What Boomer Women Can Learn About Aging From (Gasp) Older Women
"Second, banish the thought of "retirement." The women Cole spoke to, she said, are engaged as ever and doing meaningful work—whether volunteering, being with their grand kids, or working for pay. Just because you're eligible for Medicare and Social Security doesn't mean that you should stop working.
To understand the importance of this, consider the case of Okinawa, Japan, one of the world's "Blue Zones," the world's densest clusters of centenarians where the elderly have been remarkably successful at aging. Okinawa has the largest percentage of female centenarians in the world. In the U.S., there are 10-20 centenarians per 100,000 people; in Okinawa, there are 50 per 100,000, and 90 percent of them are women. The centenarians have one fifth the rate of certain cancers and heart disease, which kill 75 percent of Americans over 65.
In Okinawa, as in other Blue Zones, the idea that the elderly retreat into idleness in the mid-sixties, becoming dependents, is anathema. Rather, they are governed by a principle called Ikigai, rougly translated as the reason they wake up in the morning—their purpose."
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