Category: mindfulness

Preparing For the Second Half: v2.0

On By Dean ColucciIn Fitness, health, Healthspan, longevity, mindfulness, WellnessLeave a comment

“If I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.”

Mickey Mantle

A 60-year-old American male in just average health could currently expect to live to age 81, while an average American 60-year-old female could expect to live to 84 ½.  If an individual makes it past 70 years old, life expectancy increases to 84 for a male and 86 ½ for a female.

As current medicine and pharmacology continue their pace of advance, these numbers should continue to rise.  This overlooks the question as to what individuals these ages could be doing on their own to extend not only their life span but their health span.

No one speaks to the demographic of people in the second half.  No one translates the body of knowledge gained and applied to younger people on health span and longevity.  No one speaks to actionable protocols for the second half.  While many of the principles may be similar, protocols applicable to a 30-year-old do not always transfer directly to a 70-year-old.  Additionally, the method of communicating potential protocols has flaws.  The message needs to be delivered to the demographic through channels where it can be easily communicated and consumed. 

A universe of functional medical physicians, biohackers, and fitness influencers, as well as a host of charlatans, have sprung up over the past 5 to 10 years focused on health, wellness, fitness, and extending lifespan as well as health span.  The bulk of this advice and information (and in certain cases misinformation) has been targeted at folks in their 30’s and 40’s.

But, what about those folks who have passed their 50th birthday?  How much of this advice applies to the 50-year-old? The 60-year-old?  The 70-year-old and beyond? How should some of the most actionable advice be modified for this growing demographic?  Clearly, as you reach and surpass any of these milestones, all is not hopeless.  Life and health can still be improved and optimized.  Health optimization does not stop in the second half.  Science supports this. Even a 90-year-old (or older) can achieve benefits from implementing modest lifestyle and behavioral changes.  You can teach an old dog new tricks – or, at least, I, as a 62-year-old male (and aging by the minute), would like to test that hypothesis.

This blog and whatever else develops out of it will seek out research, scientific leaders, and actionable protocols for those in the second half.  Some of these protocols I will try myself, or some variations.  Some, I will attempt to shoot down. 

Using some of these strategies, I am currently pursuing a personal short-term challenge this July, completing Ironman Lake Placid on July 23, 2023.  More on that in a subsequent post.  This entry focuses on the re-launch of this blog and its goals for the future: to Ironman…and beyond.

My Daily Process

On By Dean ColucciIn Fitness, health, Healthspan, longevity, mindfulness, Uncategorized, WellnessLeave a comment

Part One – The Morning (or thereabouts)

I thought it would be useful to post my morning ritual. This process has evolved over the years. I implemented the latest iteration about 6 months ago. I will continue to update this post as my process evolves and I make changes. Philosophically, I think of this process as something I live within. Not something I follow mechanistically. Living within this process helps center me. It provides me direction and yields rewards such as reducing anxiety on days when it seems the world is swirling around me while also giving me an infrastructure for promoting my own health and wellness. I welcome any feedback or comments on the process.

Wake time: Most weekdays at 6 AM.

Bathroom time, collect Weight, CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) at Levels Health, and Oura ring data.

Consume 1 g of Resveratrol mixed with 3 ml of olive oil, 12 ozs of water mixed with fresh squeezed lime juice and pink Himalayan sea salt, 1 g NMN, 800 mg Fisetin, 400 mg Spermidine, and 800 mg Quercetin.

Most days I will also grab a cup of either Pu’Er Fermented Black or Green tea from Pique to sip during after workout. I also sip Xendurance Hydro Stix during and after workout. It has only one gram of carbohydrates and I take the view that it doesn’t break my morning fast — at least for my purposes. Depending on the anticipated workout, particularly if it’s going to be a long chipper or a long aerobic grinder, I will take one or two Santa Cruz Medicinals CBD Infused Adaptogenic Mushroom caps. I have found them to be really useful for these types of workouts — or at least my mind believes that.

After that, it’s off to either a 6:30 or 7:15 AM Crossfit Class at @Veracity.Athletics. I usually do crossfit 4 to 5 times per week. I vary it on Saturdays with a hot powerflo yoga session @leapfrogpoweryoga. Some weeks I try to squeeze in a second yoga session in the evening.

Post-workout I grab a shot of double espresso. My favorite currently is Blue Jaguar from Redbird Coffee in Bozeman, MT.

If it is warm enough I take my double espresso out to my Zen grotto under the Tibetan Prayer Flags for 10 minutes of Mindfulness meditation using the @wakinguppapp. Otherwise, I do this from a quiet place indoors.

