LiveLongAgeWell

This quiz is to get you thinking about your different “ages”, as my Friday post will be about some encouraging results from the Berlin Aging Study. Like all quizzes here on the LLAW blog, there’s no pressure and no one checks the answers; it’s only to spark some thought.

When someone asks “how old are you?”, you probably think about your chronologic age (after perhaps first considering: should I even tell this person, and if so, should I lie?) But this quiz is about your five different ages:

1.    What’s your chronologic age? The easy one, your real age. The only age you can’t control, it just ticks upward, but the good news is that the rest of your ages you have lots of control over.

Regarding lying about your actual age, I think it’s generally not a good strategy. If you take care of yourself well, you hopefully won’t be shy about telling. If you don’t want to say, better to deflect the question than lie. Besides, forcing yourself to be honest is a great stimulus to take good care of yourself!

2.    What’s your physiologic age? How well is your body functioning? You might be 32 and have the physiology of a 45 year-old or 75 and have the inner works of a 59 year-old. So take a guess—where do you think you are at?

Your goal of course is to have a physiologic age no greater than your real age. Fortunately, this is more controlled by how you live your life than by your genes.

3.    Your apparent age? Assuming other people don’t know your real age, it’s how old someone thinks you are when they see how you look and act. It’s a complex issue involving not only how you look, but how you talk and walk and how you are dressed and much more…

You have lots of control over this age, but typically, it’s hard to know what people are thinking.  Most people won’t tell you, and if they do, they could be lying either up or down. (An embarrassing situation I have experienced is when a proud older person asked “how old do you think I am?”, and I guessed too high. Next time when someone asks this awful question, you might consider, as I have, well…adjusting what you say.)

4.    Your self-perceived age? In your own mind, and when you look in the mirror, the age you feel or think you are.

Often changes day to day of course, but in general, as we will see from the Berlin Aging Study, it’s healthy to think of yourself as younger than your chronologic age. So don’t worry if you don’t “feel your age”. It’s a good thing.

5.    Your desired or fantasy age? The age you’d like to be if you could choose. Nice if it’s approximately your real age, and again, if you do a really good job with yourself, it just might be.

Funny that when you’re very young, usually it’s more than your real age, then sometime in your twenties, when you feel the sting of responsibility, you want to be younger.

Now next time someone asks you your age, you might be a little snappy and say “which age are you referring to exactly?”. Or, if you really feel the need to fudge your actual chronologic age, try picking one of your other ages, like your fantasy age, and watch their reaction!