To the Point: Ageing & Aesthetic Treatments

0:01Gabby's with you in just a moment, but first, here's one for you if you've ever tried to have a proper chat with your teenager. On The Teen Commandments, Sarah Cox and Claire Hamilton have been trying to have some big, important conversations with their sons, but the right time just never seems to come. Sound familiar? Plus, listeners are sharing how it really felt dropping off their kids at uni, and it's an absolute rollercoaster of emotions. search for the tink moments and get it lined up to play next hey we're nick and jack hosts of the best one yet behind every episode there's research email spreadsheets and our shared google doc the headline hammer with google workspace with gemini google's ai is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use like gmail docs and sheets no new tools or extra logins just personalized ai for the way we work That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about.

0:57Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. That's goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. Hello and welcome to Life at the Midpoint with me, Gabby Logan. And this is our weekly bonus episode to the point where we pick up on your dilemmas and questions. and I try to share my insight and maybe some of the guests I've had over the last six years insight on a particular area. And this is an area we haven't discussed very much actually on the midpoint. Aging is something we all do and we talk about ways of getting older that we feel better about ourselves, whether it's looking after ourselves physically, emotionally, the nutrition we put in our bodies.

1:41But the physical side of getting older also involves the aesthetic, if you like? And we don't really talk so much about that here. Obviously, I might say to guests, oh, you look amazing. What do you do? But generally, I'm talking about their energy and their kind of spirit and the fact that they might lift weights or they go running and they've got a lot of physical energy. But actually, there is another side and that is the face and what we present to the world and how much we should do to our face as we get older to feel better about ourselves. So we are talking aging today, but these questions specifically pertain to the physical rather than the emotional and the internal.

2:20And this one is from Christine who says, Gabby, I've had my head turned by how many women seem to be getting stunning, deep, plain facelifts. The results seem to be so much better than they were 10 years ago. I'm heading into my fifties and I crave a snatched jawline again. But also, is it just a silly thing to spend my money on and risk my health on. My husband thinks I'm mad to consider it and I think my kids would be freaked out, but I'm sick of looking at my saggy jowls. Well, first of all, I mean, deep plane facelift, that was something I don't think I'd heard about till about a year ago.

2:51And suddenly that's an expression, isn't it? When we were kids, we used to hear about facelifts and they belonged to Hollywood stars or people that were completely out of our orbit. Now it feels like people have facelifts, people who work in the high street and people who do jobs that we can relate to, not people who were totally in another orbit in terms of their lifestyles. It's become so much more accessible to cut your face up and do stuff and make differences and changes to your face. I'm not just talking about things like nose jobs, which was the thing that maybe in my teens and twenties people talked about.

3:27This is, as you say, these deep plane facelifts, which involve, it would appear when I look at social media, a lot of coming back from, a lot of downtime afterwards as well. So it's a really huge decision, as you say, a health decision, because anything where you're putting yourself under a general anaesthetic involves a certain amount of soul searching, doesn't it? Do I need to do this to myself? And I think that's the thing that's always made me think it's something that I couldn't entertain because I can't imagine putting myself in that situation just for the sake of my face. But then on the flip side of that, I hear people talking so candidly about it and looking amazing on them.

4:05You start to wonder, should I be doing that? Is that something that I should think about? I talk about this quite a lot with my girlfriends because you all have these same conversations, don't you? If I just do this, oh, if I just do that, everything looks a little bit tighter and I look a little bit younger. That is the thing, isn't it? Looking younger, I'm not sure we can turn back the clock in any way at all. Our bodies have been here on this planet for as many years as we have. In my case, it's 53 years. And I've got the lines that show I've smiled a lot, as my daughter would call them, crow's feet.

4:37And I've got other things going on on my face that involve time. I think I'm getting a little mark here, which I'm fairly sure is a sunspot. I'm going to get it checked out. But I didn't have this a year ago. And I look at pictures of myself from 10 years ago and realised, of course I've aged. And the jowls is an area you talk about, I think, which sometimes there's a certain amount of it being hereditary. You look at your mum and you look at your grandma and kind of, you know, what happened to this part of their face as they got older. And it is an area that gives away a lot with age in the same way the neck does as well.

5:09Love this time of year because I can wear a roll neck. And so you do think about kind of, you know, whether or not it's something that you should venture towards. And I think it is totally personal. If it's really bothering you and really making you feel upset and it's something you can afford to do and you've gone through all the medical processes and you've asked all the questions and you really want to do it, then I think you should do it. And I don't think anybody has the right to judge you for doing it. The idea that we are pressured into doing it though makes me feel a bit sad if people feel that they don't really want to do it, but they feel they have to kind of keep up an appearance and look a certain way, I think, and the pressure coming from wider society is something that I'm not so keen on.

