When we are old, alarming messages about sleep bombard us. My guest Associate Professor Rosie Gibson from Massey University and her colleague Mary Breheny found that "good" sleep in old age is often reported as a magic cure — and "bad" sleep as a terrible risk. In three "Words on Sleep" workshops, 40 people over 75 wrote poems about sleeping that suggest a more pragmatic and positive view of sleeping. Rosie and I toss around ideas and poems and stories. Listen as an antidote to sleep worries, if you have them.
Associate Professor Rosie Gibson
Sleep perfectionists: the exhausting rise of orthosomnia
Sleep Hygiene by Jill Khoury
My bed is a boat by RL Stevenson
--------
--------
31. Memento mori: Simon Sweetman’s wakeup call
Have you had a memento mori, a reminder of death, an OMG-I'm-gonna-die-one-day moment? Or perhaps a memento senesci, and OMG-I'm-gonna-be-old-one-day moment? This can happen at any age, and is just as authentic when a very young person feels it. Sometimes it prompts us to change or die.
This podcast episode is a chat with Simon Sweetman, a writer, music afficionado and podcaster who knows far too much about popular music. He talks about waking up to his own mortality, making big changes in his life to prevent an early death, and some favourite songs that are (sort of) about old age.
Simon Sweetman got a brutal wake-up call around the age of 40. After that turning point he began making a few big changes in his life, one at a time. He tells us what changed after a nurse spoke to him bluntly at a crossroads in his life.
Simon and I also talk about changes in our thinking and our approach to life, changes that happen almost inevitably in the process of growing older.
Massive molecular shifts occur in our 40s and 60s, Stanford Medicine researchers find
Simon Sweetman's Substack publication
Your wake-up birthday: when and why?
--------
--------
30. Old people and books with Kate Camp
In this podcast episode, Kate Camp and I go nitpicking, grumbling and enthusing on the general topic of old people reading books and old people in books. Listen if you might be old one day. Because everything changes as you get older, including your reading habits.
My guest Kate Camp is a terrific poet and in New Zealand she’s well known and very popular because of a radio programme, Kate’s Klassics. Every month she used to re-read a classic book, like Anne of Green Gables or Pride and Prejudice or The Odyssey, and on Radio NZ she would do a wickedly funny commentary on that book.
That's why I’ve asked Kate here to talk about reading. How reading may change as we get older. What we read, how we read, why we read, why we don’t read — and books that feature old people as protagonists. That sounds quite organised, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. We wander all over the place, but always with a special interest in old people reading. Listen up for Kate's origin myth of how she learned to read. We react in personal ways to Read NZ's 2025 National Reading Survey. We cast about for very old protagonists in novels, and skip lightly over the current wave of book series set in retirement villages. We rave about a TV series and a couple of books that feature characters confronting their own old age.
Kate is wonderfully blunt at times. For instance, "In DIckens there's a lot of old people but they're all decrepit old wrecks." "Subconsciously people think if you're reading a book it's more worthy than watching TV."
Thanks for listening — catch you later! And if you like this podcast, please tell a friend.
Resources mentioned in this episode: old people and books
Read NZ Te Pou Muramura—the organisation that promotes reading in New Zealand
Horizon Research National Reading Survey 2025
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Grace and Frankie
Vera Stanhope books by Anne Cleeve (actually Vera is middle aged, not old)
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishigura, audiobook read by Dominic West
The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
--------
--------
29. Am I fit to podcast at 85?
Learning How To Be Old returns to the air with a timely check-up. I want to be sure that I'm fit to podcast. Hugo, aged 13, tests me for my overdue Old Person Warrant of Fitness. Looking pretty good, though some criteria are dubious. I just need an oil and grease and a few tweaks to allow for some common age-related changes.
In coming episodes, my terrific guests bring a breath of fresh air as we chat about issues in daily life. Obviously, your body and mind keep changing from the day you're born, and it never stops. As a result, so does your social life, your mental life, the pressures you feel, your habits and your choices.
Exploring so many topics related to old age takes mental and physical agility. Last week disaster struck when I accidentally wiped out a conversation with a brilliant, busy guest. That was a big fail, and all my own doing. I felt so ashamed. I hope I've learned a necessary lesson about focus and thumbs.
For an hour or two, I doubted myself. Am I really fit to podcast? Next year's test will be more rigorous. Meantime, enjoy listening to my guest Hugo as he puts me through my paces.
From now on, Learning How To Be Old will be broadcast from Wellington Access Radio at 6:30 pm, alternate Tuesdays. Also here on my website and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. as usual.
Thanks for listening! And please share with somebody you know.
--------
--------
28. Naming a podcast. Bonus: a podcaster’s folly
I started by naming a podcast, as you do. Some experts tell you not to overthink when naming a podcast. So instead, I underthought.
"Learning How To Be Old" is a terrifying title. It drives people away in droves, screaming and blocking their ears. So, bad name for a podcast! (You would rather be dead than old, true?) So why do I carry on? Mainly for fun: I find the whole creative process entrancing, and I just love coaxing my guests to speak their minds.
If you find the prospect of old age scary, you're not alone. In my defence, I want show old age as a chunk of your real life — not a slab of nothingness. Many good things follow, like relief and purpose and self-esteem and — so much more fun!
In regular episodes, amazing guests, young and old, teach me something about how to live. (Hence my foolish naming of this podcast.) "Bonus" episodes are just me, thinking out loud about some aspect of my creative life, my personal artist's way.
Podcast names you need to avoid in 2025 (Buzzsprout)
How to choose a great show or podcast name (Spotify)
A popular play about an unpopular topic (WriteIntoLife.com)
This is Learning How To Be Old, a guide to the pleasures and possibilities of your future old age. I'm Rachel McAlpine and I'm in my 80s. I used to be aware of old people but I never dreamed I might become one myself. They were like an alien species. Well, here I am and so far it’s been pretty interesting. Listen if you think you might be old one day.
New Zealand