There are many important aging issues that you will face as you grow older but you can face them each day with confidence if you have the information you need. Start gathering the information you need today by taking advantage of the common sense and practical tips in the article below.
Don’t get caught feeling and acting old! Spend time with children! Volunteer at a daycare or a church nursery where you can feel useful and engage in childish activities. Keep in touch often with grandkids and have them visit often. Children will make you feel young and joyful again!
Free radicals are destructive by-products formed as your body turns food and oxygen into energy. Because they protect against those free radicals, antioxidants may help you deal with the effects of aging. Sources of antioxidants are fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Blueberries, blackberries, broccoli, and spinach are particularly desirable, as darker foods tend to have a higher amount of antioxidants.
Take the time each day to enjoy the simple things in life. It could be a simple flower growing in the garden, or a smile on a child’s face. These things will give you joy and the more joy you have in your life, the more youthful you will feel throughout it.
Keep your friendships alive, and the aging process will be one of enjoyment. By working at these friendships, you are providing yourself with fuel, which gives you energy and provides you with love. Remember, that you are never too old to begin new friendships. Your new friend could be sitting at the next table to you in the coffee shop.
Just because you aren’t as young as you used to be, you can still create goals and work to get them done. Life is an ever-changing journey and shouldn’t become boring. Setting goals for yourself will keep you motivated and active to see they are accomplished. The pride you feel when you have attained these goals will be insurmountable.
Hormones play a big part in how we age, and any imbalance should be addressed. Hormonal imbalances can lead to medical issues like weight gain, depression and insomnia. All three of these worsen the negative effects of aging. Consult your physician for the best advice on how to control hormone imbalances. This can benefit your later years in tremendous ways.
Keep on dancing. Regular physical exertion increases oxygen flow to the brain and strengthens cells by releasing necessary protein. Older adults who remain physically active are much less likely to develop dementia and similar diseases, and dance is a wonderful way to keep moving. If you have a swimming pool, aquatics can also be effective.
Keep your mind active. “Use it or lose it” is one phrase that is true. Whether you do logic puzzles or learn a new language, keeping your brain working is an essential ingredient to life as an older person. Keep your mind occupied and it will keep working well for you.
Healthy Growing Old Preparation
If your health is good, be sure to preserve it. If it is not so good, do what you can to improve it. Your body is your life vessel and should be cared for as if your life depends on it, because it does. Get the help that you need to improve any health issues that you may have.
A great tip for healthy aging is to see your doctor regularly. Your doctor has the same goal as you – keeping your body in optimum health. By taking the time to have regular check-ups, you can usually catch small health problems before they turn into big health issues. It is also important to schedule regular eye and dental exams too.
Change your oils and change your life! Aging should mean less of the bad oils like partially hydrogenated, corn, cottonseed or soybean and more of the good like fish oil, flax oil, olive oil and nut oils! It is a painless change over that can really make a big difference in your overall health and well being, especially as you get older.
Learn all you can about your health. Learn about what aging does to the body, what things you can fix and what will happen as you get older. Knowing this information allows you to take charge of your own health and to make changes that will keep you feeling great and living well.
Include more fiber in your diet by including more whole grains and vegetables as you become older. Your digestive system becomes more sensitive as you age, so it is important to make sure that the foods you eat are easily digested. Keeping your digestive system in good working order will prevent many health problems.
Pay Attention to Your Health
While joint aches and morning pains are an inevitable part of growing older, if something hurts excessively, there’s probably a reason. Regular visits to your doctor and a healthy lifestyle will reduce these pains and allow you to be happier and more active as you get older.
A great way to slow the aging process and keep feeling young is to make health your hobby. Try keeping a journal of the foods you eat and evaluate it at the end of the week to see how healthy you are eating and work on not only eating better but eating properly for a longer life.
It’s especially important for the elderly to wear sun block when they will be in the sun for extended periods of time to prevent skin damage. A health food store is an excellent place to look for all-natural sun block. It’s never too late to start protecting the skin, and don’t forget about the hands!
Having the information and advice from the tips in this article can give your confidence a boost and start you on the road to facing the challenges that come with aging. It always helps to have something that is practical to help you achieve a positive attitude to your changing life needs.
Feeling younger buffers older adults from stress, protects against health decline
People who feel younger have a greater sense of well-being, better cognitive functioning, less inflammation, lower risk of hospitalization and even live longer than their older-feeling peers. A study published by the American Psychological Association suggests one potential reason for the link between subjective age and health: Feeling younger could help buffer middle-aged and older adults against the damaging effects of stress.
