How to Stay Young Naturally
So much of being young has to do with your mindset. Although when most people speak of staying young they are referring to appearance.
Healthy aging encompasses everything including your physical, mental, and emotional health as well as our appearance. Well-being is about the total package encompassing emotional, psychological, physical, social, economic, and life satisfaction.
Keep your mind young
To stay young naturally, we must first have a healthy mind. Workout your brain like a muscle, then give it periods of recovery in the form of sleep. Let your brain have some downtime, too. Laugh often and take time to really soak in the things you love in life. This will keep your mind young, and that is the first step to staying young naturally throughout your life.
Mental well-being as we age
Each year that passes on my way to hitting fifty leaves me feeling more certain that protecting my mental well being is one of the most important things I can do. The mind is so powerful!
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Napoleon Hill
My dad made me memorize this quote when I was a very young girl. He always pushed me to use my mind to achieve my dreams. A mind bogged down in stress or unhealthy thought patterns is not a healthy one. Pray, meditate, see a therapist, or do whatever it takes to maintain or improve your mental health.
Prevent Cognitive Decline
It is so important to keep learning as we grow older. Not only does it keep us youthful, but it may also help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of mental decline.
What are you curious about? Do you still explore the world around you? Do you want to know more about technology, learn a second language, or learn a new skill? Do it!
Learning something new keeps the mind young and prevents cognitive decline during old age. At fifty, we are just entering the second half of the century we will hopefully walk this earth! We have a long way to go and we want our mind to be sharp.
Take part in mentally challenging activities that you truly enjoy. Yes, doing puzzles and stimulating the mind can exercise the brain, just make sure you do it because you love doing the activity. Working out your brain on a crossword puzzle when you hate them is causing more harm than good.
Keep setting and hitting goals
As I approached fifty, there wasn’t a sudden shift in my thinking. It’s hard to explain but my mind still thinks in many ways the same as it did when I was younger. Except in the ways it doesn’t, haha!
Yes, at this age, I am way more laid back about what other people think of me, or in how seriously I take myself even.
At the same time, I still have goals I want to achieve and I still reach them using the same methods I did in my twenties, thirties, and forties! That is by
- writing them down
- understand why the goal is important
- track your performance visually (make a chart, keep a journal, etc.)
Minimize Skin Aging to Stay Young Naturally
After a woman reaches fifty, there are natural changes that slow skin cell turnover. When this happens it may result in significant skin dryness and loss of elasticity. Those expression lines can become etched into the skin, causing you to appear tired or angry. Face Yoga helps to tone and rebuild your face to reverse aging and make you appear younger.
In your fifties, you may also notice rough, scaly, precancerous lesions developing. These need to be checked out by a dermatologist. Although, you don’t have to rely on dermatology to keep your skin looking fabulous as you grow older; it can certainly help to follow dermatologists’ advice.
- Take the sun seriously, use a moisturizer with SPF, wear sunglasses to prevent crow’s feet.
- Exfoliate to remove dead skin cells and improve blood flow
- Do Face Yoga to slow skin aging and reverse sagging
- Maintaining general health to fight signs of aging by eating your veggies, and other strategies to make your meals healthier.
Broad–spectrum sunscreen can offer protection from the sun’s UV rays. So dermatologists do recommend using a sunscreen to prevent cancer as well as age spots.
Although, an important part of the anti-aging process is optimizing your immune system. Keeping vitamin D levels optimized is a big part of that. So while we want to take the sun seriously and prevent wrinkles and sunspots, we also need some sunshine for vitamin D production.
My daughter, a cosmetologist, tells me to keep sunscreen on my face year-round, which I do. However, I do allow the skin on the rest of my body to be exposed to a safe level of sunlight daily.
Follow a skincare routine religiously! Don’t skip exfoliation; gently exfoliate to improve skin texture. This step will help to keep your makeup from looking like it’s sitting on top of your skin rather than being part of it.
A serum containing Vitamin C can give your skin the antioxidants it needs. Choose skincare products that do not contain known harmful ingredients or release vapors, gases, or by-products that could impact human health.
Exercise to stay fit and youthful
What do you love to do that requires moving your body? Is it ballroom dancing? Tennis? Bowling? Exercise does not necessarily require a trip to the gym, although strength training is one strategy for staying young naturally.
Healthy blood vessels mean a lower risk for heart attack, stroke and kidney disease, many of the most common causes of death. Exercise to encourage healthy blood flow improves heart health. This is key to preventing cardiovascular disease in our fifties.
Hiking is an excellent way to get your heart pumping. Walking alone can lower high blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart attacks and heart disease. Aim for half an hour minimum per day, but if you can do a full hour, even if you split it up into mini-sessions, you’ll be doing your health a favor.
If you want to stay young naturally, physical activity is an absolute must. Exercise improves balance as well which reduce the risk of falls as you grow older. It also helps you to burn calories and stay young by controlling your weight. Along with diet, it is one of the most beneficial things you can do throughout your life to improve your fitness level. Exercise can help prevent type 2 diabetes.
Exercise has so many benefits, as you will find as you listen to this episode and read the book. It boosts mood, improves brain function, helps prevent falls as we age, keeps our heart healthy, and helps slow down aging, among other advantages.
Stay young naturally with a healthy diet
“Your fitness level is not only determined by your weight and your BMI. It is partly determined by your blood sugar levels. It is important to keep those levels stable so that you will have the energy you need to get in the gym and hit those goals. Low blood sugar can cause some fatigue which can have a definite negative impact on your workouts.” https://www.thatorganicmom.com/balance-blood-sugar-lose-weight/
Maintaining good energy levels is one reason to follow a diet that will keep your blood sugar levels balanced. Another is that diabetes can affect many parts of your body, including your skin. “When diabetes affects the skin, it’s often a sign that your blood sugar (glucose) levels are too high.” https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/a-z/diabetes-warning-signs
“Good nutrition must follow a sound workout plan if you want to provide your body with the energy it needs to push through the toughest of challenges and grow in the right direction. First off, it’s important to understand your daily caloric needs so that you can control your weight, and then nail down your macronutrient and micronutrient requirements to provide your body with the essential nutrients for a healthy lifestyle.” https://www.thatorganicmom.com/over-50-fitness/
Including plenty of unsaturated fatty acids like those in olive oil, which contains vitamins A and E is closely related to the aging process. These vitamins act on free radicals and give the skin a fresher, more youthful appearance.
Along with eating right, remember to hydrate well as this will keep skin from looking dry and it will also keep your entire body more youthful. Try swapping green tea for one cup of coffee each day. Green tea has antioxidants and is an anti-inflammatory food that helps fight against wrinkles and slows the signs of aging.” https://www.thatorganicmom.com/green-tea/
Follow these strategies, stay happy and you will find that you will stay young naturally through your fifties and beyond.
