LIVE LONGER

1. Moderate your bad habits. Maybe completely eliminating them is not as easy as you thought, they have a "gotcha" on you to a degree; but to moderate them... so your body can catch up in between episodes - Don't eat, drink, sleep, go on benders, lost weekends, etc. Just a little bit on a regular basis, every day, every week, little enough so you can handle it with no really ill effects.

2. Same goes for your good habits - a little dab'll do ya daily better than thrice weekly. A little walk, a short run, a bike ride, a dip in the pool. Most convenient is a bike ride or a walk. You put on your coat and go, without having to go to a special place, suiting up, showering, scheduling, paying. Just go out, ride or walk to a destination, then back, or in a large circle ending where you started. A shopping center is great, where on a bike you can zoom around the parking lot early before the cars come, to the rear where the trucks go, in and out lightly up and down, fast, slow, sharp turns keeping you sharp, watchful. Same with walking of course, AND you can shop - Food, Supplies, whatever you need into your backpack.

3. New Idea: Learn to throw a ball with either hand. If you're a righty, then with your left, or vice-versa. Oh sure, you you throw OK with your main hand. Try try the other now - start with a tennis ball, throwing it against a wall and catching it on one bounce. Throw first with your main hand, then imitate what you did with your main hand with the other hand, right down to the stretch, the windup, the grip, the fingers, the tightness, the roll of the ball off the fingertips. Later a heavier ball like a rubber lacrosse ball. See how easy it is with your main hand, and how it gets easier with your other hand every time you throw. Right, left, right, left, aim for a spot on the wall. Catch, throw. You're training the whole other side of your body, yes, of your brain, which, after all, controls your body, right? Training your reflexes, your internal mechanisms. Think that's strange? There's a pitcher in the New York Yankees farm system who flings with either hand, causing some consternation among batters, finally resulting in a new rule in baseball as to the order of things: RULE: The pitcher must decide FIRST which hand he's throwing with, THEN the batter decides which side he's going to bat from. (Then of course the fielders shift, the umpires get out of the way, the dugouts protect themselves, the fans shift their attention, have another beer...).
It's important you "learn" that other side. Who knows when you'll need it? Start shaving, combing, brushing teeth, eating, painting, hammering, mouse-ing, maybe even writing - everything. Try it. Maybe you have a whole 'nother lifetime to live...

Henry Francisco