Why Adventure Should Be Part Of Your Healthy Aging Plan

The days after Thanksgiving can find you snacking on holiday leftovers, or it can be the day you launch a life of outdoor adventure. Writer Caroline Paul votes for adventure, especially for women over 50.

The former San Francisco firefighter will be out with a new book March 5. Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking — How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age is aimed at getting women to get moving outdoors, embrace the uncomfortable and add quality to their later years.

“The key pillars to fulfilling aging is physical health, novelty, community and purpose,” Paul said, in an interview with LAist. “And outdoor activity pretty much covers all those bases.”

What the book covers

In her forthcoming book from Bloomsbury Publishing, she profiles a woman who base jumps (illegally it turns out) from El Capitan in Yosemite. Paul also takes readers along on an underwater journey with an 80-year-old woman scuba diver. And she details how she learned bicycle motocross from a 74-year-old woman.

When seeking adventure, think big and small

Not every new activity has to be physically demanding. Paul also counts birdwatching among her most satisfying adventures. As Paul writes, adventures can simply mean getting out of your cozy physical and social comfort zone.

How to start being adventurous is really up to the individual and being open to new experiences, Paul said.

Paul says exercise is good for aging adults, but it’s not the same thing as seeking adventure, especially for women who may feel less visible and hear negative messages about their looks and capabilities as they get older.

“In order to counter that messaging about our failing physical health and our failing cognitive skills or whatever we’re being told, we need these aspects of adventure, like vitality, exhilaration, exploration and a little bit of danger and awe in our lives,” she said.

She lives that message in her own life. In addition to writing books, she’s also a pilot of experimental gyrocopters and a surfer. Paul previously authored the New York Times bestseller, The Gutsy Girl: Escapades For Your Life of Epic Adventure.