5:51I think it's a very personal thing. And I hope that if you do go ahead with it, you absolutely love it. But I'm sure your children and your husband will love you all the same. So it's an interesting one to broach. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, actually, if you're listening to this now, what your thoughts are on going in for plastic surgery? Have you had it? Has it been something that's made you happier? Has it made you feel better about yourself? Because that's what we're looking at, isn't it really? Does it make you feel better about yourself and what difference does it make to your life?

6:22We've had another one from Anonymous who says, I'm in my mid fifties working in a highly competitive corporate job. Until recently, I had various treatments and tweakments to keep myself in good nick, but I had a health scare a few months ago and decided I was done with Botox and the various other painful and costly things I was doing to make myself palatable. People have already started to treat me differently. I'm finding it depressing and infuriating. I'm not sure what my question is. I'm just incredibly annoyed that none of the tubby balding men in my office have to go through this. Yeah, there is definitely a difference, I think, in the sexes as to what is perceived to be attractive in a man of a certain age and a woman of a certain age.

6:57Although I have to say a lot of my male colleagues have had hair transplants and a lot of guys have talked to me about it in a way that women don't always talk about what they're doing with their face and maybe aren't quite as as open. Maybe it's because if you have a hair transplant, you have to go around with a shaved head for a while. And often it looks a bit kind of bloody underneath as well. So it's hard to hide it, isn't it? Unless you wear a hat all the time. But yeah, I think men are facing these dilemmas more and more and you see more and more men having tweakments. But I think what you're talking about, and as you say yourself, you haven't asked a question, is you've wrestled with this idea that you don't want to do this stuff to yourself anymore, but then you're not enjoying how people are treating you.

7:34And you don't say specifically how people are treating you, but I imagine that's with a certain amount of just maybe ignoring you or not giving you the attention that you wanted before. Obviously, we all do things for different reasons. I keep colouring my hair because I like having blonde hair, but I'm definitely starting to notice more greys. My son said to me the other day, why don't you just go completely grey? He started showing me these pictures of amazing looking long grey hair and women looking brilliant with grey hair. I said, they look fantastic. and I would one day maybe like to do that.

8:06But right now, I don't want to. I'm not ready to do that. And I haven't got enough grey hairs. I'd just probably just look like I had lots and lots of mousy hair. So I'm not averse to kind of doing things that change my appearance at all. But I do think if it's something you're doing, because as you say, you want to make yourself more palatable, that seems like it's for the rest of society and you've got to be happy with you, haven't you? So I think it's such an intriguing area because the industry is huge now, isn't it? And what you can have done and what you can do to kind of try and stave off kind of the visual signs of aging.

8:41But all I will say is that the people who sit in that chair over there in this podcast studio, who have the most incredible brains, do amazing things and are full of passion, And that's the kind of 70 year old I want to be. And I'd be so much more inspired by that than somebody who sits there at 70 years old with not a line on their face. But I do think, you know, that it's so personal and people have completely different reasons for doing it and talk about it in an open way. I just wish the conversation was a bit more honest and that actually everybody shared kind of in a way that men seem to share about their hair transplants.

9:17I think Catherine Ryan talks really openly about her facelift that she had last year And I think if more women did that, then the choices for women would probably be a little bit easier and they'd come to those decisions a bit easier. But it is definitely one that we are probably going to come back to again and again. Hi, Gabby, Sarah here. Having spoken to so many people on the podcast, what's the one piece of advice that you've heard that stayed with you when it comes to aging and looking and feeling your best as you get older? It's advice, but it is also something I live. And I would say that is movement and exercise and keeping my body moving is so important.

9:58Somebody once said to me, look after your back because a healthy back is a sign of youth. And when you think about it, if you're slouching and if you haven't got skeletal strength, then the way you walk, the way you hold your posture becomes so aging because it just kind of like makes you hunch over. And that for me has always stuck and was why I really enjoy Pilates as well, because that spinal strength helps us do everything, the way we walk, the way we run, the way we move and the way we approach sport maybe. So I would say looking after your back and therefore looking after your body in terms of exercise is the best advice I could give you that I have kind of enjoyed and taken on board.

10:38And it's something that comes back again and again from every single person that I have on who talks about fitness and health and the pattern of aging, if you like with healthy aging and good aging involves good movement and good exercise. Thank you so much for all of your brilliant questions. If you've got any dilemmas or anything you'd like to share, and I'd love to hear more of your thoughts actually on the aesthetic of aging as well, because we maybe need to get somebody on, just have an honest and open chat about that. I don't really ask those questions very often of people like what you're doing to your face, because it's not that kind of podcast, but if it is important to you, then please get those questions in.

11:16And our email address is as always, hello at midpointlife.com or our social media at midpointlife. And I will see you next time on Life at the Midpoint.

11:38Hey, we're Nick and Jack hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. That's goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini.

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