Your 2nd Middle Age: What are you doing for the next 20+ years of your life?

Do you remember that one kid in school who seemed preternaturally grown up, like a middle-aged adult? While life does not start in the middle for most of us, many people see their Middle Age years in retrospect as their most productive stage of life.

This Middle Age is generally defined as the years between 35 and 58, years that may be consumed by a range of important life challenges and opportunities. Our middle years may be important to us for many reasons, including relationship building, raising a family, spiritual growth, career development and/or financial success.  

Moreover, throughout the 20th century, people had limited expectations for life after Middle Age, perceived as a gateway to old age.  If life is a puzzle to be worked out, most people expected the pieces to be in place by the end of their 5th decade.

With the combination of life extension through emerging biotechnologies and rejection of societal expectations, your 1st Middle Age may be the prelude to a healthy, wealthy and wise 2nd Middle Age. 

Now as we start 2020, we can take remake the puzzle, so to speak, and look beyond what I would now call the 1st Middle Age;  many people may have a robust 2nd Middle Age ahead of them, running from approximately the age of 58 – 80.

As I approach my own 59th birthday, I am thinking more about my 2nd Middle Age, and how to leverage what I have learned in my 1st Middle Age to enrich the decades ahead. My valued friend and colleague Dr. Ganzalo Laje and I hope to use this blog to explore some of the key issues relating to the 2nd Middle Age, including topics like:

– Microbiome Diet: Renewing the body’s ability to fight off pathogens for better health

– Parenting 360: Taking on the challenge of parenting our own our parents (as well as our Special Needs kids) 

– Alone Together: Successful singles & Couples Adjusting to the Empty Nest

– Benefits of Shaking it Up: Throwing the cards in the air for renewed joy and sense of purpose 

– Moving your Body: Maintaining / regaining flexibility, balance, strength and broader health benefits through movement

– After the Diet: Following the middle path for sustainable health

– Looking Within: Capturing Meaning through spirituality, meditation, contemplation or other practices to promote mindfulness and avoid rumination.

We hope you will join us on our journey to explore 2nd Middle Age, and that you will share your own, thoughts, experiences, hopes and dreams for this important period of life. The best is yet to come!