0:03

And hello to you, and welcome to the

0:05

Richard Nicholls Podcast, the

0:07

personal development podcast series

0:09

that's here to help inspire, educate,

0:11

and motivate you to be... The

0:13

best you can be! I'm

0:16

Psychotherapist Richard Nicholls, and

0:18

this episode is titled Ageing!

0:22

And if you're ready, we'll

0:25

start the show! Hey

0:30

there! It's December

0:32

already. This time next month... Christmas

0:34

will be done and dusted for another year,

0:37

so if you're getting stressed over

0:39

everything, just remember that. Although

0:41

it really doesn't seem very long since last Christmas,

0:43

does it? Well, it doesn't to me. Maybe that's

0:45

a time distortion thing because I'm getting

0:47

older. But 2023 seems

0:50

to have flown by, and what with

0:52

it being my birthday next week as well,

0:54

I do get a sense that I'm running out of time,

0:57

despite still having, hopefully, decades

1:00

left of life in me. Maybe I'm

1:02

only halfway through? But

1:05

however much time I've got, there's still

1:07

so many more stories to hear

1:09

and tell. Now, I'm 48

1:11

next week, but it doesn't seem 30

1:14

years ago when I was 18 and

1:16

all I wanted to be was older. And

1:18

if I cast my mind back to

1:20

December 1993, when

1:23

Meatloaf was at number 2, knocked off

1:25

the top spot by Mr. Blobby. Never going

1:27

to forgive Noel Edmonds for that. I

1:29

became 18 years old. It

1:31

was a Wednesday. I worked in a steel

1:33

tube warehouse back in those days

1:36

in Coventry. And when I mentioned to

1:39

one of the guys on the shop floor that it was my birthday,

1:41

he asked me how old I was. And

1:44

when I told him I was 18 today,

1:47

he stopped what he was doing. And he

1:49

looked at me and shook his head and said, God,

1:52

you've had a hard life. And

1:54

I thought, well, no,

1:57

not really, not compared to some. But

2:00

he said he'd always thought of me as much

2:02

older, which I'd never really considered

2:04

before. Being not quite 5

2:06

foot 5, I'd always been a bit shorter

2:08

than most people around me. So my

2:11

school age self, when

2:13

I became who I am,

2:16

because that's who, that's how we start with life, innit?

2:18

I always felt like... Everybody thought

2:20

I was younger than I was because I

2:22

was shorter than them and that they might have done Certainly

2:25

they didn't think I was older. So I

2:27

carried that feeling with me I think so

2:29

it became a bit of a a

2:31

surprise when this bloke can't

2:33

remember his name. Sorry, mate don't know if

2:35

you listen. Something McBride Can't

2:37

remember. He shouted over to a few people

2:40

that it was my birthday and asked

2:42

everybody to try and guess my age

2:44

They all put me in my mid 20s Which

2:47

went some way towards explaining why

2:49

I'd never been asked for ID in a pub, ever.

2:52

Not before I was 18, and not after either.

2:55

And this sudden realisation, aged

2:57

18, that people assumed I

2:59

was older, unless I told

3:02

them, forced me to stretch

3:04

my comfort zone a bit. I saw that people

3:06

expected more of me, expected

3:08

me to be a bit, to be a bit more... I

3:11

dunno, articulate? Coherent,

3:13

at least. Which did two things,

3:16

at the time. Increased my

3:18

already blossoming fear of judgement

3:20

from other people into a mushrooming

3:22

one. But also gave me

3:24

experiences I wouldn't normally have...

3:28

Having the trait of worrying about

3:30

what other people thought of me, and then combining

3:32

that with the idea that everyone expected

3:34

me to be more adult, more responsible

3:37

than I really was, made me

3:39

more adult, more responsible.

3:42

Anxious about it though! But it made

3:44

it happen. I was also involved

3:46

with some little local radio

3:49

stations, so I would present at these

3:51

outside broadcasts, at fetes and

3:53

charity events and stuff. Not

3:56

the sort of thing that 18 year olds usually

3:58

did. So I began to feel

4:00

older than I was. Not in a painful

4:03

way, but in a skill

4:05

set way. So... Fast

4:07

forward a few years, and I finished

4:09

my therapist training, still only in my

4:11

mid twenties, but with both

4:13

an older attitude and

4:16

an older looking hairline, which I think now suits

4:18

me. I think I look strange with hair. I put a wig

4:20

on not so long ago and I looked ridiculous.

