Many of the changes we associate with aging can be avoided or at least delayed through physical activity, a healthy diet, smoking cessation and stress reduction.

Reference Alex Comfort on “Theories of Aging” and "free radical " theory:

Comfort suggests that aging results from the death of individual cells (information loss). Consider a string of DNA in a nucleus of an individual cell, which essentially has coded information directing the activities of the cell. The cell's integrity depends on the integrity of that order. With time, the DNA becomes increasingly disordered, can no longer function as usual and what we know as aging sets in. This idea is in keeping with Leonard Hayflick's finding (UC, San Francisco), and his "Hayflick limit".

Focus on “free radicals” (FR), primarily

1. high energized molecules of oxygen
2. produced by radiation from outside the body and
3. produced by the body’s own metabolism in normal course of living and
4. taken into the body by breathing air and the food we eat
5. attack the body’s tissues, causing mistakes in DNA

Genes with DNA damage by free radicals

1. can no longer make proteins properly
2. proteins themselves damaged by free radicals and result of damage is:
3. decline in cell functioning
4. decline in body’s ability to produce energy
5. increased risk of disease
6. ultimately aging and eventually death.

SIX WAYS TO CONTROL THE AGING PROCESS

1. Exercise – produces natural antioxidents
2. Stress reduction – reduces free radical effects
3. Smokeless lifestyle – each puff contains billions of free radicals
4. Vitamin supplements – C, E, and beta carotene act as antioxidents
5. Diet and calorie restrictions may slow the effect of free radicals
6. Turn down the heat – may slow down rate of free radical impact.

1. Sedentary to active state
2. Body and mind
3. Internal and external
4. Weather, terrain, tricky opponents help us keep adaptability.

COMPETITIVE ACTIVITIES

1. Badminton
2. Basketball
3. Cycling
4. Golf
5. Handball
6. Judo
7. Raquetball
8. Rowing, open or machine
9. Running
10. Softball
11. Skiing – all types
12. Swimming
13. Tennis
14. Yoga

COMPETITION – ORGANIZED

1. Senior/Master categories – all sports
2. Masters track meets
3. Senior Olympics

COMPETITION - PERSONAL

1. Between you and your past best performance
2. Decide what you can do
3. Consider Your limitations, chronic conditions
4. Consider physical/medical condition
5. Consider time and money
6. What results do you want?

COMPETITION BENEFITS

1. Changes in diet, sleep habits
2. Social network
3. Personal victories
4. Lessons from defeat-positive thought processes
5. Respite from day to day “competitions” like rush hour traffic, environmental concerns, economics, social issues.

COMPETITION, THE AGING FACTOR

Wisdom, from Experience:

Remarks by Dr, George Sheehan, physician, contributor of many articles to Runner’s World, on competition. He remained a competitor his entire life, winning hundreds of prizes in the twenty years after he reached his mid 40s and entering 10K races even after diagnosis of cancer that led to his death in his late sixties. After the test comes the marvelous calm that follows completing a marathon, or climbing a mountain or running the rapids. In that calm, I become the man I would like to be – and perhaps I am.

Dr. Sheehan spoke at the Fifty-Plus weekend at Stanford in 1991: In athletic performance, we are challenged to endure, to say “I will not give in, I will fight to conquer the hill”. When we go through this, we have covered three stages that are all important: training, the event and the aftermath. They make actual what is the potential within us. We become the mind, body and spirit that we are.

Examples of People Who are Competitors

Who do You Know?

Who have you heard about?

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