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At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the
world's longest-serving physicians and educators. Hinohara's magic touch
is legendary: Since 1941 he has been healing patients at St.
Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke's College
of Nursing. After World War II, he envisioned a world-class hospital
and college springing from the ruins of Tokyo; thanks to his pioneering
spirit and business savvy, the doctor turned these institutions into the
nation's
top medical facility and nursing school. Today he serves as chairman of
the board of trustees at both organizations. Always willing to try new
things, he has published around 150 books since his 75th birthday, including
one "Living Long, Living Good" that has sold more than 1.2 million copies. As
the founder of the New Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to live a
long and happy life, a quest in which no role model is better than the doctor
himself.
Doctor Shigeaki Hinohara JUDIT KAWAGUCHIPHOTO
Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. We all
remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or
sleep. I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too. It's best not
to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.
All people who live long regardless of nationality, race or gender share one
thing in common: None are overweight... For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass
of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it.
Olive oil is great for the arteries and keeps my skin healthy. Lunch is
milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too busy to eat. I never get
hungry because I focus on my work.. Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice,
and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean meat..
Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full until 2014, with lectures
and my usual hospital work. In 2016 I'll have some fun, though: I plan to
attend the Tokyo Olympics!
There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than
65. The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the
average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese were over
100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we
have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will have about 50,000
people over the age of 100...
Share what you know. I give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school
children, others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90
minutes, standing, to stay strong.
When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the
doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a
procedure. Contrary to popular belief, doctors can't cure everyone. So
why cause unnecessary pain with surgery I think music and animal therapy
can help more than most doctors imagine.
To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. I take
two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving.
My inspiration is Robert Browning's poem "Abt Vogler." My father used to read
it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try
to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are
alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in
the distance.
Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it. If a child has
a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or she immediately
forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients: We all
want to have fun. At St. Luke's we have music and animal therapies, and art
classes.
Don't be crazy about amassing material things. Remember: You don't know
when your number is up, and you can't take it with you to the next place.
Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they
must accept every patient who appears at their doors. We designed St....
Luke's so we can operate anywhere: in the basement, in the corridors, in
the chapel. Most people thought I was crazy to prepare for a catastrophe, but
on March 20, 1995, I was unfortunately proven right when members of the
Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway.
We accepted 740 victims and in two hours figured out that it was sarin gas
that had hit them. Sadly we lost one person, but we saved 739 lives.
Science alone can't cure or help people. Science lumps us all together,
but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected
to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, we need liberal
and visual arts, not just medical ones.
Life is filled with incidents. On March 31, 1970, when I was 59 years old,
I boarded the Yodogo, a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka. It was a beautiful
sunny morning, and as Mount Fuji came into sight, the plane was hijacked by
the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. I spent the next four days
handcuffed to my seat in 40-degree heat. As a doctor, I looked at it all as an
experiment and was amazed at how the body slowed down in a crisis.
Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do.
My father went to the United States in 1900 to study at DukeUniversity in
North Carolina. He was a pioneer and one of my heroes. Later I found a few
more life guides, and when I am stuck, I ask myself how they would deal with
the problem.
It's wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for
one's family and to achieve one's goals. But in our later years, we should
strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a
volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love every minute of
it.
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BE HAPPY ....
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Regards,
RAJEN AJMERA
Have a good day!
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Regards,
Pradeep Parikh
Have a good day!
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