How my nan lived to 103
What was her secret to living to this ripe old age?
Well obviously I’d like to say… The ancient powers of reflexology helped her. Lol however, sadly I don’t expect she had even heard of foot reflexology let alone the other types of reflexology massage. Although I’d like to think she would have lived even longer if I were a practicing reflexologist then. :0)
I’ve thought about this a lot since being in the wellness industry and here is my thoughts.
It definitely looks like a wellness gurus step by step guide to wellness.
1) Good quality meat -Her family were butchers and she was brought up on GOOD QUALITY grass fed meat.
2) No processed foods - For the vast majority of her life she lived on Meat, veg, eggs & butter pretty much in that order - Whole foods. Her cupboards were the clean ancestral diet that we are all striving towards.
3) She didn’t get stressed - I literally never saw this in her. She let nothing phase her. FYI she was having an extension built on her bungalow when she was 99!
4) She walked - My grandad died 30 years before her and he was the car driver.. (In fact he worked at the Austin factory so they were one of the only car owners on their street in the 30’s (this was a real show off point. ) So she never drove in her later years and would walk a lot.
5) Didn’t take medication (controversial) She didn’t get ill… so she didn’t need to take medication… so she didn’t get side effects.. so didn’t have to take more medication & more and illnesses etc etc. This is a real thing. It’s called THE POLYPHARMACY PHENOMENON Anyone who has family on medication will see this pattern. My mom for example got put on high BP medication - this can give you swollen ankles so you get put on water tablets- a diuretic which dehydrates you and you loose electrolytes & salt so then the salt level was low and it went on Gahhhhh. The frustration. Anyway I digress. Maybe some of you can see why I went into the non invasive world of reflexology - Incidentally my mom’s blood pressure drops to normal levels when I can get to visit her and give her a reflexology treatment! all within an hour. What is reflexology good for again? Yup everything.
Why did all other people of that generation not live this long.
Something else I’ve also thought about. Surely if processed foods were only becoming available in the last 50 years then all our grandparents would have become centenarians. Later in her life my nan did start to get into processed foods and as we all know it is a first class ticket to nowhere good! This article helps explain glucose amongst a couple of others could be a factor. But she got into this so much later in her life and she had good foundations as it were. I also actually believe this does have a lot to do with her not letting herself get stressed to keep the balance.
So there we go a 20 something journal for good health acted out in real life.
Here’s the cutest video of her when she made it to her 101 birthday and when she realises that’s her in this little box in my hand! the iPhone. There’s an element of truth to her secrets in the video! You can also see she did drink alcohol BUT not in large quantities to excess.
I clearly take after her with my desire not to take prescribed drugs. I understand there’s a need for them in many instances but there’s so many people taking them way out of control. Like sleeping tablets when all you need is reflexology.