How old do I look in this picture?
Would you be surprised to learn it was taken recently and that I will turn 60 this year?
That's not just good genes or luck, there is some serious discipline behind it and with this article, I will attempt to touch on some of the key points of my effective plan for staying youthful.
Notice, I did not say "staying young". This phrase assumes we can stop aging in its tracks and thankfully, we cannot. Thankfully because growing older is not only about what is lost, but also what is gained. I love my current age. I have ascended above the drama of my 30's and 40's and the midlife crises of my 50's, (I'm a late bloomer).
And because I've kept my body healthy, I can fully enjoy my life in no small part because of the wisdom I've gained from being able to process all those earlier experiences more effectively. And now, rather than being sucked into an vortex by life's challenges, I have the emotional intelligence to see them more philosophically, to appreciate them for what they are: "teaching moments".
Maybe this is why young people and older folks find such common ground. At both ends of the age spectrum they are able to see the world with fresh eyes, open themselves up to new possibilities and be unrestricted by convention.
For an example: I find myself to be much more creative now than ever. In the past I would have ruminated about all the what if's. "What if I'm not smart enough? What if I lose inspiration along the way? What if other people don't like what I write, paint or build?" It's amazing how liberating it is to be free of these insecurities.
Why do we age? There is no easy answer to this either and most of what is written about aging ends up coming down to either science or philosophy. Perhaps the right answer is some combination of these two perspectives. But the undeniable fact is that the natural process of regeneration that we take for granted when we're young, begins to slow down somewhere around the 30's.
Scientifically Speaking - Accumulated damage to our skin from overexposure to the sun, pollution and poor diet begins to show up; joints and connective tissues begin losing their lubrication and elasticity; weight gain and muscle loss from decreasing activity becomes evident; mental processes slow down due to stress and repetitive activities that stifle intellectual growth and learning and on and on.
Philosophically Speaking - Anyone who observes Nature must eventually conclude that the imperative of any one generation of plants or animals is to create and nurture the next. To perpetuate the species. And as reproductive energy is short lived and fleeting, new generations continually nip at the heels of the last, eager to to play their role in life's cycle. It is this dynamic and ever evolving gene pool that receives the lion share of Nature's regenerative energy.
As evidence to support this notion, consider the fact that as reproductive strength begins to decline, cellular activity also slows down and regeneration of skin, bone and genetic material takes longer. It could be argued that Nature "keeps us young" as long as we are able to actively reproduce viable offspring. After that, if we want to stay youthful, it becomes increasingly clear that we need to take a more active role in keeping our mind, body and spirit fresh, flexible and strong. We can no longer rely on Nature to do it all for us.
We can no longer rely on Nature
to do it all for us.
The list of details you need to pay attention in your journey toward youthfulness is longer and broader than you might have imagined, but not unmanageable by any means. And it is essential that you integrate these choices and activities into your life as habits rather than short term strategies. Because aging never stops, you must always remain vigilant to counteracting its damaging effects on a daily basis.
1. Check Your Attitude - How do you see the world and your relationship to it? How much influence do you believe you have over your destiny? Do you approach your relationships in an aggressive, controlling manner? Most importantly, do you evaluate your behavior periodically to determine where improvements could be made? How you answer these questions will determine how much stress you place on your organ, endocrine and nervous systems and how resistant you are to chronic disease. This leads us to the next component of your youth strategy.
2. Deal Effectively with Stress - Stress can mimic, contribute to or cause almost any disease process. And while its effects may not be directly measurable, they can be witnessed by virtue of how they accelerate the aging process. Poor skin tone and color, dullness in the eyes, declining posture, loss of sleep, indigestion and many other maladies can all result from stress. Since we cannot always control the stressful triggers in our lives, how can we better deal with the stress we do have?.
The short answer to that complex question comes down to choices. For example: Carefully choose your relationships; manage the relationships you have more effectively; arrange your schedule to get more and better sleep; spend time in Nature, increase your activity level (if you have a sedentary job); find hobbies you enjoy and do them often; improve your diet, give and receive affection as often as possible.
Each of these important strategies is sufficiently complex to require its own examination and nothing could be more critical to your youthfulness journey than to learn about these stress busting choices and integrate them into your life.
3. Eat a wide variety of good quality foods - I'm not going to tell you that you need to break the bank by buying only local, organically grown food, (though these foods are coming down in price), but I will tell you that fresh fruits and vegetables are indeed essential to include in your diet every day.
And if you're an omnivore, like me, high quality protein with a low percentage of fat can be a great way to provide sustained energy and the building blocks for stronger muscles. If however you prefer to cut back on meat, other high quality sources of protein now exist, in the form of whey, which can be added to juice or shakes and whole grains, which carry many of the same building blocks as animal protein.
