Inspirational fitness stories come in all shapes, sizes and ages. Bruce Grierson’s book What Makes Olga Run? is about a track star in her 90s. The book was published earlier this year, and Olga ended up dying in June at the age of 95, but it is one of the most inspiring stories I have read in a long time. Her outlook on life, her physical abilities and her willingness to inspire others make this a must read. The fact that writer Grierson also uses her remarkable story as a foil to his own somewhat typical, middle-aged life make it all the more worth reading. Olga as a ninety-something role model for all of us is encouraging and surprising at first, but then I realized that we can learn so many things from all older people, and the fact that we don’t as a regular point of fact says something very problematic about our culture.
The title of the book also teases out the book’s more practical point: the vast amount of research currently going on about aging. All sorts of scientists, fitness experts, psychologists and medical doctors are trying to find out how to make all of us age better, healthier and live better quality lives. And the first place they are looking at are the people who remain active and in good physical health well into their 80s, 90s and 100s.
A few common factors of aging well have come forward and are discussed at length in the book:
- adversity/stress: Eustress, the good kind of stress, is important is creating a kind of perserverant immune system for us. A psychology professor at New York University, Jonathan Haidt, thinks this is important throughout life, but especially “there is a sensitive period for growth- late teens through early thirties- that if you don’t have any major setbacks or adversity during that window, you’ll be weaker later on. I think you will be better off with setbacks. (p.26).”
- exercise: We have heard this one so much, but one piece of research jumped out at me so much that it cannot be ignored. A researcher “…took 60 to 80 year old…couch potatoes.. and put hem on an exercise program, starting with a modest fifteen minutes of walking per day and slowly increasing it to forty-five minutes. After six months, their brains had grown. Substantially. (p.45)” These people had improved in measurable ways physically, in cognitive function, memory and decision making. The book points out that neuroscience research has shown that exercise of all kinds has benefits far beyond what we ever thought: it makes us better multitaskers, makes us more creative, makes us less depressed on a chemical level, and helps your brain to better handle stress. And while all exercise has benefits, the best benefits came from combining aerobic activity with strength training.
- friendships: “Strong social ties boost your likelihood of surviving, over a given time period in late life, by 50 percent. (p.194)”
- education/mental stimulation: Education when you are younger helps your brain age better in the future, in the same way that a healthy diet when you are younger helps you when you are older. And in much the same way, mental stimulation at any age makes your brain denser and helps develop and keep connections between parts of your brain.
- openness. The 90-something athlete Olga the book centers around had a favorite expression, ” What have I got to lose?” (p.140) which I may well take on as a personal motto.
- sense of purpose. Grierson suggests this is the most important quality Olga had, and writes that when we are “curious and broad-minded, wallow happily in abstractions and what-ifs, are piqued rather than threatened by the new, and … less bound to tradition and deferent to authority” we increase our chances of living longer (p.140).
We’ve all been programmed over the last few decades to assume that if we take better care of ourselves, we will feel better, look better, live longer, be more productive and happier doing it. This book begins to delve into the real question that remains, that why some people thrive into old age and others do not. Another tool that is referenced in the book, is the NEO Five-Factor Inventory is a psychological inventory test that measures five major personality traits that help people cope with life and therefore age better: openness, conscientiousness, extroversionism, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Those who are curious may wish to explore an online version of the NEO-PI
Olga Kotelko’s Obituary from the Globe and Mail
Olga also had her own website which is very inspirational in itself.
Grierson, Bruce (2014). What makes Olga run? New York: Holt. ISBN:978-0-8050-9720-7