- Gladys McGarey is 102 years old and still has a 10 year plan for her life's ambitions.
- She's developed a "simple" daily routine that involves prune juice, salad, and consulting work.
At age 102, Gladys McGarey has seen a lot of lives begin and end.
As a trained physician and birthing expert, she's witnessed the births of thousands of babies worldwide. She's also lived through the death of her ex-husband, and some of her own five children have died too.
Now, living in a sunny home in her daughter's backyard in Arizona, she has developed a practice that she says will help her accomplish her 10-year plan. She wrote about it in her new book, "$4" and walked Insider through her daily routine. While the doctor doesn't have a license to practice medicine anymore, "they didn't tell me I had to stop talking," she said.
She starts the day with prayer, Raisin Bran, and prune juice
McGarey begins most days in the same simple way: She gets up, greets the new day with a morning prayer, climbs down the stairs, and enjoys Raisin Bran and prune juice for breakfast.
Later in the day, "I have salad for lunch and some kind of soup or something for dinner," she told Insider. "It's the routine, and I think it works for me. It's important for each one to find what works for us."
Throughout the day she keeps her hands and her mind busy
To keep her hands busy throughout the day, McGarey continues a regular knitting practice.
"I can't see to knit patterns now because my eyes don't, but I can knit little gifts that I give, and that keeps my hands busy," she said. "If I don't keep my hands busy, I do something on the cell phone and that gets people all uptight, you know?"
She also still consults, and stays true to the "holistic" approach to medicine she $4 in the 1970s. McGarey believes that treating the whole person — taking into consideration their mental and social state, as well as any physical symptoms of distress — is paramount to healing.
When she's not knitting or consulting, McGarey listens to audiobooks or talks to friends – something aging experts say is crucial to human happiness and can actually $4
And, she recently got an infusion of stem cells, which she thinks has made a difference to her vitality — though scientists are still $4 to determine $4 helps $4.
"I'm not really robust and sturdy, but I think it's helped me, and I'm looking forward," she said.
She says creating a 10-year plan is critical for healthy aging
Finally, McGarey says, the most critical part of aging well is finding your central purpose, a life "juice" that is your mission and what you will endeavor to do with your time on Earth.
These days, she uses her own "juice" to think about how to create better ways for people to live together and care for each other. Her own 10-year plan — something she thinks everyone should have — includes creating a village for "living medicine" where elders, babies, and everyone in between can live together and care for each other more harmoniously.
"A 10 year plan makes space for everything," she wrote in the book. "It's a far enough reach that it keeps our life force activated. Yet it's close enough that we can achieve it, dust ourselves off, and plan anew."
She doesn't worry about what her own final "number" of years on Earth may end up to be. Instead, she keeps her eyes trained on what's coming next.
"I still think I've got work to do, and I'm gonna keep on working at it," she said.