Choosing to Age Healthfully

Choosing to age healthfully, as in maintaining a desirable quality of life as we get older, is one of those “I really wish I didn’t have to” challenges of adulthood. Adulting (a newish term that I really like) is never easy. It often means changing some behaviors that we have spent a lifetime creating.

For anyone who has changed a habit, like quitting smoking or any other activity, we know it is so much more than just stopping that activity. It is changing life (our lifestyle) itself.

As with so much in life, this is just about doing the work, so let’s dig in.

Where It All Begins

Our much more forgiving days of childhood, when our bodies rebounded effortlessly from whatever we dished out, are always attractive in retrospect.

We started with a certain hand dealt to us by Nature. The genetics we inherited from our biological parents gave us one set of circumstances for our physical development. Our environment (nutrition, toxins, social structure, etc.) provided for development many other health traits.

Then there were/are the decisions we make along our journey.

Youth allows for any number of poor choices (tasty but unhealthy food, fun drugs like nicotine, way too much time spent sitting) with little in the way of negative feedback that might encourage us to do better.

The health bill for all these indiscretions comes later in life, but we still have the opportunity to change outcomes.

A Decision-Making Model to Age Healthfully

Let us start with a foundational idea that all of Nature possesses an ability to heal from within. Whether we are talking about our bodies or our earthly environment, natural processes are present that allow for healing.

As decisions to age healthfully are the result of a healing model of thinking, we can work from two different angles. One way is looking at what can be done from the outside, like eating better, getting more exercise, etc. The other is considering what positive processes within the body can be promoted. A well-rested body can take care of business more efficiently, so ensuring we get an adequate amount of restful sleep can go a long way towards supporting the body taking care of itself.

I like to think of it as healing smarter, not harder.

Using Reliable Information

How we live our lives has profound outcomes for each of us.

Like many, I rely on trustworthy information to guide my decisions. Lately, however, identifying that reliable information has become more difficult. Several groups, political and otherwise, have taken to messaging their particular version of science to meet their needs.

Unfortunately, many of these messages have no basis in science or scientific thinking.

Denials and accusations concerning science, especially when the messaging does not conform to a particular version, muddies the water, and can make reliable information scarce.

As tempting as this rabbit hole about the poor state of our public discourse may be to go down, let me say that it is important to know when evidence is a snow job and when it is not.

The more hyperbole associated with a statement, the more likely it is useless information. And you already know my position facts being good or bad…

A How-To Age Healthfully Roadmap

The how-to particulars of living one’s life vary, only because we are unique. Like our fingerprints, our biology has provided (genetics), in cooperation with what our environment has developed, a different set of circumstances and needs for every person. Still, we can draw up a few operational ideas that help.

• Health comes from within and without. That multi-vitamin you like will not make you healthy on its own. In conjunction with a healthy lifestyle however, it can certainly help.
• How you think is as important as how you behave. Our thinking and actions all contribute to how our bodies respond. In the same way that negative stress can contribute to disease, positive stress can make for a healthier outcome.
• Cheating on heathy lifestyle choices (like that bag of cookies calling your name from the cupboard) has more direct effects on our health as we get older. Do so with caution and attention. There really is no free lunch, so keep it real.
• Listen to what others have to say, but more importantly, listen carefully to yourself. A healthy relationship with your conscience will provide you with the basis of sound decisions. If something “doesn’t feel right”, you likely have your answer.
• Question everything. Every legitimate argument is equipped to handle questioning. If argument breaks down to something else (name calling, shouting, etc.), it was likely just an opinion. Move on.

Empowered to Change

To my way of thinking, the greatest tool to achieve our personal health is our ability to make whatever version of that health that we want, happen.

Gather the best information you can find, work it through your own personal thinking, and then apply those decisions to your life. Marketing pitches notwithstanding, there is no one-size-fits-all option to personal health.

Identifying and achieving our own health goals is up to us. If you find a vegan lifestyle to be the best choice for you, it is. Perhaps a Mediterranean diet with Pilates is best for you. As such decisions are built on thought and evidence, they are right for you.

For the skeptics in the audience, all choices are on the table, if you will pardon the pun.

As opportunity is universal and not subject to being good or bad, one can also choose the western fast-food diet, with physical inactivity and a reliance on allopathic medicine to address your ailments. (LOTS of folks do.) Not my personal choice but a legitimate option for those who wish.

The importance is in embracing our individual aging processes and deciding how we want to get older.

We all must get older. To age healthfully is in the choices we make.

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”― Robert Frost