C'mon & visit & we'll go to the city ...

Things we would do anyway and now there's yet another reason to do them.

Short “Buy Me a Coffee” Update After 1 Day

I wish I had more time today to dive into this ... but for now just let me say:

Thank you! You all are awesome!

More to come. Lots about mission statement, things I learned, etc. I just need another day or two to think it through. Meanwhile, obligatory:

C’mon & visit & we’ll go to the city ...

Today we have my favorite kind of science-backed habits story: the kind that tells me there are benefits associated with things I’d do even if they had no such benefits whatsoever.

Let me set the stage. When my family left the city for the suburbs, we did it for the reasons lots of families do it:

Photo by Angie K on Unsplash

• More space.

• Something resembling a yard.

• A little more room to breathe.

But, even though we were still within a proverbial long-arm’s reach of the city (NYC, in our case), we wondered if we’d fall into a common trap: no longer taking the time to visit the “city things” that we liked about living here to begin with.

Nobody’s accused me of being a habitué des arts, but I think a lot of families joining the city-to-burbs parade feel the tension.

Friends come to visit from out of town, and you realize that’s the only time you take advantage of all the things you have going on right around you.

In my case, the city means New York City. I didn’t grow up here so I don’t quite have the “this is the greatest city in the world and no other city comes close fuggetaboutit” attitude you see sometimes.

But it’s still pretty great.

Now, as life turned out, we’ve been quite good about keeping that part of our life.Also, we chose a suburb that has a reputation for being the suburb for people who refuse to admit they did in fact move to the suburbs.

It’s a small-ish place that nevertheless has several walkable downtowns, an art museum that punches well above our town’s weight, a 2,500-seat concert theater, renowned jazz and film festivals.

We even had minor league baseball team until very recently, but we do still have a lower-tier soccer team.

And, if I can step back from my boosterism, we also actually make the effort to get back to New York.

Now, as promised, there’s new evidence suggesting this habit that I enjoy making has physiological benefits—especially as people get older.

A study out of the Institute of Science Tokyo, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, found that older adults who regularly go to museums, theaters, concerts, and movies have physiological ages that run meaningfully younger than their birth certificates would suggest.

Physiological age is a measure of how well the body is functioning based on things like blood pressure, lung capacity, cholesterol, grip strength, and walking speed.

Two people can share a birthday and have physiological ages years apart.

The researchers followed 1,899 adults age 50 and older in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a large, nationally representative study in England, across multiple survey waves.

• Nurses measured 10 physical health indicators to calculate each person’s physiological age.

• Participants also reported how often they went to the movies, museums, art galleries, theater, concerts, or the opera, which researchers combined into a cultural engagement score from 0 to 15.

• People with higher cultural engagement had an average physiological age of 66.9. People with lower engagement averaged 69.9.

Even after adjusting for income, employment, and chronic health conditions, each one-point increase in cultural engagement was still associated with a 31-day reduction in physiological age.

The researchers said the effect looked comparable to what you’d expect from regular physical exercise. A few likely explanations:

• Cultural activities get people out of the house and around other people, which supports mental health.

• They often involve at least some walking.

• And going regularly probably reflects a broader habit of staying engaged with the world instead of retreating from it.

Granted, this is observational research. It can’t prove that going to more shows adds years to your functional life.

And, it’s also entirely possible the causation runs the other way, that healthier people are simply more able to get out to a concert or a matinee in the first place.

But if you’re going to do it anyway …

And we are …

It’s nice to have another reason.

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Other things worth knowing …

• KTLA: Deputies arrested a man allegedly armed with a handgun and ammunition at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes just days before a planned visit by President Trump. Trump was expected to arrive in Southern California Tuesday afternoon ahead of a Republican Party fundraising event at the golf course.

• AP: A man charged with intentionally setting a wildfire that has destroyed hundreds of buildings in and around Washington state’s second-largest city was questioned by law enforcement during two fire investigations last year, though he wasn’t charged then. Aaron F. Farinacci, of Spokane, was arrested Monday on suspicion of first-degree arson.

• The Independent: A former producer of CBS News’s 60 Minutes is trying to launch a rival current affairs show featuring journalists and crew members who left the network now spearheaded by Bari Weiss. Producer Bill Owens is seeking $50 million to launch a new hour-long news program staffed by people Weiss allegedly alienated and jettisoned, including Scott Pelley.

• NYT: Ariana Grande and the debate over health, privacy, and celebrity: The pop star has long pushed back on comments about her weight loss, urging fans to be “gentler.” As her fame reached new heights, so did the scrutiny.

• WSJ: Helicopter parents are co-piloting their adult children’s careers — calling up hiring managers, applying for jobs on their kid’s behalf, and even lurking just off-screen on Zoom calls.

• The Guardian: Why are vinyl albums becoming so different from their digital versions? They’re expensive, elaborate — and may not contain all the music. After Olivia Rodrigo, Charli xcx, and others sent out incomplete or unfinished vinyl versions, fans are feeling shortchanged.

• AP: A book on Greek antiquities has been returned to an Australian public library about 150 years late, with water damage from years bricked into a fireplace. Ross Simmons found it during home renovations inside a tea crate sealed behind a fireplace, and assumes it was borrowed by his great-great-grandfather John Simmons, who had owned the house.

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Thanks for reading. I wrote about some of this at Inc.com. See you in the comments.