In the study, published in Psychology and Aging, researchers from the German Centre of Gerontology analyzed three years of data from 5,039 participants in the German Ageing Survey, a longitudinal survey of residents of Germany age 40 and older. The survey included questions about the amount of perceived stress in peoples’ lives and their functional health—how much they were limited in daily activities such as walking, dressing and bathing. Participants also indicated their subjective age by answering the question, “How old do you feel?”
The researchers found, on average, participants who reported more stress in their lives experienced a steeper decline in functional health over three years, and that link between stress and functional health decline was stronger for chronologically older participants.
However, subjective age seemed to provide a protective buffer. Among people who felt younger than their chronological age, the link between stress and declines in functional health was weaker. That protective effect was strongest among the oldest participants.
Functional Health Declines with Advancing Age
“Generally, we know that functional health declines with advancing age, but we also know that these age-related functional health trajectories are remarkably varied. As a result, some individuals enter old age and very old age with quite good and intact health resources, whereas others experience a pronounced decline in functional health, which might even result in need for long-term care,” said study lead author Markus Wettstein, Ph.D., who is now at University of Heidelberg. “Our findings support the role of stress as a risk factor for functional health decline, particularly among older individuals, as well as the health-supporting and stress-buffering role of a younger subjective age.”
The results suggest that interventions that aim to help people feel younger could reduce the harm caused by stress and improve health among older adults, according to the researchers—though further study is needed to help determine what kind of interventions would work best. For example, Wettstein said, messaging campaigns to counteract ageism and negative age stereotypes and to promote positive views on aging could help people feel younger. In addition, more general stress-reduction interventions and stress management training could prevent functional health loss among older adults, according to Wettstein.
Finally, more research is needed to figure out the ideal gap between subjective and chronological age, according to Wettstein, as previous research has suggested that it’s helpful to feel younger up to a point but that benefits decrease as the gap between subjective and chronological age increases. “Feeling younger to some extent might be adaptive for functional health outcomes, whereas ‘feeling too young’ might be less adaptive or even maladaptive,” he said.
Biggest genetic study of supercentenarians reveals clues to healthy aging
In the most detailed genomic study ever conducted of individuals over the age of 100 years, researchers have homed in on several particular genetic characteristics that seem to confer protection from age-related diseases. Gene variants improving DNA repair processes were particularly prominent in this cohort of supercentenarians.
If you eat well, exercise frequently and avoid those detrimental vices, you can reasonably hope to live a long and healthy life. Of course, many age-related diseases seem almost inevitable, whether they catch up with you in your 80s or your 90s. But some people show a propensity for extreme longevity, living healthily well past the age of 100.
Research has shown those who live beyond the age of 100 tend to present extraordinarily healthy signs of aging. They are less likely to have been hospitalized in earlier life and have seemed to avoid many age-related conditions most people battle in their 80s or 90s, such as heart disease or neurodegeneration.
This new study presents a comprehensive investigation of 81 semi-supercentenarians (aged over 105) and supercentenarians (aged over 110). The researchers also matched this cohort against a group of healthy, geographically matched subjects aged in their late 60s. The goal was to genetically distinguish those generally healthy people in their late 60s from those extremely healthy supercentenarians.
Five particular genetic changes were commonly detected in the supercentenarian cohort, concentrated around two genes called STK17A and COA1.
Increase STK17A as DNA Repair Process
STK17A is known to be involved in DNA damage response processes. As we age, the body’s DNA repair mechanisms become less effective. Accumulated DNA damage is known to be responsible for some signs of aging, so increased expression of STK17A can favor healthy aging by preserving DNA repair processes in old age.
Reduced expression of COA1 in the supercentenarians was also detected. This gene plays a role in communications between a cell’s nucleus and mitochondria.
“Previous studies showed that DNA repair is one of the mechanisms allowing an extended lifespan across species,” explains senior author on the new study, Cristina Giuliani. “We showed that this is true also within humans, and data suggest that the natural diversity in people reaching the last decades of life are, in part, linked to genetic variability that gives semi-supercentenarians the peculiar capability of efficiently managing cellular damage during their life course.”
The researchers also found the supercentenarians displayed an unexpectedly low level of somatic gene mutations, which are the mutations we all generally accumulate as we grow older. It is unclear why these older subjects have avoided the age-related exponential increase usually seen with these kinds of mutations.
“Our results suggest that DNA repair mechanisms and a low burden of mutations in specific genes are two central mechanisms that have protected people who have reached extreme longevity from age-related diseases,” says Claudio Franceschi, another senior author on the study.