Contrary to conventional thinking, vegetables also have protein, but in smaller amounts than the sources described above. Therefore, vegetarians can also maintain adequate protein levels, but need to plan more carefully to include the right amounts and combinations of plant sources. Adding eggs, whey and cheeses can be helpful to those individuals who can tolerate consuming animal byproducts, while avoiding flesh.
4. Get Functional Exercise - What is functional exercise? Activity that accomplishes a task while providing the benefits of movement.
Examples might include gardening; housecleaning; washing the car; volunteering; helping a friend move; engaging in an enjoyable hobby, such as hiking or mountain bike riding.
Having a regular exercise regime is also not a bad idea, but rather than spending hours in mindless activity on a treadmill or stationary bicycle, I submit it would be better to apply that energy in a way that provides exercise, while improving other areas of your life. Our modern world doesn't allow for much discretionary time. Accomplishing multiple goals simultaneously is one way to get more done without feeling overextended.
5. Take Care of Your Skin - When it comes to appearing youthful, skin care has to top your list of daily habits. However, contrary to what advertisers will tell you, you don't need to spend a small fortune on special creams or treatments. As with other organs in the body (the skin being the largest of these), repair and regeneration slow down as we age. Where sun damage is concerned, blotchiness, loss of elasticity and even the development of cancer may show up decades after any initial damage is suffered. What's more, it's cumulative.
The skin around the eyes is very thin and therefore, more easily damaged. This damage can show up as deep creases between the eyes, temples and cheekbone. An important way to slow down or prevent this damage is to buy and wear a good pair of sunglasses. Brands that offer "Polaroid lenses" are best, as they cut down on glare, one of the main reasons we "squint", which purses the skin around the eyes. Additionally, keeping the suns rays from directly impacting the sensitive structures of the eye can prevent cataracts and macular degeneration later in life.
Though severe damage may not repair easily, in many cases, you can slow down or even reverse the effects of aging on your face and body, just with a few essential dermatological miracles.
A. Exfoliating Scrub - One of the important ways you can help your skin stay youthful is to aid in the removal of dead skin cells. Environmental stress, oxidation and sun damage are all normal challenges our skin has to face daily. As we get older, the process of sloughing off the damaged top layer on a regular basis, increasingly falls on us. Home made or store bought scrubs can do a great job of this while making your face feel tingly and new. One recipe I use calls for kosher salt, grape seed oil and essence of lavender. The large grains of salt do a great job of scrubbing the skin, while the oil and lavender leave me feeling positively refreshed.
Do not use scrubs more than once every 24 hours. Scrubbing encourages the growth of new skin cells and overusing the mixture can damage new skin that is still forming.
B. Aloe Vera - You may have heard of the gel from this ubiquitous succulent and you may have even used it to reduce the pain and redness from an insect bite or sunburn. But used every day, after the shower, this incredible substance works in multiple ways to preserve and heal skin. Most noticeably, used directly on the face and body after the shower, this gel dries quickly on the skin, creating an invisible barrier, keeping moisture in and pollution out.
C. Jojoba Oil - This fascinating oil, derived from the Jojoba plant (pronounced ho-ho-bah), found first in Mexico, has a molecular structure very similar to sebum, the skin's natural moisturizer. Additionally, it contains natural tocopherols, (vitamin E compounds), that nourish, protect and repair the skin.
Note: I rarely use sunscreen anymore. My daily regime repairs my skin, while still allowing the sun to land directly on my body to produce the essential hormone: Vitamin D. I am not recommending that anyone stop or avoid using sunscreen, I am just pointing out that healthy skin is more resistant to damage and heals better when injury does occur.
6. Give and Receive Affectionate Touch - If you weren't already aware, by virtue of your own periodic cravings, affection, specifically, touch is a necessary part of a healthy, human life. And I don't necessarily mean sex, although that is certainly important too. Affectionate touch can come in many forms and from many different people in our lives. Whether it's hugging our parents, bonding with our children, loving our partners, or playing with our pets, giving and receiving affection keeps us young through many different physical and emotional channels. This may be why individuals who live alone (especially men), die sooner than their paired off counterparts.
If you have love in your life, great! You're one of the lucky ones. If not, make time to receive massages, visit family members and find ways to get more genuine affection into your life. Believe it or not, this is a critical component of your youthfulness strategy.
7. Factor in Quiet Time - One of the main ways our modern world contributes to premature aging is the accumulation of physical and emotional stress. Almost anyone can bounce back from a moderately stressful event, but stress that becomes chronic also becomes deadly: like a silent, invisible killer.
This kind of stress is epidemic and largely accepted as the price we must pay to participate in today's society. The best way to breakdown and counteract this accumulated pressure is to build quiet time into your weekly schedule.
