More Dr. Shigeaki Honohara’s, 101 years, (See blogs Nov. 23 & 24)

Advice for a Long, Healthy Life = Tips for Age Esteem

* To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving.

* My inspiration is Robert Browning’s poem “Abt Vogler.” My father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.

* Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it. If a child has a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or she immediately forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients: We all want to have fun. At St. Luke’s we have music and animal therapies, and art classes.

* Don’t be crazy about amassing material things.Remember: You don’t know when your number is up, and you can’t take it with you to the next place.

* Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they must accept every patient who appears at their doors. We designed St. Luke’s so we can operate anywhere: in the basement, in the corridors, in the chapel. Most people thought I was crazy to prepare for a catastrophe, but on March 20, 1995, I was unfortunately proven right when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. We accepted 740 victims and in two hours figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly we lost one person, but we saved 739 lives.

* Science alone can’t cure or help people. Science lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.

* Life is filled with incidents. On March 31, 1970, when I was 59 years old, I boarded the Yodogo, a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka . It was a beautiful sunny morning, and as Mount Fuji came into sight, the plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. I spent the next four days handcuffed to my seat in 40-degree heat. As a doctor, I looked at it all as an experiment and was amazed at how the body slowed down in a crisis.

* Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do. My father went to the United States in 1900 to study at Duke University in North Carolina . He was a pioneer and one of my heroes. Later I found a few more life guides, and when I am stuck, I ask myself how they would deal with the problem.

* It’s wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for one’s family and to achieve one’s goals. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love every minute of it.

These tips were sent to me in an e-mail concerning Dr. Hinohara. His advice also offers excellent tips for enhancing your age esteem.

Bonnie Fatio

Dr. Shigeaki Hinora’s (See blog Nov. 23, 2013)

Advice for a Long, Healthy Life = Tips for Age Esteem.

Each of the following bits of advice for living a long and healthy life are tips and techniques for promoting your age esteem.

* Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too. It’s best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.

* All people who live long regardless of nationality, race or gender share one thing in common: None are overweight. For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Olive oil is great for the arteries and keeps my skin healthy. Lunch is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too busy to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work. Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean meat.

* Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full until 2014, with lectures and my usual hospital work. In 2016 I’ll have some fun, though: I plan to attend the Tokyo Olympics!

* There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65. The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will have about 50,000 people over the age of 100…

* Share what you know. I give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school children, others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90 minutes, standing, to stay strong.

* When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure. Contrary to popular belief, doctors can’t cure everyone. So why cause unnecessary pain with surgery I think music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine.

These were sent to me in an e-mail and are on numerous sites on the internet. There will be the second, and last, installment of his advice tomorrow.

Bonnie Fatio

Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara

Age Esteem at 101 Years

Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, Japan, turned 101 on 4th October 2012

Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world’s longest-serving physicians and educators. Hinohara’s magic touch is legendary: Since 1941 he has been healing patients at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke’s College of Nursing.

He has published around 15 books since his 75th birthday, including one “Living Long, Living Good” that has sold more than 1.2 million copies. As founder of the New Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to live a long and happy life, a quest in which no role model is better than the doctor himself.

I received this message in an e-mail and find it well worth sharing. I researched to find that Dr. Hinohara was lecturing in August of this year and probably still continues. He is a model of age esteem for all of us.

Bonnie Fatio

Pineapple For Healthy Aging

Pineapple is a wonderful tasting fruit, but also so valuable to our health. It is known to ease indigestion, arthritis and sinusitis.

As pineapple is very high in manganese, it will help to develop strong bones, so important for older people. – Both for our physical health and our age esteem.

The enzyme bromelain seems to be the clue to the pineapple’s value. It is considered as anti-inflammatory and aids in digestion. It is effective in reducing mucous in the throat and eases coughing.

Fresh pineapple makes a great addition to salads as well as a tasty dessert all by itself.

Grandma Nature

Age Esteem is “Being”

Are you present in the moment, or are you ruled by To Do Lists and self-imposed obligations?

I came across an e-zine that I had written three years ago.  “This is really good stuff”, I thought.  I pulled out another and another.

Did I really write these?  I know that I did, but they seemed to convey an authenticity that has been missing recently.

What has happened?  What am I doing differently today to make them less than they were?  Is it because of my health issues?  I have had several during the past three years.  Have I turned my passion into work?  I still love what I do.  Many questions bombarded me.

The answer came to me a couple days later as I was writing my To Do List. – I have become caught up in “doing” rather than “being”!

This revelation shook me up.  I had always prided myself in being drawn toward my vision rather than building it.  But here I was, several business mentors later, realizing that I was no longer being my genuine self and living the vision.  Instead, I was caught up in doing what must be done to build the vision.

