From the editor
Welcome to the Journal
Most of what gets written for people our age is either frightening or condescending. This little paper tries to be neither. It is written the way a sensible neighbor would explain something over a fence: slowly, in ordinary words, and without pretending to know more than it does.
I started the Journal after spending a winter helping my mother sort out what was worth worrying about and what was not. She is eighty-four. She had a folder of clippings, a drawer of half-read pamphlets, and no clear idea which of them applied to her. What she wanted was not more information. She wanted someone to tell her, plainly, what a thing meant and whether it was worth a phone call to her doctor.
So that is what we publish here. Three or four pieces a month about how the body changes as it gets older, how a house can be made easier to live in, and what is genuinely worth asking a physician about at the next visit.
Nothing in this Journal is medical advice, and nothing here is a substitute for your own doctor. We write so that you can have a better conversation with them — not instead of one.
If a piece here is useful to you, the best thing you can do with it is print it and take it to your next appointment. Several readers have told me they do exactly that, which is the nicest thing anyone has said about the Journal so far.
— Margaret Hayes
In this issue
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Health
Blood pressure, quietly explained
Almost everyone has had a cuff put on their arm and been told two numbers. Almost nobody has had those numbers explained. What they are measuring, how to take a reading at home without frightening yourself, and what is worth raising at your next appointment.
Read the full article → -
At home
The air inside your house
We spend the great majority of our hours indoors, and the air in there is not the same as the air outside. Dust, cooking, damp and dryness all play a part. None of it is cause for alarm, and most of it is fixable for very little money.
Read the full article → -
Health
Breathing, quietly explained
From an earlier issue. What actually happens inside the chest when you take a breath, what genuinely changes with the years, and the handful of signs worth an appointment rather than a wait-and-see.
Read the full article → -
Daily life
A short walk, most days
Not exercise. Not a program. Just the ordinary business of moving about a little every day, why it seems to matter more after seventy than before it, and how to begin again after a long spell of sitting.
Read the full article →
A note on what this paper is
The Good Neighbor Journal is an independent publication. We do not diagnose, treat, or prescribe, and we do not publish claims about curing or preventing any disease. If something you read here worries you, or if something about your own health has changed, speak to a licensed physician. In an emergency in the United States, call 911.