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Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

Lifespan is not even half the story though, health span is much more important. Your life is completely different if you can ski or split your own wood at 80+ vs being barely able to use stairs at 50. Both might die at 90 but one "lived" 30 years more

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Yup.

I'm not really afraid of getting old, but I'm afraid of becoming decrepit.

My grandma has been decrepit for over 5 years now. She can't walk and has no bladder or bowel control, so she just sits on the couch and shits herself all day. She's not living, she's merely surviving. She was living with my mom for a while, but my mom decided she couldn't handle it anymore and put her in an assisted living facility.

If I get to the point where I couldn't cook my own meals and wipe my own ass, just put a bullet in me. I do not fear dying, but I do fear spending years of my life not being able to actually do anything.

My dad died at the end of last year, and was not too different from your grandma. For him the main problem was chronic pain from his failing body. Even fairly powerful opioids from a pain management doctor only helped a bit. Basically all he could do was sleep, eat meals, and sit in his chair in pain.

I feel similar to you, but I wonder if it's one of those those things where age changes your perspective. Dad was in assisted living and had several stints in rehab/nursing home facilities, and in both there were quite a few people with what I'd call poor quality of life who were still holding on to life.

Something we youngsters (I'm 69) may not realize is that people in assisted living still have friends and frequently even sex lives while they are there. They read, play games, and watch movies, just like us. They might not be able to do all the things they could when they were younger, but their lives are not necessarily over.

I am looking forward to playing 3 decades of great computer games once I am too old to go out into the woods or do martial arts.

I love gaming, but I am still too young to do it properly.

Any idea what kind of games you'll want to play by then?

I suspect it won't be hair-trigger combat games in dark dungeons where every strike results in a blizzard of gems and stars flying around the screen while teenagers scream into the mic.

But if you like Sudoku and crosswords you'll probably be good. That's my jam anyway.

I've been playing Factorio and the base game is 100 hours easily, there are mods that ratchet it up to 500+. It's great brain exercise too, constantly refactoring, solving for bottlenecks, etc.

I would love to be that mentally spry in my old age. I'm not convinced I will be though.

Witcher, all of them Baldurs gate 3 Mass effect Assassins creed

Probably gta 6, if it’s out by then

Hopefully by then VR versions of The Longest Journey or sanctioned or unsanctioned AI generated/slop adaptations of trek/wars/who etc.

This. I've bought a lot of games over the last 15 years that I haven't touched let alone finished. I hope to at least play them some day.

Of course, some truly do “live” there, and good for them.

And others just sit there waiting to die, unable to even feed themselves.

I saw plenty of examples of both when my grandmothers were in assisted living homes. Unfortunately my grandmothers both tended towards the latter case.

nice

> there were quite a few people with what I'd call poor quality of life who were still holding on to life.

The next question would be “did they have any alternative”

I am close to what you describe about your dad, and I am 42. I have no idea what to do. I don't want to live this way. And I don't want to die, not really, although I am at peace with the idea. I can't find what is wrong with me, except for the fact that it is related to pain regulation mechanisms somehow. This has been going on for 10 years already.

The only thing that helps now are opioids in dosages nobody would prescribe. I was prescribed opioids at some point during these years, and I still don't know if this was a mistake by the doctor. Now I am in pain AND opioid-dependent. But I am not sure I would not have ended my life sooner if not for the temporary relief I had.

The government does not allow me to get a few years of better quality life in return for dying early from an overdose, etc. I am bitter about it, and often wish government officials had the pain I do. Maybe I did not do enough, or people close to me could have been more pressing in asking to do more earlier. That's a consequence of a culture where people don't get into other people's business. I sometimes hope it is not too late still, but everything is harder now, and I still don't have any good ideas or the willpower to execute them.

It is probably more than half the story. Health span is strongly correlated to life span, although not completely. The median "health span gap" is about 10 years, and has widened by roughly one year over the past 20 years. However, this is probably just due to an aging population and not necessarily from any factors you can control fully.

I wouldn't be surprised if "health span" (although defining it is difficult) exactly mirrors the inheritability pattern of mortality.

> The median "health span gap" is about 10 years

It depends on the definition, if you're even just 20kg overweight you're living a wildly different life than you'd have if you were fit, you're closing so many doors by default and making a bunch of things much harder than they should be, But you're still considered "healthy" here

This is such an underappreciated fact. Lots of people think 20kgs overweight is normal, they'll call you skinny and tell you to eat more if you're a healthy weight. An adult man of average height should probably not weigh more than 80kg. It could be okay if you're very muscular but most likely you'd be better off losing a few kilos. And being extremely muscular to the point where your BMI says overweight isn't exactly good for your health either. Though probably better than just being fat.

My Dad (age 81) tore his rotator cuff splitting wood recently. It's slow to heal and he's in a lot of pain which (along with his Alzheimer's) is really getting him down.

Maybe even if you're still fit and strong in your 80s you should let someone else split your wood for you

I hope I’m able to do this when the time comes

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/779/ends-of-the-earth

Basically assisted death

I can't speak for him but the reason I want to live somewhere where I split wood at the end is so that I can expire either from want of heat when I become incapable of splitting, or so that the exertion causes me to keel over and expire in nature when it's time.

It's a remarkable tragedy how many people don't understand your point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability-adjusted_life_year

Too many people think your life is a binary 'living or dead' when thats not the case at all. I didn't even understand it fully till I was hit by a car.

I'm sorry that happened.

Yeah, been working in IT since forever (sitting work all day), but started lifting recently and it already made remarkable improvements in my wellbeing. Should've started sooner of course, but I'm still well in time.

Lot of people think it's a niche exercise activity and it shouldn't be - for all ages including those in their 80s and 90s according to reports.

One of the most consistent health research findings Ive heard in recent years is the benefits of weight training for older adults. Hopefully the message is being received.

It is one thing to receive the message but a much different thing to act on the message.

From going to the gym for decades now, I don't see older people acting on this at all. A big problem is the CNS takes so much longer to recover as you get older. Starting lifting at an older age is really an uphill battle. I don't know a single person who has ever started lifting over 45 and kept with it. I know a guy that lifts in his 80s but our first conversation about lifting was 35 years ago. I am part of the old crowd at the gym and everyone I know has lifted for decades.

The message really needs to be that you have to start lifting young so you still lift when you are old. Need to become so addicted to lifting that you will still be doing it when your only lifting to get less weak and figuring out how to train around various injury. Not going to the gym is inconceivable to me but I just don't see how I could have started past 45. Even the difference between early 40s and late 40s lifting was night and day for me.

This plus stretching / yoga has been amazing as I'm entering my 40s. For a while I was just lifting and I had strong muscles but they were short and tight. Not everyone has that problem, but just noting strong muscles are half the picture, being strong and flexible makes life feel effortless and years of being a desk jockey.

As many of the health nutters say, the goal is "live well, drop dead."

100% now that I get older I observe the even older people I know.

Some live a very painful and limited life. Others are 85+ and still go out to run, play soccer etc. Amazing to see.

Life span is easier to measure. You get the offial birth dates table, you get the official death dates table, you just substract the numbers and call it a day.

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