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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, for the next few minutes, we're going to do something a little different. We're going to have a call in on the question, at what age did you feel your body change in some way that made you feel older? How did you adjust to that physically or psychologically? 212-433-WNYC. At what age did you feel your body change in some way that made you feel older? How did you adjust to that physically or psychologically? 212-433-9692. Why do I ask? Here's the news hook. We were surprised to see a new Stanford Medicine study that found that we tend to undergo two rapid periods of what the study calls molecular aging at two specific ages, 44 and 60.

I thought, "Really? Aren't we more individual than that?" The researchers say these ages, 44 and 60, tend to be common points of noticeable change at what they call the molecular level, but which we might experience more concretely than that. Have you seen this story, first of all, originally published in the journal, Nature Aging, last week? At what age did you feel your body change in some way that made you feel older? Was it 44, was it 60, or was it any other age? How did you adjust to that physically or psychologically? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Researchers wrote, "If it's ever felt like everything in your body is breaking down at once, that might not be your imagination."

Listeners, I'm not sure that's how it goes. I think often people experience their bodies as they age, breaking down one piece at a time, but help us report this story. Did you find that aging hit you particularly all at once around your mid 40s or early 60s, particularly hard? Call in to share how your body's changed during these time periods or any other time, and how it changed your lifestyle, and very important because we don't just do this to hear ourselves talk, we do this to help our fellow listeners. The second part of the question is, how did you adjust to that physically or psychologically for people who haven't gotten there yet? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Boy, are we getting a response to this? I barely got through the first part of the talk up, [laughs] inviting your calls and all our lines were full for the question, at what age did you feel your body change in some way that made you feel older? Was it 44, was it 60, like this study published in Nature Aging suggests, or was it any other age? How did you adjust to that physically or psychologically? We'll start with Gary in summit. You're on WNYC. Hi, Gary, thanks for calling. Whoops. Do we have Gary? Maybe not. Chris in

Astoria.

Chris: Hi, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Chris--

Chris: Oh, hey.

Brian Lehrer: Hi. Chris in Astoria, Hi.

Chris: Hey, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Chris: Hey, this is Chris. I noticed around 34, 35 years old is when my body started to fall apart. I realize people are going to start saying 40s and 50s and 60s, but for me, what I noticed is I wasn't too active in my 20s. Little here and there, but I wasn't working out, I wasn't running, I was eating whatever I wanted, and I was at the best weight of my life in my 20s. Then around my mid 30s, my cholesterol shot up. I got tennis elbow out of nowhere. I had a [unintelligible 00:03:59] hernia I had to repair. I'd wake up and realize, "Oh, my joints. Why is my back hurt?" Just random stuff.

I was like, "Damn, I'm starting to feel a bit old, and I'm guessing it's going to go downhill [laughs] a little bit more." What I started to do was I was put on a statin medication because of the cholesterol and I really turned my life around once I was put on that medication. I didn't want to be on a cholesterol lowering medication anymore, so I started bike riding. I think one of the most important things is finding an exercise that you feel comfortable doing and that you like doing.

For me, it's bike riding. I got an indoor bike. I have a bike. In the winter, I ride in my house and when it's nice weather, I ride outside of my actual bike. I was able to lose 30 pounds, get off the medication, cholesterol went down, started eating better. I just had to start making lifestyle changes out of my 20s, I didn't have to do.

Brian Lehrer: It's interesting because you talk about biking. For me, probably the first thing I noticed was at age 41, being a lifelong biker and in the winter, like you were just describing, I would do the bike aerobic machine in the gym, and suddenly I got tendinitis in my left knee. They diagnosed it as biking related. It's supposed to be running, pound, pound, pound, that harms your knees, but the biking was doing it.

For me, all I really had to do besides some physical therapy at that time was pay more attention to the geometry of my bike, like how I was positioning myself on the bike, how far I was leaning forward to the handlebars, all that stuff. It was noticeable because I didn't have to think about that until all of a sudden I did.

Chris: That's actually really important. There are places that will actually go. If you're thinking that you're not comfortable riding your bike, it's possible that you're just not seated to it correctly. There are bike shops you can go to. It's a little costly, but they will charge you. You sit on a bike and somebody will tell you how high up your seat should go and all that stuff. They do fittings, I don't know if the listeners are aware they do fittings for bikes. Professionals will help you.

Brian Lehrer: Definitely. Chris, thank you very much. I didn't mean to get a sew off on biking, but a lot of people, they don't even know how high to keep the seat. I think a lot of people keep the seat too low and that your leg should be extending almost to fully extended at the bottom of your stroke. I think that was an issue in my case as well, but there you go. All right, Chris at 35. Rebecca in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'll just start out by saying I am 48 years old, and I was 44 during lockdown. I had a lot of time to stare at the mirror and notice myself aging. When that article came out, I said, "Yes, that's about right." I think for me specifically is I've successfully made it to menopause, which I'm very happy about, except for I'm a runner and I had a spontaneous weight gain of about 15 pounds that no matter what I do, haven't changed anything in my life. That just came on.

That's been difficult. I've had to buy all new clothes and nothing fits. That's been really hard. I guess just my metabolism went down. Mentally, how I'm trying to deal with it is just say that I'm lucky I got this far in life. It doesn't work every day, but that's pretty much all I can do because I can't change, my body is just changing. I'm lucky that, I guess, I'm old enough, I'm still alive, and I got this far. [unintelligible 00:07:47]

Brian Lehrer: You can lean into the wisdom of experience and all the joys that that brings, and I'm being serious about that.

