Health Series Focuses on Strength, Serenity, Sleep

Yoga instructor and wellness coach Diane Butera had always kept herself physically fit, but it took a cancer battle for her to realize the importance of preparing her mind as well as her body to handle health challenges.

Diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 53, Butera — now 68 — says that dealing with chemotherapy, the loss of her hair and “just being hit really hard with a big health challenge” made her ask, “What do I need to prepare?”

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Part of the answer, she says, is mindfulness.

Now Butera, who is also a certified hypnotherapist, uses that tool to help others as the instructor for the AARP Oregon webinar series Thrive at Any Age, which offers free, monthly online sessions on key aspects of aging well. A longtime instructor for AARP, Butera developed the series at the request of AARP Oregon. It’s an extension of a similar program offered last year.

“She’s a dynamic presenter and speaker,” says Megan Crowell, who works in volunteer and community engagement for AARP Oregon. “You can tell that she’s really invested. This information has really enriched her life, and she just wants to share it.”

Help from a ‘pinky’ ball

The webinars will cover a range of topics. Several sessions deal with how to maintain mobility and strength, including a hands-on workshop in July that will focus on using small rubber “pinky” balls to relieve tension and strengthen hand and foot muscles.

The series wraps up in November with “Caregiver’s Toolbox,” which will focus on tools, strategies and resources for navigating caregiving while prioritizing your own health and self-care.

The live, 90-minute sessions are interactive, so participants can ask Butera questions and she can guide them through activities; people who register receive an after-event email with a link and password to the recording.

Registration is required and space is limited. Since launching in February, the webinars have drawn as many as 300 participants per session, Crowell says.

Butera chooses these topics in part because her cancer experience also made her realize she needs to do what she can to maintain her strength as she ages. “I always have to work on those reserves,” she says. “And that’s what I try to tell people: Don’t wait till you get diagnosed with diabetes or an autoimmune disease or cancer. Start building your reserves now.”

That’s why she also infuses her webinars with advice on how to implement her suggested changes. “I teach them a little bit about habit building and how habits are broken — and how habits are made,” she says.

That matters to AARP member Kathleen Carlson of Phoenix, Arizona, who has been participating in Butera’s AARP health and wellness classes for more than two years. She notes that Butera will often use visual aids, such as diagrams and pictures of muscles and areas of the body.

“I like her teaching style,” says Carlson, who is in her 70s. “I don’t like a 20-year-old or a 30-year-old telling me to do stuff which — it’s never going to happen with my body.”

Crowell also says that many of the people attending AARP Oregon’s health and fitness programs are caregivers who appreciate the flexibility of the online sessions.

“They don’t have the time or the ability to always leave the house to go to a yoga class, so they really take this time for themselves,” she says.