the highest potential of the transition called death and experience it as a peak moment, a culmination of life. This deliberate, practical, yet spontaneous approach…can enable people to attain higher levels of consciousness.

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

Dubbed “the bestselling memoir of all time,” Albom’s touching tribute takes us though fourteen Tuesday visits with his beloved former professor, who is dying from ALS — and living more fully in his last year than many people do in a lifetime.

Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a rare but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine? If you are lucky enough to find your way to such teachers, you will always find your way back. Sometimes it is only in your head. Sometimes it is right alongside their beds.

The last class of my old professor’s life took place once a week, in his home, by a window in his study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink flowers. The class met on Tuesdays. No books were required. The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught from experience.

Fiction

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

Allan Karlsson has lived an event-filled life, supping with heads of state on several continents. But, though he’s still healthy and mentally sound, he ends up in a nursing home that cramps his style. Thus on the morning of his 100th birthday, Allan spontaneously decides to escape by climbing out his bedroom window.

It’s no accident that “escape” is the root of escapade, because the hijinks that ensue are a laugh-out-loud testament to what friendship and a sense of adventure can create, at any age. The book is also historically well researched, and Allan’s insertion into actual world events may be quite amusing to those who lived through them the first time.

Have a favorite title that’s not on this list? Please share it in the Comments section, below!

The Final Frontier

The Final Frontier: Saying Yes to Death


When we’ve discussed the “D” word before, it’s often been in the context of humor. But for one demographic, death, while potentially far from where they are in their life trajectory, is very much top of mind.

We’re speaking, of course, of the Millennials, whose digital innovation touches upon every aspect of life — including death. Last month we took a look at an app that helps patients reflect on their medical wishes and facilitate family discussions. Now some innovative young entrepreneurs are taking it a step beyond, creating death apps that guide people in planning their own passage, where even the memorial service is likely to be worthy of Instagram uploads.

reverse mortgage newsCurating one’s death, no matter how far in the future, also seems like a natural extension of digital estate planning: if you’re going to make sure your Facebook and Twitter accounts are in good hands once you shuffle off this mortal coil, it’s prudent to do the same with your own passage. And in keeping with the potential humor inherent in life (and death) discussions, death apps put a positive spin on the formerly sarcastic expression, “It’s your funeral.”

Millennials point up the disquieting truth that it’s never too soon to think about one’s own death. This may actually be easier to do when it’s a vague vision in some distant decade — though even those in midlife (ahem) may have difficulty deciding to actually complete that Advance Directive sitting on their computer desktop for a few years now.

One mortician describes how, in the Middle Ages, people prepared to face death via a religious vehicle known as the Ars Moriendi, or Art of Dying: an instruction manual that taught Christians how to die a good death. She laments that there is no such manual available to us today.

How to Prepare for Your Own Death

That’s not quite accurate. A few years ago, a hospice volunteer introduced me to an exceptional resource that has kept a fairly low profile: Deathing: An Intelligent Alternative for the Final Moments of Life. Published in 1989 by Anya Foos-Graber, Deathing is the real deal on conscious departure. Her definitive guide spells out clearly how each person can prepare for an informed death.

The first part of the book presents two teaching stories, illustrating first an “unconscious” death (how most of us in Western culture experience dying) followed by a conscious one.

Part 2 is a step-by-step manual, with complete instructions and simple exercises, such as breathing, visualization, and how to direct your attention during the death transition.

We have a lot of help entering the world, with attendants such as doctors, nurses, midwives, spouses and friends ready to welcome us and tend to the birthing mother. But in Western culture there is no corresponding death ritual to support us in exiting the body we’ve inhabited.

This is a stunning work, especially comforting for people who may have no belief system or structure for facing life’s final ascent. It may be a useful tool to refer to certain reverse mortgage clients or their families, depending on your relationship with them.

Looking for more reverse mortgage news, commentary, and technology? Visit ReverseFocus.com today.

Millennial “Retirees”? Not Exactly…

But they’re smoothing the way for today’s elders


What happens when a Millennial becomes Entrepreneur-in-Residence at a retirement community? He gets the inside scoop on what daily life is really like for people who’ve lived most of their lives minus the technology 20- and 30-somethings take for granted. And the experience engenders a fresh appreciation for positive aging.

This unusual program originated out of a desire to develop technologies to address and improve physical, social and mental challenges for the very old — and immersion in their daily experience seemed like the smartest way to learn what might be needed.

Says Brookdale Senior Living Entrepreneur-in-Residence Andrew Smith, “People 80 and above are the fastest growing population, but for too long we’ve been designing products for everyone but this population. There’s a huge opportunity to enhance seniors’ lives with new technologies, services and products.”

senior-techSeniors: The Original Tech Innovators

This population is much more tech aware than Millennials might think at first blush, Smith reminds. “If you are 100 years old, you have lived without the web for 85% of your life. But I balk when people say seniors are resistant to technology, because they are the very inventors and consumers who drove all this innovation in the first place. Think about it: television (1927), microwaves (1947), putting a man on the moon (1969), home video game consoles (1972), mobile phones (1973), Sony Walkman (1979), and on and on.”

Smith’s 2-minute video shows how eager the residents were to share every aspect of their lives with him, knowing he was there on their behalf. It’s a heartwarming testament to the incredible value of simply listening and asking questions about elders’ lives, which is what the best reverse mortgage professionals do every day with their clients, prospects, and family members of the seniors they serve.

How Millennials are Transforming Death Discussions

Perhaps even more surprising is the way Millennials have stepped up to face the last taboo, many decades before it will become reality for most of them: death discussions. A Stanford medical postdoc who witnessed “how often we put patients through painful procedures without having a meaningful conversation about their health goals and all the potential outcomes,” co-founded Copilots in Care with his business school friend.

An app that connects patients to in-person social workers who help them reflect on their medical wishes and facilitate open discussions with family, Copilot asks the questions people might not have considered — or may have thought about, but refused to discuss.

Says Evy Schiffman, 65, whose husband was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at 63, “Boomers have always been willing to speak about the unspeakable. We will transform the way society looks at, talks about and faces death. Because death is not optional.” She and husband Neil talked candidly about how Neil defined quality of life, and what he wanted his death to look like. Now innovative startups such as Copilots in Care will make it easier for everyone to have the essential discussions that allow them to have the end of life they deserve.