HEALTHY AGING

HEALTHY AGING

We all want to age as gracious as possible. We want to retain as much physical and mental independence in our elder years as possible. We must understand that aging in a healthy manner isn’t a spontaneous happening. It is a focused, purposeful, practice that we must identify as a goal for ourselves as the years pass. One thing we must understand is that our physical range of motions and mental acuity can and will be lost as we age if it isn’t practiced. So, how do we age healthy? What is “Healthy Aging”?

Healthy aging is limiting as many commonly known age-related diminishing attributes as possible. Said in another way that is maintaining your height, maintaining muscle tone, maintaining flexibility, and maintaining mental acuity- (of course, all of these are goals are without the interruption of an actual medical diagnosis, which come of many possible variances of limiting health conditions). The best way to maintain your lifestyle is to “maintain your lifestyle”.  Meaning that whatever it is that you like to do now, you should keep doing it in order to maintain that capability.  There may have to be alterations to what you do, but not cessation of what you do. We know that we can’t perform activities in our 60’s like we did in our 20’s, but we also do not want to stop enjoying life. We want to be focused on a smart and healthy continuation of our lifestyles.

So, what should you do if you didn’t have an active lifestyle and now you find yourself over 54? It is not too late! It is never to late to start a new… physical activity, hobby, social life or relationship, even a career. I would recommend you first visit your physician and get your annual check up and discuss with them your goals. Ask them for their opinion on what is feasible for you as a starting point. They have many resources at their discretion and can set you up on the right foot. 

Before you begin beginning something new think about the hurdles of repetition that you must muster through before it becomes automatic. You must address the reality of focused thought in pushing through the first month of a new practice. It won’t be easy. If you say to yourself – “I want to walk 3 miles a week”. That is the goal. Now to get there you must plan out the details. Once the details are laid out you then move to work your plan. Realize, from the onset that it will take at least 30 days of practice before it becomes normal and up to 65+ days before it switches to automatic.

Remember, don’t give up. You didn’t get here overnight. And you won’t become the superstar you would like to be overnight either. Imagine to yourself, that you drove 20 miles in the wrong direction before realizing that you were heading the wrong way… in order to get back on track you may have to back track all 20 miles to get back to where you needed to be. The beautiful thing about the human body is that rarely do we have to go as long in the positive way as we had been previously in the negative way.

Here are some tips provided by webmd.

• Get Moving- exercising regularly helps to maintain a healthy body and mind.
• Stay Social- Maintain friendships, create new ones, play games and start new activities.
• Bulk up- Consume a diet in high fiber foods for digestive and heart health.
• Spices- Include herbs and spices to your meals (if medication allows)
• Stay balanced- mind, body and soul. Implement activities that nurture each element of you.
• Nature- get out doors as often as possible for a walk. 
• Sleep- Enough can be said about how much we neglect our sleep. Here’s a blog I wrote on sleep a while back.
• Preventive Health Assessments- maintain your annual health checkups with your physician. Prevention and catching conditions early are key to longevity.
• Smile- Not only does a smile usually generate a smile back it improves your happiness. Also, you want to have dental checkups. Dental/oral health can prevent health issues and also highlight a health issue. 
• Travel- I like to say the only thing better than a good book, is a nice trip. Exploring and seeing new scenery, people, cultures, history, and tasting different foods is hard to match and can be uplifting and motivating.

Here is a great website for constant motivation and inspiration.

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