Staying Younger Longer: How to Delay Aging
Most people want to live a long life, but no one wants to be old. This contradiction reveals that it is not just about the length of life itself, but rather the length of good health. Although there’s no magic recipe, there are several habits and actions that help to delay aging.
Those who stay young longer also have the energy and joy to enjoy life and be socially active. But how to fill the years of life with vitality and delay aging? Let’s take a look at how you can do it by making some changes in your daily life.
Lifestyle: The key to the fountain of youth
Experts remind us that much of human aging is mediated by genetic variables. Without denying the importance of genes in the aging of the body, it’s also true that lifestyle plays a role that’s often underestimated.
Often, old traces and unfavorable habits prevent us from slowing down our aging and keeping us physically and mentally healthy. Here, it’s important to integrate new habits into life. This requires time, patience, and discipline. We’ll leave you with some determinants that researchers have pointed out as healthy for slowing down aging.
We think you may be interested in reading this, too: Reading and Keeping a Diary: “Magical” Strategies for Healthy Cognitive Aging
1. Have a positive mindset and disposition
Our mindset refers to the way we think, feel and act. Positive thoughts, feelings, and actions have an impact on physical well-being. This is known to impact self-esteem and personal achievement. In addition, a disposition-oriented mindset is a mediator of habits such as reading, adopting a new hobby, or learning a new language.
Mindset also influences the willingness to form social bonds, exercise, maintain or implement a balanced diet and take care of one’s health. All of this is directly or indirectly related to well-being, so it’s a central axis for delaying aging. To a large extent, the following actions depend on the mentality.
2. Follow a balanced diet
There’s evidence that changing nutrition is fundamental to preventing the development of diseases, increasing longevity, improving wellbeing, and promoting healthy aging. Therefore, your dietary regimen is one of the pillars to delay aging.
For most people, the first thing to do is to eliminate unhealthy foods. This includes, above all, sugar. Carbohydrates and processed foods should also be avoided. Instead, opt for a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, fish, and unsaturated fats (such as omega-3).
Sometimes, it’s not easy to meet our mineral and vitamin needs through food. So, it may help to take longevity nutritional supplements. Additional minerals or vitamins are a sensible addition to the diet for certain risk groups and in special life situations. When in doubt, it’s advisable to consult a nutritionist.
3. Reduce your alcohol intake
Regular alcohol consumption shortens life expectancy. In fact, recent studies have suggested that alcohol abuse exacerbates and accelerates age-related changes. Drinking in moderation has no major implications for your health; although of course, the less you drink, the better.
4. Eliminate tobacco intake
Researchers have found that smoking encourages the development of disease and earlier death in old age. As expected, the consequences are greater as the habit extends over time. Smoking is often thought to lead only to cancer, but the truth is that there are multiple health implications related to the habit.
High blood pressure, staining of the skin and teeth, strokes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are just a few complications to highlight.
5. Exercise
A mix of regular resistance and strength training greatly slows down degenerative health processes. For example, lifting weights increases bone density and muscle mass. Strength training also strengthens ligaments and tendons.
Endurance sports, such as swimming and running, boost fat metabolism and cardiovascular health. They also improve blood counts. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of intense exercise or alternatively 300 minutes of moderate exercise during the week.
6. Take care of your sleep hygiene
Sleep is one of the best natural remedies against aging. Recent studies have found that during sleep a restorative process is triggered that is fundamental to ensuring biological health and reducing vulnerability to disease. How many hours should you sleep during the night? Ideally between 7 and 8 hours, always continuously.
7. Reduce your stress
Everyone experiences stress from time to time. However, those who are permanently subjected to stress not only have their well-being compromised but also age faster. So explains a paper published in Biomedicines, which links chronic stress as a catalyst for various health complications.
Among many other things, chronic stress triggers inflammatory processes. These are closely related to an increased risk of developing diabetes, atherosclerosis, and hypertension. Reducing your daily stress is a habit to add to your list to delay aging.
8. Establish social relationships
There’s evidence that older adults who have an active social life live longer. There are many ways in which social connections can help you slow aging. In general, they help you cope with loneliness, which is a risk factor for depression and anxiety.
Expanding your social circle also allows you to take action in the event of a situation that compromises your integrity. Finally, it can raise your self-perception, encourage you to abandon a sedentary lifestyle, can mediate in implementing or following a balanced diet, and positively impact your overall well-being. However, remember that what counts is not the number of relationships, but the quality.
Like this article? You may also like to read: Aging of the Immune System and How to Fight It
9. Drink plenty of water
A list of habits to delay aging would be incomplete without suggesting that you drink water. It wouldn’t be emphasized so much if it were not so important, and its importance increases as you get older. The reason for this is that older adults, due to physiological changes, often voluntarily reduce their fluid intake.
It’s recommended to drink at least 1.6 liters of water for women and 2 liters of water for men per day. This is only a reference, as requirements vary according to needs. For example, ambient temperature and level of physical activity. You can start from these recommendations and adapt them to the moment.
As you can see, delaying aging is possible if you just change some habits in your daily life. Doing so has a positive impact on your health, the main reference when talking about aging. Be sure to apply them to promote healthy aging from now on.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Abud T, Kounidas G, Martin KR, Werth M, Cooper K, Myint PK. Determinants of healthy ageing: a systematic review of contemporary literature. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2022 Jun;34(6):1215-1223.
- Carroll JE, Prather AA. Sleep and Biological Aging: A Short Review. Curr Opin Endocr Metab Res. 2021 Jun;18:159-164.
- Cha NH, Seo EJ, Sok SR. Factors influencing the successful aging of older Korean adults. Contemp Nurse. 2012 Apr;41(1):78-87.
- Klopack ET, Carroll JE, Cole SW, Seeman TE, Crimmins EM. Lifetime exposure to smoking, epigenetic aging, and morbidity and mortality in older adults. Clin Epigenetics. 2022 May 28;14(1):72.
- Leitão C, Mignano A, Estrela M, Fardilha M, Figueiras A, Roque F, Herdeiro MT. The Effect of Nutrition on Aging-A Systematic Review Focusing on Aging-Related Biomarkers. Nutrients. 2022 Jan 27;14(3):554.
- Rodríguez-Rodero S, Fernández-Morera JL, Menéndez-Torre E, Calvanese V, Fernández AF, Fraga MF. Aging genetics and aging. Aging Dis. 2011 Jun;2(3):186-95.
- Soares MU, Facchini LA, Nedel FB, Wachs LS, Kessler M, Thumé E. Social relationships and survival in the older adult cohort. Rev Lat Am Enfermagem. 2021 Jan 8;29:e3395.
- White AM, Orosz A, Powell PA, Koob GF. Alcohol and Aging – An Area of Increasing Concern. Alcohol. 2022 Aug 5:S0741-8329(22)00066-0.
- Yegorov YE, Poznyak AV, Nikiforov NG, Sobenin IA, Orekhov AN. The Link between Chronic Stress and Accelerated Aging. Biomedicines. 2020 Jul 7;8(7):198.
