These Are Our "Dangerous Decades"

Insofar as you can tell a person’s age by their movie Superman, mine was Christopher Reeve. He was an incredible actor and human being, a Juilliard grad (Robin Williams’ roommate!), an author, activist and director. In 1994, he experienced a riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He lived and worked for more than 9 years with the support of his wife and friends.

Reeve is almost as famous for the spinal cord research work of the foundation which bears his name and that of his deceased widow, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

Today, I want to talk about his widow, Dana. Dana, who never smoked and who was, by all accounts, healthy, was diagnosed with an aggressive lung cancer not 10 months after Christopher’s death from cardiac arrest at 52. She died a year later at age 44.

I cannot imagine the stress of her life, even though the Reeve family had the financial wherewithal to have round-the-clock help once Christopher was paralyzed. Dana was mother to Wil and caregiver to Christopher 24/7 for almost 10 years. Whatever role she had signed up for, the script of her life had flipped dramatically. There would be no normal.

While she wondered if the cause of her cancer originated from singing in smoky bars when she was young, the timing of the cancer cells’ expression was suspicious to me. I became obsessed with it and never forgot it. It’s my opinion that her aggressive cancer was the result of the way stress manifested itself in her body, and how that stress, combined with grief, damaged her entire system.

I’ve observed this: cancer that appears within months or a year after a stressful experience. And, not just a stressful experience; a prolonged period of stress. Maybe enough to reprogram the body’s response, such that it overproduces hormones, increases inflammation and weakens the immune system.

Here’s my disclaimer: I’m not a medical professional. I don’t play one on TV. I’m also not a statistician. But just because there aren’t enough studies to prove causality doesn’t mean that there isn’t a connection. Women, including my clients, stress themselves into illness.

And, if there’s a connection, what can we do to prevent this in the first place? According to Medicine 3.0, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, we should be taking a closer look at cancer prevention and reducing the risk of cancer, not just treating and managing it once it occurs. Obviously, prevention can work. We stopped smoking cigarettes, didn’t we?

Our 50s and 60s are dangerous decades with respect to changes in our bodies, our family dynamics, and our careers. We all need tools to navigate this because we can’t control everything that can happen to us:

• We can’t control how easy or rocky the launch of our children will be and how we will feel as empty nesters or boomerang landlords.

• We can’t control how easy or rocky the experience with our aging parents will be as they move from independence to frailty to old age.

• We can’t control how easy or rocky our corporate employment will be as companies enact rolling layoffs without regard to talent.

• We can’t control the initial fear of change as we approach retirement.

• We can’t control pandemics and how our government prepares.

• We can’t control stock market crashes.

• We can’t control the grief of losing too early people we’ve known our whole lives.

Dan Buettner, of Blue Zones fame, refers to our 50s and 60s as the most important decades for our health span. This is what will dictate the quality of how we age.

Here’s my heartfelt plea for this time: Grab your stress response by the throat and force it into submission. Don’t just manage hot flashes and weight gain. Figure out how to address and relieve prolonged stress. We can’t control much. But we can control how we respond insofar as we can line up the tools that work for us and rebalance our hormones when stress happens.

• We can move.

• We can hydrate.

• We can practice mindfulness or meditation.

• We can eat body-nurturing foods.

• We can avoid eating foods that are poisonous to our bodies (cancers feed on sugar; fake foods change our microbiome.)

• We can prioritize sleep.

• We can prioritize being among those who bring us joy.

• We can monitor our cardiovascular profiles and our glucose metabolisms and act as our own medical advocates.

• We can remove ourselves from exposure to toxins.

This is not easy. I had my own near-miss in my late 50s. (See What Price Ambition?, one of my first Madrina Molly posts.)

I’m not implying we can avoid all cancers or that there aren’t other factors at work. And I am certainly not implying that we cause our own illnesses. But we have to invest in ourselves and our health at every step to ensure that we remain healthy in our second 50 years.

The good news is that our bodies are resilient:

• It’s never too late to improve our cardiovascular profile.

• It’s never too late to improve our glucose metabolism.

• It’s never too late to improve our mobility.

• It’s never too late to detox.

• It’s never too late to build muscle.

• It’s never too late to find our people.

The question is, “How badly do we want it?” I have a secret weapon for accomplishing health-related goals, and it works like a charm: I enlist my entire community in the effort.

• Build a team of family and friends.

• Invite them along for the ride as a participant or a cheerleader.

• Reward them for their support by including them in your milestone celebrations.

In that spirit, I’ve downloaded a free app called StepUp to track my walking. I try to walk daily and swim multiple times weekly. But, as we know, life and weather get in the way.

I can do better (and I have). And I know (and you will discover) that walking is magic. I’d be delighted if you’d join me. Below is a link to join the Madrina Molly group. Let’s move together, wherever we are, so we can encourage one another and manage our stress. (I promise it’s completely free…no upsell.)

Join the "Madrina Molly" group on StepUp.

I have yet to figure out how to get one of these trackers to track kettlebells. But that’s a project for another day.

I’m including a quote from Dana Reeve. And I am reminding us all of the Adlerian philosophy that we should awaken already the person we intend to be.

Today, I intend to be someone who masters my stress. #WeRescueOurselves

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Copyright Madrina Molly, LLC 2025

The information contained herein and shared by Madrina Molly™ constitutes financial education and not investment or financial advice.

Sherry Finkel Murphy, CFP®, RICP®, ChFC®, is the Founder and CEO of Madrina Molly, LLC.