Following the 10-minute meditation, I try to journal for anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes. Periodically, this is interspersed with some reading from Stoic philosophy. I recently completed the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and have begun working through the Discourses of Epictetus. The unstructured journaling picks up on anything that has crossed my mind that morning, prior evening, or that otherwise requires working through mentally.

I recently added a sauna session to the morning ritual — after using outside cold plunges throughout the winter.

I try to do five twenty-minute sauna sessions per week — 20 minutes per session at 175 degrees or higher.

If I cannot fit in the sauna session in the morning routine, I will try to add it at some point in the day.

Following meditation and sauna, if it’s cold enough (as I mentioned above), it’s time for a 3 to 5 minute cold plunge in my 150 gallon stock tank which is cooled by Mother Nature. Otherwise, it’s time for a shower. At the end of the shower I will turn the water all the way to cold for 2-3 minutes. It’s important that cold follows the hot — and not vice versa. #soebergprinciple

Following an after-shower espresso shot, It’s time for work. If I have a busy day and need immediate focus, I will also throw down one or two capsules of Santa Cruz Medicinals CBD Infused Nootropics Caps.

In future posts regarding my ritual, I will explore what processesI have for the remainder of the day — particularly around the breaking of my fast midday. I try to limit eating to an 8-hour window each day. The purpose of doing so is primarily to promote longevity and wellness. I am not pursuing any direct caloric restriction through the limited feeding window. I do, however, count macros in an effort to live in a caloric deficit. This has had mixed results.

Note: I have no economic or commercial relationship with any of the products mentioned in this post.

A Sunlit Day

On By Dean ColucciIn health, mindfulnessLeave a comment

Glorious sunlit day.

I feel the rays being absorbed.

They warm my body.

The rays flow over and through me.

They create heat in my body.

I feel alive.

The sun energizes me.

It refreshes me.

I feel alive.

I begin again.

I own my breath.

I am renewed.

I am alive.

I am grateful.

Next Man Up…

On By Dean ColucciIn health, mindfulnessLeave a comment

“What dies does not vanish. It is here in the world, transformed, dissolved, as parts of the world, and of you.“ Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book 8, Verse 18 (Hays translation).

I have been meaning to write this for a couple weeks. About one week ago was my birthday. The week before that was my mother’s birthday, the first since her passing in September. I thought about the meaning of that for a while. I am also always fairly pensive around my birthday. Perhaps that is not too unusual as people tend to take stock of where they are around milestones. Birthdays, Anniversaries, New Year’s Day.

What does it mean?

It is one thing to lose a grandparent. Fortunately, I did not lose a grandparent until I was 17. I lost my next one at 28. 40 when I lost my third grandparent. Amazingly, 54 when I lost my last grandparent. Death has been kind to my family.

A ripe old age has seemed a foregone conclusion…not even taking into account all the gyrations I go through to advance my own health and longevity. None of my grandparents were particularly fastidious when it came to lifestyle or diet. In fact, my last grandparent to die smoked for probably 60 or 70 years. I think she only quit smoking because she got tired of it.

Genetics seemed to be in my favor.

Till something shook that complacency.

Part of dealing with the loss of a parent is the recognition that you are never going to speak or see that person again. You miss their presence. Their embrace. The echo of their voice in your ear. I knew that I could not call her and wish her a happy birthday. And that she would not be calling me. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not the day after.

Finality. It is often hard to accept. A test. A game. A life. It happens. There is no calling time out. Time is inexorable. You move on.

I realized quite quickly, however, that the guardrails had been removed. The game changed. I am the next man up. A recognition that does not occur with the passing of anyone other than a parent.

I know that lives and their relative length have no apparent order. It is not definite that a mother dies before a child, but once it occurs, it is etched in stone.

“Give yourself the gift of the present moment” Meditations 8:44.

Life is finite. An immutable fact. I exist in this time. I am time.

I have this second. This minute. I am only assured of that. Nothing more. I should live it fully.

I have enjoyed past moments, but they are gone. Now, I have this one. I will savor and enjoy it.

“I cannot escape death but at least I can escape fear of it.” Epictetus (from Daily Stoic Today, February 17, 2022).

I will live it… I am the next man up.

Throw Out the VHS Tapes

On By Dean ColucciIn health, mindfulness, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I have had a lot of thoughts rumbling through my brain the last several weeks.