This special time allows your mind to process, file and or discard the backlog of data and sensory input that your busy life has piled up. It's kind of like cleaning your desk and filing important papers in their respective places. During quiet periods you can make critical decisions about your relationships, the direction of your career, finances, personal health and so on. Ignoring or putting off this necessary purging shows up as a furled brow, a bowed head, poor posture and an irregular gait. The body's way of indicating that it is carrying too much weight: the weight of unmade decisions and unresolved conflicts.
8. Spend Time in Nature - Get outside and take a walk in the woods, along a creek, in nearby foothills, work in your garden, whatever natural environments are in close proximity to you. In my book: "The Happiness Tree", I point out that we all have a "dual self". The small case "self" which is our outward personality and our deeper "Self": the inner being connected to Nature, the cosmos, linked to all life on our beautiful planet.
Spending most or all of our time in the world of the "self", weakens this linkage to our natural world. This connection is a source of physical and emotional strength that is critical to remaining youthful.
When we are communing with Nature, our pretenses fall away, we are compelled to broaden our awareness to what lies inside and outside of us, rather than just what appears on the surface. And where those two worlds meet, we rediscover the curious mystery of our very existence and gratitude for the miracle of our breath and heartbeat.
This "rediscovery of Self" reignites the innocence of childhood, the joy of wonder and imagination, all qualities we associate with youth. These qualities are not some silly indulgence from our past, but rather a deep, important awareness that once lost, can leave us feeling isolated and disconnected from our own profound existence.
Physically, maintaining this connection broadens the eyes and smile, relaxes the muscles of the face and improves posture. Emotionally, reconnecting with Nature on a frequent basis helps us see events in our life from a more philosophical perspective. We rediscover that we are indeed loved and supported by the Natural world, that the life-giving services of air, water, food and energy are already provided for us. All we need to do is successfully navigate our social dimension, which is of course by no means easy. But knowing you have the entire universe on your side can certainly help.
9. Develop and Maintain Creative Outlets - Most of us are engaged in a trade off: We need food on the table, we need a roof over our head, but to receive it, we must work, often at jobs that are less than rewarding or fulfilling. All too often the fatigue and frustration of that work results in our seeking diversions that are less than healthy, such as overeating, watching mindless programs on television, playing pointless video games, etc.
Ultimately, these activities provide little in the way of lasting enjoyment or a sense of purpose. We find ourselves in a cycle of meaningless motion that does little to help distinguish one day, week or month from any other. That is a kind of low grade stress that breaks down the body slowly and cumulatively, making us look, feel and act older than we are.
The only way out of this vicious cycle is to devote some of that free time to activities that ignite our creative juices, providing a sense of purpose, a reason to exist and something to look forward to.
Drawing a blank on how you might express your artful side? Don't worry, that's normal. After years of applying your talents for someone else's benefit, it takes a while to get your imagination rolling. Don't push it. Just begin by thinking back to dreams you had as a child or people you admired, accomplishments or pursuits that got you excited. That's a place to start.
You may find yourself drawn toward painting, sculpture, woodworking, travel, gardening, volunteering, birdwatching, interior decorating or starting your own business. Having pursuits outside of work can make the days go faster, put a spring in your step, create a means to develop friendships with others that have similar interests and overall, provide optimism that one day, you may find a path to a new life designed around your own passions.
10. Develop Good Sleep Habits Though this youth promoting habit appears last in order, it is by no means the least important. Why? Because sleep is about so much more than just rest.
During sleep, muscles relax and repair; levels of the stress hormone cortisol drop; blood pressure is reduced and the body begins to cool; heart rate slows along with respiration rate; growth hormone is released, which contributes to the building and repair of muscles; cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) enters the brain and clears metabolic debris, which if left in place may contribute later on to dementia. Sleep may also contribute to weight management, through the hormones ghrelin and leptin that regulate appetite are only release at night. This is why loss of sleep may cause us to gain weight.
Good "sleep hygiene", as it is called in scientific circles, involves preparing well in advance of bedtime. Keep lights low, stop eating and reduce activity at least 2 hours before bed. When in the bedroom, avoid watching television, shut out all ambient light, including clock radios and LEDs from electronic devices. Keep the room cool if possible and make sure there is a good supply of fresh air. A supportive mattress and ergonomic pillow might also be among your most important investments. Remember, you spend 1/3 of your life sleeping. You want that time to be as healing and restorative as possible.
By practicing good sleeping habits, you'll be making great strides toward keeping your brain and body functioning at optimal levels.
Shane Eric Mathias is the author of the new books:
Man-Up and
The intent of the foregoing article is not to diagnose or to suggest a treatment for any medical condition. Any change in diet, medication or lifestyle should be discussed with your doctor.
Reprints or republication of this article whether electronically or in print, in whole or in part, will be made solely at the discretion of Shane Eric Mathias. Please feel free to contact me for more information
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