4:23

But when I was 24, I was cursing

4:26

the myth that baldness is passed down

4:28

through the mother's DNA, because that's not

4:30

always true. Not if your dad's

4:32

DNA is full of bald men aged

4:34

30. Which it was.

4:36

So I was 24, wanting to be

4:39

a therapist, but also knowing that

4:41

my clients are going to be mostly older than

4:43

me, and they're expecting me to be older

4:45

as well, so... I lied

4:47

about my age. If they asked, I

4:49

was 30. And I kept on

4:52

being 30 all the way

4:54

through my 20s till I actually got

4:56

to 30. And then I thought, crap,

4:59

now I've got to actually start ageing now.

5:01

I spent my whole life feeling that people

5:03

think of me as older. I spent five

5:05

years wanting people to think I

5:07

was older so I could help with rapport

5:10

building in the therapy room. Now

5:12

I am older and I'm wanting to be younger again.

5:14

Oh, sorry mate, not going to happen.

5:17

So I needed to start getting my head around

5:19

the idea that ageing is a good

5:21

thing, that it's not only a part of life.

5:24

But it's a part of living, as

5:27

in experiencing,

5:29

that it's something to embrace rather

5:32

than to fear. And I think I'm probably there

5:34

now because I do want to

5:36

age. I want to grow

5:38

older. The alternative doesn't seem a very

5:40

attractive option at all, so hopefully

5:43

we're all going to grow old and

5:45

have all the benefits that it brings.

5:48

But I guess... Problems come when we don't notice

5:51

the benefits. We only look for,

5:53

and therefore only see, the negatives

5:56

of it. And I know it's hard to see a different

5:58

perspectives to stuff. If it was easy,

6:00

I wouldn't have a job. But it's worth putting

6:02

the effort in. And I'm quite excited

6:05

about it, actually. We're

6:07

an ageing population now, and

6:09

so there is a cultural shift

6:11

happening. We used

6:14

to say, people don't say it so much

6:16

anymore, life begins at

6:18

40, because it was then

6:20

that children would move out, mortgage

6:22

was paid off, and people had a bit more freedom.

6:25

Now, there are very few people

6:28

aged 40 that are mortgage free nowadays.

6:31

Mine goes up to when I'm 69, and

6:33

that's becoming commonplace,

6:35

as is being 40. and still

6:37

having your kids live with you. Very

6:39

few 40 year old parents have children old

6:41

enough to move out. So things are very

6:43

different now and hopefully it's

6:45

going to help us to challenge those cultural

6:48

ideas of things like age

6:50

and beauty as more and

6:52

more people are able to gain Better

6:55

insight into what real beauty

6:57

is, not fashion magazine

6:59

beauty. Hope I'm not being naive,

7:02

but I think we're all beginning to see

7:04

through the image manipulations, the Photoshop

7:06

stuff now. And even if the youngsters have

7:08

still got a lot to learn, by the time

7:11

we're old enough to worry about being old, we

7:13

hopefully have the wisdom to understand

7:15

true beauty in people

7:18

and in ourselves. What

7:21

I want is that ageing is less of a decline

7:23

and more of a transformation. It's just

7:26

different. It's a change, but

7:28

not a change into something bad. It's

7:30

just different. We're

7:33

not who we once were and we need

7:35

to embrace that. Not fear

7:37

it. We're growing older

7:39

from the moment we conceived, aren't

7:41

we? And we embraced it. When

7:43

I was 10, I wanted to be older.

7:45

I didn't want to be 10. I wanted to be a teenager.

7:48

Now when I was 13, I wanted to be 16

7:50

so I could get a motorbike licence. Then I wanted

7:52

to be 18 because I wanted to get a job.

7:55

I wanted to have a life. Well,

7:58

every step of the way has its

8:00

benefits. Now,

8:03

it's not easy to see them. At times,

8:05

they might be clouded by other things.

8:07

I mean, you try telling

8:10

a woman who's having a hot flush about

8:12

the benefits of the menopause,

8:14

but they do exist, and some

8:16

people, a third of women, genuinely

8:18

sail through it. And it's a few hot flushes

8:21

and then it's gone. That's only a third,

8:23

the other two thirds not so good. But

8:26

there are other benefits. No more periods,

8:28

no more painful breasts every four weeks,

8:30

no need for contraception. And

8:32

I know it's easy for me to say that. Difficult

8:35

as the menopause is though, it isn't only

8:38

bad. And there is a lot of research

8:40

into sex that shows that apparently

8:43

older couples have a far better

8:45

sex life than they did when they were younger.

8:48

Genuinely. With each decade,

8:51

satisfaction with our sex life goes

8:53

up. People in their 70s

8:55

are happier with it than they were in their 50s.

8:58

It's just different. Maybe it's more emotional,

9:01

more secure, less judgmental. Dunno.