One which has reverberated around quite a bit is the passage of time. A couple weeks ago, this realization hijacked my mind as I was tried to clean out a closet of children’s toys which dated back to when my oldest was 5 or 6 years old. The closet stacks of old VHS tapes. Arthur. Rugrats. Barney. Even the dreaded TeleTubbies. I hesitated toss ing them out. Even though they were simply taking up space. I am not even sure we have a working VHS player. Nor could I tell you the last time we even watched a VHS tape (or give you a reason why we should).

I thought about why it was bothering me so much to depart with these tapes. My kids surely did not want them. My wife wanted them out.

It was an acknowledgment. An acknowledgment that time had indeed past. It is not returning. A little part of me had died….but had it really?

It is still a part of me. It is a part of who and where I am.

We live in today’s instant. The past is already past. Who cares. We have lived it and enjoyed it.

New adventures lie ahead. If I am open to them.

Keep to the process. Think. Live in the moment. It’s the only on of which we are assured.

The tapes went out that day to the dump. I don’t miss them.

Ignore the Leaf Blowers

On By Dean ColucciIn mindfulnessLeave a comment

I sketched out these thoughts about six weeks ago, on a beautiful fall sunny day in New Jersey.

Surrounded by falling leaves in my Zen Grotto. Leaves peacefully falling to the ground around me. The ground was covered that day like the first snowfall we would soon have. Ankle deep in some places.

The quiet of the leaves falling through space was soon penetrated by a leaf blower in a neighboring yard. Actually, an army of leaf blowers. An ironic counterpoint to the peacefulness of the falling leaves. The suburban homeowner’s weapon of mass destruction against the falling leaves and the end of summer. Leaves which had just died after fulfilling their life’s mission of providing oxygen.

When I sit in my my grotto and journal, the exercise typically begins as a compilation of what I see around me. An approach that typically makes me be present and opens my mind. This might be the one time in a day that I stop. I look. I listen to the natural world. A world unrelated to a brick attached to my ear.

I can hear birds chirping. Watch the birds and squirrels coexist. See the leaves die their natural death.

This particular day the noise rang out and smacked me. The blasts of the leaf blower entered my consciousness as an image for the noise in my daily existence. Noise which I must continually navigate in and through. Some days worse than others. Leaf blowers appear and disappear outside of my control. Each are obstacles that I need to pierce through to see, hear, and feel what is going on. To be present. Mindful.

The distraction of the noise, of the leaf blower, is just that. Distraction. A distraction to be ignored. Allowed to wash over me and permit a focus on the here and now. The important. As opposed to the trivial.

Transcending the metaphor, the individual making the most noise is to be ignored. We need to ignore the leaf blowers in our lives. In our politics. The leaf blowers spew noise but do not affect the beauty and existence in front of us if we push them to a mere passing sound in our consciousness. Instead, focusing on the quiet beauty around us, enveloping us. The dying leaf falling to the ground. The wind lightly blowing. The distant, soft sound of the chirping cardinal

Focus on the silent. The white space between the noise. The leaf blowers will always be ready to barge in if we let them. If we let them affect us. But why?

Random Thoughts on Observing Birds Feeding

On By Dean ColucciIn mindfulnessLeave a comment

A few days ago, I sat in my self-described Grotto of Zen.  A small rock garden existing in the corner of my yard where I have hung Tibetan prayer flags and installed a small Buddha.  My place for mindful meditation. 

It was a brisk morning.  I had just finished my 10 minutes of Mindfulness (using Sam Harris’ Waking Up app www.waking up.com).  Sitting in my Adirondack chair, perhaps procrastinating until I moved on to the rest of my day, I fixated on several bird feeders about 20 yards away.  The interplay of the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks on the ground, in the trees, and through the air entertained me.

They flew or scurried in and out of my consciousness. 

After a few minutes, I was struck by their coexistence.  They moved in a orderly manner from a feeder, to a tree, to the next feeder, on and then off the ground.  Very little conflict occurred between them.    On the ground, the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks picked at the remnants of food falling to the ground from the feeders above or another’s leftover seeds.

A break in the action….now the next shift swoops in.  Just as orderly as the prior one.  This continues for some time.

It struck me that their behavior is instructive for us so-called sentient beings. An allegory perhaps.

These “lesser” species cooperating and co-existing. Without a spoken word.

Enjoying the sweet smell of early fall air, I took in the chirps and squeaks of the birds and their friends. 

Most importantly, I took the time to Stop.  Listen. Observe. Hear.  It was very instructive as I transitioned to my day. 

I observed and covered my breath.  I absorbed the singing above.  It soothed me. 

I took a break.  I listened and I breathed. 

For those few moments, my mind was focused and I was not distracted.

It was a welcome change.