Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional or Nutritionist and this blog is not meant to give medical or nutritional advice. Never start any exercise or diet program without speaking to your medical professionals.
I’m at that age now where I’ve begun to ponder how many years I have left on this planet. I think about the legacy I’ll leave behind and ask myself questions like, will I be remembered for doing anything good? For the way I loved my God, my family, my country? I’m not even a half-century old yet, although I’m getting close. But with each passing year those questions in my head come more frequently.
This whole train of thought has led me on a journey to educate myself on how to stay young as long as possible. I’ve been reading articles and studies, and watching YouTube videos by experts in the field of health and longevity.
I’m not looking for the common shallow answers like eating a good diet and maintaining a healthy weight. Obviously, those things are important, but we already know that. I wanted specifics. I wanted to know what I should add to my diet specifically, and what exercise is best for longevity, specifically.
So in this blog, I am going to summarize what I’ve learned so far about how to stay young as long as possible. I’ll update this post as I learn new things but I’m excited with what I’ve learned so far, and I hope that this can help you if you are on your own journey.
Prioritize your mental health
This theme is repeated again and again in the literature I read. We may want to keep our bodies healthy, but one of the key ways to do this is to take care of our mental health. The two are intrinsically connected.
We all know that prolonged stress hurts our mind, but it also hurts our body. Not only that but it’s been proven that people with a positive mindset are much more likely to outlive their negative neighbors.
So what can we do? How can we take care of our mental health you ask? Let me give you some of the most common recommendations I found from credible sources:
- Meditate. Meditation is a powerful tool for managing stress in our lives, and therefore in our bodies. Make time to meditate and be consistent with it as often as you can. Some studies showed that meditating for even 10 minutes a day could make a big difference in a person’s mental health.
- Spend time in nature. Nature is so healing. It reduces blood pressure and cortisol levels in our bodies. We are meant to be part of the natural world.
- Play brain games and challenge yourself with learning new things on a constant basis.
- Find something to be passionate about. Whether it’s a person or a hobby, having a passion for something increases mental wellness and therefore helps you live longer.
- Spend time with young people. Spending time with people, in general, increases mental wellness. Spending time with younger generations can boost those good feelings.
Shape quotes Dr. Herbert Benson MD: “Sixty to 90 percent of all doctors’ visits each year are related to anxiety, depression, obsessive anger and hostility, insomnia, high blood pressure, heart attacks — all problems caused by stress,” says Herbert Benson, M.D., author of The Relaxation Response and a founder and director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine in Boston. Source: https://www.shape.com/lifestyle/beauty-style/how-to-stay-young
Meditation can help you live longer
How to help your body stay young as long as possible
We all know that we need to eat a healthy diet and exercise to live longer, but let’s get more specific than that. Let’s examine the things that pop up as important in study after study.
- Walking. There was no other exercise that was as frequently mentioned as walking for promoting longevity. “Research led by I-Min Lee, professor in the Department of Epidemiology, found that older women who walked at least 4,400 steps each day had greater longevity than those who walked less.” Source: Harvard.edu: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/walking-daily-may-boost-healthy-aging/. Fortune Well, (source) https://fortune.com/well/2023/03/28/how-many-steps-per-day-longevity/, quotes the following: “People who walked 8,000 or more steps even one day a week were less likely to die over a 10-year period than those who did not, according to a study released Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open.” There are a lot of reasons that walking is found to be beneficial for staying young. Some of them include: exercise without over stressing the body, building muscular strength and endurance, spending time in nature, lowering cortisol, helping to maintain a healthy weight, and lowering your risk of disease. In addition, there is some evidence that walking briskly may have even more benefits for longevity.
- Yoga. Yoga is something I have personally struggled with turning into a consistent routine in my life, but the benefits can’t be disputed. Yoga’s combination of centering, breath work, and building muscle control is a winning combination for helping us live longer. Health.com states ” Doing yoga comes with various benefits, many of which impact how you feel, how well you can move around, and your overall health, including:
- Increased mobility
- Reduced risk of slipping and falling
- Protective against cognitive decline
- Increased flexibility, strength, and balance
- Improved sleep
- Improved mental well-being
Source: https://www.health.com/fitness/yoga-workout-anti-aging
What to eat to stay young
I think that we all know the generic answer to this question–eat fruits and vegetables. But again, I wanted more specific information than that. We are blessed to have a wide variety of healthy food available to us today, however sometimes the choices, and understanding what is actually best for us, can be confusing if not downright overwhelming. Here is the list of things that came up as common foods/drinks that we should be consuming to say young.
- Green Tea-because green tea is high in polyphenols it may help protect you from major diseases as well as cognitive decline.
- Omega 3 Fatty Acids- the consensus is the best way to get these is by eating a diet rich in nuts, seeds, and wild salmon.
- Goji Berries-high in many essential vitamins and antioxidants that hep protect against free radicals that can damage our DNA.
- Pomegranate Juice-according to MedicalNewsToday “Pomegranate contains antioxidants and anti-inflammatory substances. Pomegranate juice may benefit people with inflammatory conditions, diabetes, and other health issues. It may also boost digestion and memory and help prevent cancer.” source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318385
Spend time with family and friends
It turns out that spending time with people you like to be around is actually keeping you alive longer. Study after study shows that living a social life, with a wide variety of people in it, may help prevent cognitive decline and dementia, as well as keeping us more mobile for longer. So spend time with your partner, playing with the grandkids, hanging out with your social circle, volunteer for a cause you believe in, join a club. Be social and you will live a longer, happier, life.
Learn a new skill
Speaking of preventing dementia, one of the ways we can do that as we age is to constantly learn new skills. It keeps your brain active and healthy. It’s great to play games, and that certainly has benefits, but the research seems to indicate that if you really want the benefits to your brain then learn a new skill. Take a class in something that you have always wanted to learn. You get the double benefit of improving brain function and a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment.
Prioritize sleep to stay young as long as possible
Since sleep is when our body cleans itself and heals, it’s no wonder that sleep is key in how to stay young as long as possible. SleepFoundation.org says “When you sleep, your body undergoes a series of changes that enable the rest that is vital to your overall health. Sleep allows the brain and body to slow down and engage in processes of recovery, promoting better physical and mental performance the next day and over the long-term.” source: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/what-happens-when-you-sleep.
The recommended sleep guideline for adults is 7 to 9 hours a night. How many of us actually get that? It’s so crucial to prioritize sleep in our lives but I find that’s usually the first area of compromise when I have a lot to do. It might be time to reevaluate priorities.
How to stay young as long as possible
It turns out that as you would expect, staying young as long as possible is a combination of common sense, wisdom, and healthy choices. Because all of us know that it’s not just the quantity of the life we live, but the quality that matters. Let’s start with a positive outlook, a cup of green tea, and a quiet walk in nature and see where that takes us.
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” – John Lennon
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