•    Have a massage. Emotional and psychological stress produces physical tensions in certain muscle groups, especially those of the neck, back and shoulders. In most stressed people it is possible actually to feel the ‘knots’ in their muscles. In others the area feels ‘gritty’ when massaged. Learn how to massage your partner, or indeed your children. There are lots of good books on the subject. A shower head can be bought that ‘injects’ pulsed water at you and this, and a Jacuzzi or similar bath can be very soothing too.

Undoubtedly at least some of the benefit from a massage comes from simply relaxing and being stroked, but there is also a strong possibility that the person doing the massage will transfer healing forces to your body. Many people have healing powers in their hands which can be transferred to another person by the ‘laying on of hands’ or by massage. This sort of statement used to be ridiculed until the demonstration of these healing fields by Kirlian photography.

•     Have a hot bath. Warmth is almost always soothing but the bath should not be too hot-the water should be slightly above body temperature. Heat in any extreme is another stress – so don’t overdo it. Have a short, relaxing soak. Lie back in the bath, put a rolled-up towel behind your head, close your eyes and relax.

•     Breathe more slowly and deeply. Most of us breathe shallowly, especially when we are stressed. Practice breathing in (taking 7 seconds) and out (taking 8 seconds) for a couple of minutes at a time, especially when you feel stressed. With a little practice you can drop into your stress-reducing breathing very easily at the first sign of stress.

•     Learn to relax.

•     Pray. Increasing numbers of people in the West are turning to prayer as a way of de-stressing themselves but prayers that are said off by heart and with little thought are useless, according to the author of a book on the subject. You have to be conscious of the meaning of the words if prayer is to have a de-stressing effect. Better still, the author suggests, ‘construct your own prayers when under stress’. He finds that the most effective prayers involve the body and the mind as well as the spirit. ‘Don’t just talk to God-write a letter to him. If you are angry with someone, tell God you are angry by putting the person’s picture on the floor and dancing around it.’ The author of the book, Prayer-ways, feels that people need physical as well as spiritual outlets for stress if they are to avoid building up physical symptoms of stress. ‘If you play the piano, guitar or other musical instrument, make a prayer song, then play and sing it to God.’ It is a great stress discharger, he says.

•    Talk to your friends. Many people feel they have no one to whom they can turn when they are stressed and so bottle up all their stress, with harmful effects. Few of us have more than a handful of people to whom we are this close and often it is not our partners or family-they are too involved in our lives in other ways. Social support is a vital element in combating stress yet it is a commodity that is fast being lost in many urban communities. Listening to your friends, as well as talking to them, will also help. Hearing other people’s problems can often help put yours into perspective, and turning your thoughts outwards can itself be a valuable de-stressing manoeuvre.

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What is it?

Ageing is a normal process that starts in our mid-twenties. It is characterized by a decline in cardiovascular and respiratory fitness, a loss of muscle and bone, a thinning and wrinkling of the skin, a stiffening of the joints, a fall in sexual potency (especially in men) and many other more subtle changes. Many, if not most, of these changes appear simply to accompany the advancing years-there is no solid evidence that they are caused by growing old. For this reason it is at least theoretically possible that they can be slowed down, halted or even, on occasions, reversed.

The elderly and the very young are the greatest consumers of health services and the elderly are becoming very numerous. It is estimated that one third of all the people who have reached the age of 65 in the last 2,000 years are alive today! By the turn of the century one person in three will be over 75 and one in thirteen over 85.

The consequences of survival of the elderly on such a scale are so great that as yet few people have grasped them, but it is certain that the physical, mental and social demands of such a vast number of old people will be great and could even be beyond the ability of a decreasing working-age population to sustain.

All of this makes preventive strategies for the elderly vital for the community at large -not just to make life more pleasant for older people themselves (valuable though this undoubtedly is).

There is evidence that although people’s life expectancy is rising actual lifespan is not. On average people are already remaining fitter for longer and have a shorter period of terminal dependency as a result of medical, social and economic changes that have taken place over the last century. The aim of prevention in old age is to prevent illness rather than postpone mortality. As one old lady put it, ‘I want to die old, and healthy.’

But preventing the problems of old age does not just involve preventing illness in the commonly accepted sense of the word, because in the elderly, perhaps more than at any other age, social and other less well-defined factors come into play.

What causes it?

No one knows what causes the degeneration that currently goes hand in hand with advancing age, but we are only too aware of the results and it is these that need to be tackled in any preventive regime for the elderly. The most common specific problems are: iatrogenic disease; depression/anxiety; alcoholism; hypothermia; flu; constipation; tetanus; malnutrition; and high blood pressure. These are brought about not just by the degeneration process itself, but also by a general loss of fitness, and the social consequences of old age in our society.

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