Are You His Grandpa? Stress Aged Me

This is a classic. Every now and then I get comments from readers that make me laugh, but know that I am laughing WITH you, not AT you.
This man’s story is so familiar, though. And if you have not experienced this, consider yourself lucky. He described having received the dreadful grocery store question, “And is this your grandson?” The thing that makes this as bad as “When are you due?” when you are not even pregnant is when you are NOT a grandparent and the child in question is actually your child.
What had happened over the years to turn a healthy, youthful new parent to the geriatric-looking one in the checkout lane? He told me it was mostly a series of stressful events that cropped up recently.
Many people can identify with what he described he was going through.  His own father’s health was declining at the same time he was trying to teach his son how to drive. Recession woes had him fearing a layoff and his wife told him she needed to fly out to her sister’s place to help get the mother-in-law into cancer treatment.  On top of that, his niece was in a very bad car accident on her way through the Midwest a few weeks ago and he had to drop everything to go get her.
Being firmly squished into the “sandwich generation”- caring for both parents and children- had him in a death grip of Father Time’s fast-forward machine.  People who hadn’t seen him for a year couldn’t believe how grey his hair had gotten.  His face was showing the strain of stressful life incidents on top of lack of sleep.
One of my staff members who found the email to share it with me laughed knowingly, as she had been asked (years ago at the tender age of 30) when picking her daughter up from a playgroup by one of the other 4-year olds, “Are you hers gramma?”  Out of the mouth of babes…comes more honesty than one can bear.
What can be done to stop these ravages and keep thoughtless tongues from lashing about?  Several things:
- Find a support group and talk to someone about the stress you are under.  Get on Facebook, Tweet your peers or go old-school and see if there are any other folks in your area who need a little ‘group therapy’ and just talk it out. They may be able to help with babysitting, lawn-watering or other things while you are forced to travel and whatnot.
- Get some sleep! Countless research studies- and infinite articles- abound on the seriousness of the consequences of not getting enough quality sleep.  You might not think you have time to spend 7 or 8 hours sawing logs but try to carve out that much. Then get to work on finding something that will help you naturally fall asleep and stay asleep.
- Moisturize- from the outside in and the inside out. This goes for men, too.  Find a quality skin moisturizer that you like and stock up. Use it every day when you get up and every night before bed. And trade those sodas for real water.  No more junk drinks.
- Get some quality supplements. Antioxidants eliminate the free radicals that are trying to send you to an early old folks’ home, so supplement where your body needs the help.
- Finally, laugh a little. Research has shown that the body recovers best from injury and illness when people can laugh. I consider stress an illness.  Cure yourself of it and all the negative effects by finding a way to naturally reduce your blood pressure…and if you can laugh every day your results will come faster.
So far I have been lucky enough to dodge the “grandpa” question, but I know my time will come.  I just plan to stave it off for as long as possible. What works for me might work for you, too. Try my natural programs for high blood pressure and Insomnia…and stay tuned for more info on naturally healing arthritis. We will be releasing that guide very soon.