9:04

Whatever it is, don't care! Embrace

9:06

it! There's an interesting statistic

9:08

that grabbed my attention, because until recently,

9:11

the happiest point of our lives, when

9:13

people were surveyed, was at age 18.

9:16

In all the surveys over the years...

9:18

18 has been the peak. It was the perfect

9:20

mix of not too much responsibility

9:23

and not too little independence. But

9:26

recently, aged 65

9:28

has overtaken it. And 18

9:30

hasn't dropped any happy points. But

9:33

65 has gone up some. And

9:35

I do think it's because we're changing the way

9:37

we think about age. And

9:39

that's really important, obviously.

9:42

Because if you've listened to me for even a short

9:44

while, you'll know that the way that we

9:46

think about things, creates

9:48

the way that we feel about things. There's

9:51

been dozens of replicated studies

9:53

into the effects of thinking old versus

9:55

thinking young. The most...

10:00

Famous? The most talked about, I guess,

10:02

is probably Ellen Langer's 1979

10:05

counter clockwise study,

10:07

where eight elderly men spent a

10:09

week at a residential retreat, and

10:12

they repeated their life from 20

10:14

years earlier. They were only

10:16

allowed to talk about things that went on

10:19

20 years previously. The TV

10:21

only showed them programs and events from

10:23

20 years ago. They had a virtual

10:25

time travel trip. but Quantum

10:27

Leap style into their younger lives. It's

10:30

only a small study, just eight people, so

10:32

it's been criticised a lot for not being

10:34

proper peer reviewed study.

10:37

But some of it has been replicated showing similar

10:39

outcomes, and in the original study...

10:42

All eight men showed marked

10:44

improvements in both their physical health

10:47

and their mental health. They were

10:49

happier, their memory

10:51

was improved, their hearing was improved,

10:54

their dexterity, their appetite. When

10:57

photos of them were showed to people,

10:59

their estimated age was older in the

11:01

before photos. than afterwards.

11:04

It was like the film Cocoon. Some of them threw

11:06

away their walking sticks and started playing football.

11:10

The BBC replicated it back in

11:12

2000 with a TV show. They had

11:14

people like Lionel Blair,

11:16

Liz Smith and Derek Jameson, you might

11:18

know those, reliving 1975

11:21

for a week in the same way as people did

11:24

in the original study. And they had cognitive

11:26

tests and physical tests before

11:29

and after. And even though all they did

11:31

was just spent a week talking

11:33

and thinking about being 35

11:35

years younger, but

11:38

their physical and mental health improved wonderfully.

11:41

Liz Smith had had three strokes.

11:43

She was living in a retirement home. And,

11:46

arrived in a wheelchair, less than a week

11:48

later, she's having dance lessons

11:50

with Lionel Blair, and not using

11:52

her walking sticks. She walks

11:55

out of the house at the end of the experiment,

11:57

instead of using the wheelchair. And

11:59

I know that this is TV, and

12:02

I know that these are studies with small groups,

12:05

but elements of it do stand up to scrutiny.

12:07

It's been done in lots of different ways and

12:10

seems to consistently show that if you think

12:13

about being decrepit, you're

12:15

gonna feel decrepit. Think

12:17

about feeling able and you'll stand a better

12:19

chance of gonna feel able

12:22

and be more able.

12:25

In a long term study, once,

12:27

um, 650 people

12:30

were surveyed about their attitudes on ageing.

12:32

20 years later, those that had a positive

12:34

attitude towards ageing had lived

12:37

seven years longer, on average,

12:39

than those with a negative attitude. And

12:41

if you compare that to other research,

12:44

into the things that we can do to extend

12:46

our life, like doing things to

12:48

lower blood pressure, reducing cholesterol

12:50

levels... You only get an extra four

12:53

years, on average, but

12:55

it's almost twice that, just

12:57

because of attitude, perspective.

13:00

And it doesn't take 20 years to see the results,

13:03

and it doesn't take too much to see an effect.

13:06

In one study, participants

13:08

simply had to read a list of negative

13:10

words about ageing, and within 15

13:13

minutes... They were walking more slowly

13:16

than they were before. So you can

13:18

imagine what influence having negative connotations

13:21

thrown at you every day by society

13:23

is gonna do can't you. And I'm so

13:26

glad that we can see people like Helen Mirren

13:28

in moisturiser adverts now, rather

13:30

than models that are only just

13:33

a couple of years out of college. If

13:35

that, some of them still go! So, we

13:38

can begin to get rid of the age related

13:40

stigma that our society's

13:42

developed. There was a

13:45

really interesting study once... called

13:48

Responses to Patronising

13:50

Communication and Factors that Attenuate

13:53

Those Responses. Such snappy

13:55

titles, these academic people.