You may say, “Of course you were.  That is how empires are made.”  But it is evident to me that I do not want to build an empire.  My vision is of a world where people of all ages are respected as valued members of society.

It is not an empire.  It is an attitude, a way of life that enhances lives around the globe.

I want to be a catalyst for this vision to positively transform the way we look at age.  It is a vision of dignity, respect and appreciation for the contribution and potential of each age, which is inclusive of all people.  This vision wants to be so strong that people begin to think, act and live the vision.

Yes!  For this I need to go back to “being” the vision.  Being means breathing, thinking, dreaming, feeling and vibrating the vision now.  It means being present in each moment.

I AM and I choose to BE.

Time will tell the difference this will make.  Oh, yes.  I will continue to “do” as well, but only as it relates to “being”.

How about you?

Bonnie Fatio

Giving Thanks For Age Esteem

Thank you November

For your special day!

How grateful we are

For Thanksgiving’s way

Of bringing together –

To share and to feast

(In fair or “fowl” weather

From South, North or East,)

Young ones or elders and

Those in between –

And thank you for guiding us

To our age esteem!

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

Your Authentic Voice

Are you speaking with your authentic voice through your writing?

Bonnie Fatio will be guest speaker at the Writing from Your Heart on-line gathering on November 19th at 11am PT. She will be interviewed by Eileen Parr on Age Esteem and “Transforming the world with your authentic voice”, the theme of this week.

Sign up for this Free series here and tune into Bonnie Fatio and other well-known, dynamic speakers.

Apples: A Source For Healthy Aging

An apple a day, la, la, la. It should be said that an “unpeeled” apple a day keeps the doctor away. (Of course, it must be washed very thoroughly because of pesticides.) The skin is rich in fibers which stabilize blood sugars and thus reduces the risk of diabetes. Substances in apples reduce the cholesterol level and antioxidants in them improve lung function.

Apples are wonderful for the skin. They contain substances such as minerals and vitamins, which nourish the skin from deep within. They can eliminate brown spots.

Eating an apple will give the sensation of feeling full, thus eating less and losing weight easily.  Fibers in apples absorb fats and sugar like a sponge and aid in eliminating them from the body.

Foods that promote healthy aging also enhance your age esteem.

Grandma Nature

We were moved by spirit and wisdom.

There are times in your life where you’ll feel forever grateful that you were in the right place at the right time. Tuesday’s event was one of those times.

Those of us who had the fortune of listening to Bonnie Fatio will most likely remember her radiating charisma, words of wisdom and powerful presence. Everyone exclaimed how touched and impacted they were by her. Not only is Bonnie Fatio an incredible story teller who has had fascinating life experiences, she is an inspiring visionary who is so self-motivating – she is the essence of ‘young at heart’ (… and in body, mind, spirit too!).

Bonnie has a dream to be the catalyst for the creation of a world where ‘age’ is not an issue and people can truly appreciate others for ‘who they are’ and not which category they fit into.

To achieve this in today’s society, we face the ‘i’ challenges – not those related to ipads, iphones or other i-tech, but the three unspoken ‘i’s of ‘aging’. Where, if you have an ‘elderly’ appearance you may be treated as though you were invisible / incompetent / insignificant – subconscious attitudes embedded within a society addicted to the image of youth.

So how do we turn this around? We get back in the driving seat and take charge because, as we learned from Bonnie, there is so much more available to us in life.

By becoming aware of how we think, feel and speak; uncovering our attitudes and expectations, can help us identify small positive changes to enhance the quality of our relationships with ourselves and others.

Bonnie encourages us to have a dream and passionately commit to it using these helpful steps along the way;

• Believe in yourself
• Contribute
• Realize “Its never too late..”

Our ETC values are very much aligned with those of AgeEsteem & we hope you get another chance to connect with Bonnie. So, if you find yourself anxious about the next phase of your life’s journey, consider calling Bonnie for an alternative and positive path that can turn your life around.

Sign up for Bonnie Fatio’s newsletter or workshops at www.AgeEsteem.com

Thank you dearest Bonnie for being you, for sharing your energy, wisdom and spirit with us.

Warmly, Anine & Cheryl

Expat Talents Connect is a face-to-face creative exchange network inspiring YOU to CONNECT & share your TALENTS and live your passions.

Let’s Be Witty

Wit is short for witty,

It’s what we all could be –

If in Town or City

We mostly showed some glee –

With poems and little ditties

(Though corny as can be!)

Oh, it would be a pity

If you didn’t all agree!

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®