How former head of C4 got in shape to work full time

What’s it like going back to work when you are 55, 60 or even 65 — or if, like me, you are 70?

The Government is keen to get older people back into work because of labour force shortages but if you need or want to work when you are older, how can you make sure that you maintain a healthy lifestyle and don’t in fact damage your wellbeing?

That’s the issue I faced when I was invited to apply to be President of Murray Edwards College at the University of Cambridge two years ago.

I worried about how it would affect my health and whether I would be able to cope physically with working virtually full-time.

Like many in their late 60s, I had several medical conditions. In my case, two auto-immune diseases — giant cell arteritis and polymyalgia rheumatica — and a knee replacement.

I worried about how it would affect my health and whether I would be able to cope physically with working virtually full-time

The auto-immune diseases were in remission but I was concerned that if I overdid it, they might come back.

When these diseases are active they require strong drugs to keep the inflammation that they cause — in the blood vessels in my head and my shoulders and hips — under control.

If I sit still for too long, my bad leg (the one with the new knee) swells up and I become generally stiff, because that’s what happens to you when you are 70.

I tire more easily than I did even ten years ago. I can’t skip meals or miss out on sleep as I did in my early years as a television journalist.

Murray Edwards is a women’s college and we have a responsibility to care for the wellbeing of our students. In term time, I work full-time and I realised I wouldn’t be much of an example if I made myself ill through work.

The current pension age is 66 and it’s proposed that this will rise to 68 within a few years.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has also said the economy needs hundreds of thousands of older people to return to the workplace. We have to accept many older people are not well enough to work, certainly not full-time.

So we need a realistic public discussion about how many people can return to the office or shopfloor — but there is also a lack of advice to older people on how to cope if they do return to work.

I’d left my full-time office job at the start of the Covid pandemic, so this was going to be a big change.

The first thing I did to prepare was take up personal fitness training. I realised that if I was returning to sitting in an office for several hours at a stretch a day, I would need to keep up my strength and flexibility.

I wouldn’t have time to go out to gym sessions and I thought online fitness classes looked too strenuous for someone of my age and level of fitness. So I found myself a personal online trainer who had worked with older people. I know it’s not something everyone could afford.

My new trainer, Jack Moon, and I meet over Zoom, having kicked off with some in-person sessions so that he could understand my problems.

He points out: ‘Commercial gym programmes are not usually designed for people over 50. One problem is that almost all personal trainers are young [Jack himself is 35, but has worked a lot with older people] and don’t really understand the problems of older people.

‘Older people need to keep moving to maintain muscle mass because, after 50, muscle mass drops by 5 to 10 per cent per decade and bone density by 10 to 30 per cent in the same timeframe.

‘They are often also out of condition, so if they do the wrong sort of exercise they can cause themselves injury,’ he says.

‘Because of the muscle loss and slower reactions, they are more likely to fall over.’ As it happens, three years ago, I fell in a gym, tripping over a piece of equipment and broke my arm in three places, so he is right there.

A key part of my three weekly sessions is small doses of regular resistance training using rubber bands and my body weight (rather than weights or gym equipment) to keep me strong and supple.

I also aim, often unsuccessfully, to walk 10,000 steps a day. A major problem with working is carving out the time to do that.

But it’s essential for the health of someone older.

To stop my leg swelling up in the office, I put it on a giant Swiss ball. At first I found this embarrassing, but now younger colleagues say they are considering doing the same as it’s so much better for you than sitting for hours with your legs down.

Of course, as people get older, sleep can become more difficult so you end up feeling exhausted by early afternoon and even nodding off in long meetings.

Since the menopause, I had been waking every two hours on average. But when I was 67 I started HRT (hormone replacement therapy). It isn’t right for every woman but it’s worked wonders for me. I now sleep normally, giving me the energy to work.

But there is no doubt that because I am older, I am really tired by the end of the day and don’t feel like doing exercise. So I do it first thing in the morning, starting work later.

Chris Brooks, head of policy at the charity Age UK, says that if the Government wants more older people to work, they need to encourage employers to permit flexible working, such as starting later when public transport is less busy.

Currently, an employee has the right to ask for flexible working after six months, but a Private Members’ bill, supported by the Government, proposes the right to flexible working from day one.

I believe we need flexible working if we oldies are to remain . . . flexible.

As Chris Brooks says: ‘Lots of older people want to work, it makes them feel valued because they are helping the community, but we need a step change in employers’ attitudes towards employment flexibility.

‘They should embrace it as a positive because a diverse workforce is proven to be the most effective workforce.’

I think I am proof of that. In 2019, I commissioned a Channel 4 programme about the menopause with Davina McCall. It helped bring a great change in attitudes towards HRT. I would never have commissioned that programme had I not been an older woman.

Dr Victoria Keevil, a consultant geriatrician at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, says: ‘We have different strengths at different times of our lives.

‘You might have less energy but you have loads of experience. You have a different sort of strength.’

She looks back to her time as a junior doctor working 12 to 14-hour shifts. Now in her mid-40s, she wouldn’t want to work like that again, but with her more than 20 years of expertise and experience as a doctor, she can give more in other ways.

‘By age 65 plus, few people are taking no medication and lots are taking more than one,’ she says.

‘People might have a bit of arthritis, their vision is not so good, balance starts to deteriorate and there is a greater likelihood they will fall over.

‘But it doesn’t mean they can’t go back to work; it’s just likely that they will work in a different way. And there are so many positive health benefits from feeling valued, purposeful and less lonely. We need society to be more flexible in attitudes so that people can work if they want to.’

Dr Keevil has a patient in their 90s who is still doing some work as an academic.

I don’t plan to carry on that long, but if I keep up my daily walks, and carry on pulling my rubber bands in the morning, then who knows.

DO I REALLY NEED…

HoMedics rechargeable shiatsu pillow, £69.99, boots.com

The maker says it can be used anywhere to relieve ‘tight knots’, ‘aching muscles’ and ‘loosen stiff tendons’

CLAIM: This pillow has two ‘nodes’ which work together to recreate the technique used in shiatsu massages, and has a ‘soothing heat option’.

The maker says it can be used anywhere to relieve ‘tight knots’, ‘aching muscles’ and ‘loosen stiff tendons’.

EXPERT VERDICT: ‘This can be placed under your neck, lower back or legs,’ says Tim Allardyce, a physiotherapist at Surrey Physio. ‘Massage pillows are good for general relaxation as the mechanical massage will make aches and pains feel a bit better. And heat can reduce pain.

‘But it will not feel like a hands-on sports massage. I don’t think it will loosen stiff tendons, either.’

BEAUTY IS PAIN

When personal grooming causes health problems 

This week: Tight ponytails

50 out of 93 women reported headaches after wearing a tight ponytail

Ponytail headache was first identified in a paper in the journal Headache in 2004, which found 50 out of 93 women reported headaches after wearing a tight ponytail.

According to the authors, the problem occurs as the ponytail pulls on the tendons and other tissue in the scalp. In most cases loosening the ponytail reduced pain within half an hour. Another consequence is traction alopecia — hair loss mostly from the front of the scalp.

‘Hair follicles are designed to deal with the weight of one hair strand at full length — beyond that, we start to put pressure on the follicular unit,’ says Eleanore Richardson, a spokesperson for the Institute of Trichologists. ‘Hair starts to grow weaker until the follicle gives up and the body reacts by scarring over it — at which point the hair won’t regrow.’

Avocado: A study found people who ate at least one avocado a week had a 16 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease, compared to those who rarely or never ate them, reported the Journal of the American Heart Association. Avocados contain monounsaturated fat and fibre, which have heart benefits.