Rebecca: I'm lucky that I'm still here, I'm healthy, I'm still able to run. It's not as comfortable as it used to be when I was 15 pounds lighter, but I'm still able to do it.

Brian Lehrer: Rebecca, thank you very much for calling. Some good adjustment advice there for other people, which is part of this call in. Here's Leslie in Stanford, you're on WNYC. Hi, Leslie.

Leslie: Hi, thanks for having me on. It's a great topic. I'm about to turn 60, and I was literally feeling like I was falling apart [laughs], and saw this article and couldn't believe it. I think for me, also shout-out to my menopausal sisters, there is a duality for me between self-acceptance. That's both how I feel and how I look, changes in your body that way, and also striving to make things better where you can. You're not just giving up, but when do you push, go to physical therapy, do the exercise, buy the cream and when do you also say as the previous caller said so beautifully, like, "I'm lucky I'm alive?"

Brian Lehrer: Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. Some people say that's the key throughout your life-

Leslie: For sure.

Brian Lehrer: -to a lot more happiness than people have. Leslie, thank you for a great call. Pam in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Pam.

Pam: Thank you for taking [inaudible 00:09:23]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I think we have a bad connection. Give it a shot. Let's see if it works. Pam, go ahead.

Pam: [inaudible 00:09:32]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I don't think so. Pam, sorry. Try us again. Powell in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Powell.

Powell: Hey, Brian. How are you doing? For me, it was a visual thing. [laughs] When I saw that article, I couldn't believe it. When I turned 50, just about to the day, my birthday, I was putting on socks and I noticed that my skin had changed from the day before until that day. All of a sudden, I had this alligator type texture. Also, when I was putting on my socks and I noticed that, I looked at my hand and, oh, man, I had an age spot, "Are you kidding me? An age spot?"

This was 50 to the date, my birthday. That was over 10 years ago. That scared me. What really scared me was I had a heart attack soon after that. I was over 300 pounds. I am now less than 200 pounds, so I lost over 100 pounds. I feel great today. I'm actually going to be riding my unicycle this week for the unicycle thing that's happening in the city. It was to the day, man. It was a visual thing, was so weird.

Brian Lehrer: Even as a bicyclist, I'd be deathly afraid to ride a unicycle. How do you stay balanced?

Powell: You know what the deal is with riding a unicycle, if you could walk along a straight line, you can do it. The deal is learning how not to fall on your face. That's the first thing I do when I teach somebody how to ride, how to just step off like it's stepping off the bottom step on the staircase. It's that simple, I'm telling you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. It's like learning to ride a unicycle, you never forget or something like that. Listener writes, "I find that changes aren't gradual, but jump, 37, 55, at 74, my skin got creepy." That last caller was talking about skin at 50. "At 74, my adjustment was that's life." Let's do one or two more here. How about James in Bethany, Connecticut, who I think is relating to the article that pegged 44 and 60 as the most common ages when people notice a lot of changes all at once. James, you're on WNYC and you're 44.

James: Yes, 44 this year. I was telling the person that took my call. Thanks, again, for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

James: The year I turned 43 into 44 was very abrupt in a lot of these changes. I had a tear in my knee. I had a meniscus tear from doing a routine dance party with my daughter. We used to do an elaborate choreograph and lift to The Greatest Showman and picked her up, face turned green, was on the floor, knee had a tear in it. I had to have that surgery that year, diagnosed with some pretty intense cholesterol that I think was an onset from the pandemic lockdown. Had to go on a low cholesterol diet, had to change my exercise, just a lot of really intense feeling the age in that year shift.

Brian Lehrer: How did you adjust to it psychologically?

James: It was troubling. It was definitely like some serious depression and feeling like I'm just not the person that I used to be. In my head, I'm still 22. My humor and my lifestyle was very much in that range, but the body is not catching up. Luckily, my cousin is a physician. He helped me get on a diet and an exercise routine. Changing that and seeing results was definitely key. I'm hoping that this is like the service ticket on your car like this is the 44 and then I can wait till 60, and I'll be good within that mileage, but I don't know if that's going to be the case.

Brian Lehrer: [laughter] Let's hope. Everybody's different, but let's hope, and that Stanford study would indicate, maybe that's the case for a lot of people, including you. One more, Nancy and Montclair, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nancy.

Nancy: Listen, I'm 91. I think I started feeling my age in my early 80s, but it was exacerbated by the pandemic where I was unable to really do anything. I started exercising with the Jane Fonda exercises in the 80s [laughs]. I hate exercise, but I've been doing it ever since. Then let's say two years ago in May, I had a bleeding stroke, not one of those clotty strokes, which I totally recovered from, but my eyesight has been affected. I have more difficulty maneuvering in the outside world than I like, but I do it. I've been working out on the treadmill, not running, but walking briskly and trying to get my exercise, but it's difficult. It's weird to be 91 [laughs].

Brian Lehrer: I'll bet. Listening to all these callers, 35, 44, what are you thinking?

Nancy: I don't know because I was one of those 50s girls who got married thinking that was going to be the rest of my life. Then in the 60s, I learned that there was other things that women could do. I've had so many different stages in my life that each one starts out. I started my professional life as a foreign service officer when I was 43. I was beginning a new life, and it seems like that's been happening to me a lot. I've been reinventing myself as I go along.

Brian Lehrer: Sounds like a lot of people should take psychological advice from you. Nancy, thank you very much. Interesting call in. Listeners, thank you for your participation and your interesting and hopefully, helpful thoughts.

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