Ever wonder about how social policy - especially healthcare policy- is created? It’s not something that many people consider because social policy just is. However, the story behind healthcare policy, social security, meeting the needs of the older population, feeding the poor – is far more complex and downright complicated than you would ever consider.

Our guest this week is Erin Maruzella and she is neck deep in social policy creation, especially when it comes to healthcare for older Americans. Formulating such policy in the current political climate is an almost Herculian task., as she explains in this week’s episode of The Art 2 Aging.

Regular contributor, Dave McCaughan, joins us this week for his POV on how to keep life interesting during retirement or, really, at any time in our lives.

Dave is a former ad executive with McCann in Australia who has turned his attention to examining and commenting on retirement – something that has led him to very interesting observations about living in our later years.

Every so often, we come across someone who is ripping up the rule book on aging. And we know we have to get them on the show.

Our guest this week is a 70 year old man named Mike Drak. Mike lives just north of Toronto. And he decided a few months ago that he wanted to lose a lot of weight, regain his health and keep it that way.

So, he committed to competing in a full triathlon in early August and began training hard. Here’s his story and it includes some disturbing details about his experience with a popular weight loss drug.

AI is all the buzz these days. And with good reason. It’s having an enormous impact on virtually every corner of the global economy and this is especially true when it comes to what is known as Age-Tech.

Think of Age-Tech as the intersection of an aging population and technology.

It’s a perfect example of how AI can help. Or not help.

There are potential problems with unfettered AI for the older population even alongside the many benefits.

Our contributor on POV this week, Ezra Schwartz, has plenty to say on the subject.

Millions of people around the world practice yoga. It’s an ancient form of exercise, originating in India more than 5 thousand years ago.

Used to be that you had to physically attend a yoga class to receive instruction but the combination of online technology and the pandemic has produced numerous ways to hit the mat, as they say, from the comfort of your own living room.

One of the best newsletters we’ve found on Substack on the subject of yoga is called Yoga Living 50 and Beyond. It’s the brainchild of our guest this week, Janine Agoglia who has really mastered the online format and tailors her classes for those over 50.

May 1st kicked off a unique and very special social media campaign that runs until the end of the month. It’s called Flip the Script and it’s the brainchild of a group of volunteers led by Janine Vanderburg. Janine is CEO of Encore Roadmap and her mission - one she has chosen to accept - is to tear down the old walls of prejudice surrounding aging. Flip the Script intends to destroy the outdated narratives around aging, particularly in the workplace. Janine Vanderburg offers us her POV this week.

Flip the Script is a social media campaign that has kicked off and runs through the month of May.

It’s the brainchild of a group of volunteers led by Janine Vanderburg, CEO of Encore Roadmap and founder of Changing the Narrative.

Janine returns to The Art 2 Aging this week where she talks about three key scripts that need to be flipped in favour of older adults and why it’s even more urgent today, given the devastating cutbacks to the funding of social programs by DOGE.

When we tell ourselves we will not give in to the vagaries of aging, are we doing ourselves any favors?

Our guest this week on POV is Wayne Lehrer, author of The Art of Conscious Aging.

Wayne holds that in order for us to really live consciously, we need to fully recognize where we are at any given moment.

If we’re 75, we need to accept that our bodies may feel 75 and build from that point forward. As Wayne might put it, “be like a tree and bend with the wind.”

See if Wayne’s words get you thinking, this week on POV.

Audio Time: 6:38