Life Hacks for Older (and Wiser) People
One of the great joys of being a “mature adult” (a.k.a. someone with more candles on the cake than cartilage in the knees) is discovering that your body has started issuing daily complaints. Sore knees, cranky hips, elbows that creak like an old screen door—yes, welcome to the world of osteoarthritis.
Doctors will tell you the problem is that the cartilage between your bones has thinned out. (Personally, I suspect mine just packed up and moved to Florida.)
Now, the usual medical advice is to take something like naproxen sodium. It works wonderfully—until your liver stages a protest march. The alternative they suggest? Painkillers like Tylenol, which politely take away the pain while your joints continue plotting their revenge.
So what’s a person to do?
Enter… the cherry.
Yes, humble cherries may be the closest thing to candy-flavored medicine. You can buy them fresh in the summer, but for the other eleven months of the year, frozen or dried cherries are the way to go.
Here’s the fun part: for me, about 20 frozen cherries (thawed in a bowl) work about as well as 1000 mg of naproxen sodium—without the angry liver. (I imagine my liver applauding politely every time I reach for the fruit bowl instead of the pill bottle.)
And if you really want to level up? Tart cherries. They pack an even bigger anti-inflammatory punch. Most people stew them in hot water to soften them up, but if you’re brave—or impatient—you can snack on them straight out of the bag.
Lots of foods claim anti-inflammatory superpowers, but cherries have science, taste, and snackability on their side. And let’s be honest: “Doctor’s orders, eat more cherries” is the kind of prescription we can all get behind.
So here’s my motto: when life gives you arthritis, fight back with cherries. 🍒
Example of frozen cherries: 
Example of dried cherries:
Content by Peter W. Shackle, humor by chatGPT