13:58

Basically showing that being spoken

14:00

to in a patronising way

14:03

before you then do some cognitive tasks

14:05

has a greater negative effect on the over 60s.

14:09

than it does to the under 25s.

14:11

But, older adults,

14:15

who already had more positive

14:17

attitudes about ageing, with more positive

14:19

interactions with people of other age groups

14:21

in their life, were protected

14:24

from the effect. Showing us that

14:26

if we can create a culture, that

14:28

treats older people with respect,

14:31

it's not only going to help them deal with the people

14:33

that don't show respect,

14:36

but make it better for us when

14:38

we get to that age. Because we've

14:40

taught the younger generation, through learned

14:42

behavior, how to treat us

14:45

when we're older. It

14:47

might be true that our relatives in their 80s

14:49

might not seem to have as much to offer the

14:51

world as they used to. That

14:53

doesn't mean we shouldn't value them, spend

14:56

time with them. I look

14:58

at it like this. The way I treat

15:00

my parents... Is the way that my

15:03

son is going to end up treating me,

15:05

and that's why, when she was alive,

15:08

I would take my son along to see my wife's gran,

15:10

and we'd help her with her Wi Fi router problem

15:12

or whatever issues that she'd have.

15:15

I'd listen to her stories, help

15:17

buy her a new chair that could tip

15:19

her out of it when she needed it to, even

15:22

though she said, Oh, don't bother,

15:24

cos she knew she only had a few

15:26

months left to live, and oh, it's

15:28

not worth it. No, that's exactly

15:30

when it is worth it!

15:33

If we can reduce the stigma that comes

15:35

with ageing, we can start taking advantage

15:38

of the benefits that come from

15:40

ageing instead. Did

15:42

you know, for example, that

15:44

because of exposure to viruses, people

15:47

in their mid fifties catch

15:49

half as many colds as someone

15:51

in their mid twenties? It's one of the reasons

15:54

why some people didn't like the idea

15:56

of 2020.

16:00

Yes, we were protecting ourselves from

16:02

a deadly strain of the common cold,

16:05

but we're also preventing immunity from all

16:07

of the non deadly strains as

16:09

well. Good job it only went on for

16:12

as short a time as it did, but

16:14

even so, it's still a small price to pay.

16:16

I can catch up on that immunity as time

16:18

goes by. And if you're listening to this in

16:20

your mid twenties, and you tend to catch a cold

16:23

every month, it's because you're too young

16:25

to have developed the immunity responses.

16:28

If you're 55, then

16:30

you've had decades of your immune

16:32

system learning how to fight it off before

16:34

it catches hold. You

16:36

might want to mention that at a job interview,

16:39

or bear it in mind yourself if you're

16:41

somebody that needs to interview

16:43

people. Because yes,

16:46

it's true that some mental

16:48

abilities do decline

16:50

as we age with what's called

16:53

fluid processing, which are

16:55

things like memory games, matching cards

16:57

that you turn over, that sort

17:00

of game. Those skills start to

17:02

decline at age 20. We

17:05

don't really notice it because it's quite

17:07

slow, and it is what it

17:09

is. But what's called crystallized

17:12

processing, things like crosswords,

17:14

that doesn't even start to decline until

17:17

we're 70. And procedural

17:19

memory, things that mean going

17:22

through some sort of procedure. Cooking,

17:25

playing a musical instrument, tying shoes.

17:28

They seem to stay intact and

17:30

emotional processing seems to

17:32

improve with age. Life

17:35

experience seems to help us deal

17:37

with difficult people so that we can

17:39

regulate our emotions better. We don't

17:41

feel so angry towards people

17:44

who are being rude or disagreeable. Living

17:47

and experiencing life and

17:49

the ageing that comes with it is

17:51

a good thing. Think of it as a

17:53

transformation rather than a decline. Yes,

17:56

your hair may change, your...

17:58

Your body might creak, you probably

18:01

find that your tennis scores go down,

18:04

but your scores on a pub quiz might go up.

18:06

You're likely to be happier, you'll probably

18:09

have a better sex life, you'll have

18:11

higher self esteem, better attention

18:14

span, and an increased ability to

18:16

focus. All things

18:18

that have been shown to correlate with ageing,

18:21

with living, by experiencing

18:24

life. So, go

18:27

out and experience it, live and grow old,

18:30

gain some wisdom and insight,

18:32

pride and contentment, and

18:34

acknowledge ageing as just a part of

18:36

living, rather than of dying. So,

18:39

enjoy your month then, Podfans. Have

18:41

a good one, and don't eat too many mince

18:43

pies. Take care.