Taking lessons from the people who have lived the longest
Sisters Anne Sheehy (left) and Carmen Burns at Tramore Valley Park, Cork. Picture Denis Minihane.
Nobody could accuse sixty-five-year-old Carmen Burns of inertia since taking early retirement from her job at the South Infirmary/Victoria Hospital when she was fifty-seven. Not only has she learned to swim but she also took up running and she is a member of the Sanctuary Runners with people in direct provision.
Carmen took the lead from her sister, Anne Sheehy, who is a very active sixty-four year old. "Anne has done the Lee swim. When I retired and saw her doing it, I said I'd love to be able to do something like that as well. I decided to make the Lee swim my goal. Anne was showing me how to swim and I got some lessons as well which helped my technique. I did the Lee swim in 2013. It's 2km and I did it in about fifty minutes which was good going for me. I was on air. It was one of the best feelings I've ever had. I kept going with the swimming. And for my sixtieth birthday, I decided to do a 5km run. Through the 'couch to 5k' programme over eight weeks, I worked it up. I did the Run in the Dark (for the Mark Pollock Trust) in 2015 in thirty-three minutes. That was good for me as I was never fast at anything. I encouraged Anne to take up running and now she's better than me at it."
The two sisters swim together in Myrtleville, all year 'round, but they're unable to go to the County Cork beach during lockdown as it is outside of their 5k limit. Because Anne is still working, she has been swimming just at weekends. Carmen was swimming at least three or four mornings every week.
"You go into the water feeling leaden down and when you come out, you're light as air. It's just so good for you mentally and physically."
Carmen even swam through her treatment for breast cancer in 2017, apart from the first eight weeks after surgery. She appreciated the support she got from the other swimmers who call themselves the 'Myrtleville Swimmers.' Up to twenty of them turn up for a swim every morning and afterwards, in Dry Robes, they have a cuppa and cake, often baked by some of the swimmers.
"A lot of them are retired but you get some youngsters as well. It's a grand group. You have a bit of chat and banter after the swim. It's very sociable."
During the summer, Carmen could stay in the water for an hour. In winter, she'd stay in for twenty minutes or ten minutes if it's really freezing. If the sea is really rough and there are high winds, she gives it a miss.
All levels of swimmers turn up, from channel swimmers to people just doing "a little doggie paddle. It's all about the feel-good factor." Carmen misses swimming. She last swam in Myrtleville in December, just before lockdown.
She also enjoys her activity with the Sanctuary Runners. "It's Irish people running or walking with people in direct provision, out of solidarity, friendship and respect. I joined two years ago. Before Covid, we used to go to the park run in Ballincollig or the Glen. We'd collect people from their direct provision centres. It just gets people out. They get to meet Irish people and we get to meet them. I've met some lovely people there. We go for coffee afterwards and we do things like the Cork City Marathon. It's fun. You don't have to be fast."
Carmen has a positive attitude towards ageing. "I don't even think about it. To me, ageing is mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter! What's the alternative? I mean, I'm happy to be getting old and I'll do what I can for as long as I can."
Consultant Geriatrician at Cork University Hospital (CUH), Dr Emer Ahern, would approve. "We're trying to encourage people to do what they can, individually and as a society. We're talking about eating well, moving well and talking well." She says that being part of a community and having a sense of purpose is hugely beneficial.
Dr Ahern, inspired by her former mentors, the late Dr Michael Hyland and Professor Cillian Twomey, says looking after older people "is a real privilege. You're not just treating the disease or any disability they might have. You're also getting to know the patient and treating them in the context of the family and friends they have, the lives they live outside of the hospital and outside of their disease."
Genes determine 20% of how long you live, says Dr Ahern. "You can't do anything to change that but 80% is in our hands. We can influence what our future older person will look like. Everybody wants to live longer. Nobody wants their life cut short. What you do want when you're living longer is wellbeing."
But, in effect, people over the age of seventy have been housebound for most of the past year. "Older people have been very compliant with the restrictions. But there have been consequences such as loneliness, anxiety and depression. I think the recovery when we come out of Covid will be as much a challenge as Covid has been. We're all feeling a bit lonely. My own mother - I won't give her age - has been lonely and she's fortunate that she lives with my older brother who has Williams Syndrome. My mother used to go swimming and she played bridge two or three times a week. She also used to meet her friends for coffee. All those connections are gone because of Covid."
While having as little disability and as much independence as possible are the key determinants for having a good quality of life in the latter years, Dr Ahern says that being able to maintain your connections is vital. It's important to keep in touch with family and friends. Â "Just as kids need their peers, older people need them as well." It's all part of that 80% window whereby elders can influence their longevity through quality of life. Exercise is something that should be built into the day. "It's not about having to get into the car to go to the gym or scheduling exercise. If you need to get something from the shop, walk there. You can exercise even if you don't leave the house. If you spend a lot of time sitting, there are chair-based exercises you can do. A lot of exercise for older people involves strengthening exercises, building muscle mass. You can take two bottles of water and, while sitting, start raising them above your head. Not everyone can go for a 5k walk."
Gardening is good exercise and quite therapeutic. Exercise can also help stave off falls. "From the age of forty, our muscles get weaker by about 1% every year. While any kind of exercise is good, you also need strengthening exercise to build muscle mass. If your balance isn't great, through exercise you can improve your gait."
Nutrition is "absolutely linked to your muscle strength and it's also linked to your bone strength. You need enough calcium and vitamin D in your diet to prevent fractures."
Dr Ahern says we should all remember the obvious but perhaps overlooked point that from the day we're born, we're getting older. "It's not something that just happens to somebody else."
Ideally, we'd all like to be living in a Blue Zone. "The people in them are living longer with better health and wellbeing."
Blue Zones are regions in Sardinia, Japan, California, Costa Rica and Greece where people live longer than average, following the kind of advice that Dr Ahern and other geriatricians give. For example, a village called Seulo in Sardinia holds the record of twenty centenarians from 1996 to 2016 which confirms it is "the place where people live the longest in the world." That's according to the book, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest.
In Icaria in Greece, Icarians "have about 20% lower rates of cancer, 50% lower rates of heart disease and almost no dementia." Dr Ahern says: "We're hoping to make Cork a Blue Zone." Now that would give us natives a challenge and a real sense of purpose.
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