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But growing old isn’t the problem for most people; it’s feeling old. 

Old age can usher in a new era of aches, loss of independence, loneliness, and cognitive decline. 

Although we can’t keep from growing old chronologically, we can slow the sands of time biologically, at least to some extent, by practicing certain habits that keep us looking and feeling young, strong, and vibrant! Here’s how.

1. Meditate Daily

Stress wreaks havoc on the body. Hormones like cortisol and adrenaline severely impact your mental, emotional, and physical health. And they’ve been linked with chronic diseases, like depression, high blood pressure, heart diseases, and dementia.

Meditating slows the effects of stress. Start with five or ten minutes to feel an immediate difference; you’ll be hooked.

One of the most important aspects of meditating is breathing deeply to soothe hour nervous system. Don’t worry about clearing your mind; accept whatever thoughts pop into your head. 

Although there’s a lot of talk about meditation, not much is said about the Bible and meditation. But, many Believers like to meditate on a favorite promise while practicing their deep breathing. 

Others will repeat a certain word or phrase to focus their mind or pray.

2. Volunteer

Helping others is a great way to stay young at heart because it feels good, and you’re making a real difference!

Research shows that your brain releases oxytocin whether you help your best friend or a stranger. Oxytocin is a ‘feel-good’ hormone that brightens your mood and reduces the effects of cortisol.

But another great thing about volunteering is that it boosts feelings of self-worth and confidence because it gives you a sense of purpose, which makes you feel good about yourself and your life. 

Lastly, volunteering is a great way to expand your social circle and stay connected to people with similar interests, strengthening your ties to the community.

3. Be Physically Active

Okay, you knew this one was coming. Exercise is a great way to slow the sands of time and maintain functional independence.

You don’t have to spend hours at the gym or on a bike. It can be something like walking, yoga, or tai-chi – activities that reduce stress while strengthening your body.

Some studies indicate that yoga and tai-chi may rejuvenate the immune and digestive systems.

Another great thing about physical exercise is that it protects cognitive functioning by increasing blood flow to the brain and flooding it with oxygen. 

 Other forms of anti-aging workouts include:

• Swimming
• Arm and leg crosses
• Walking
• Low-impact cardio routines
• Standing calf raises

4. Eat Better

Eating the right food most of the time is one of the best ways to look and feel young. 

Getting the necessary vitamins and minerals lowers the risk of chronic diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Pomegranates, berries, leafy veggies, cruciferous vegetables, and nuts are great examples of ‘superfoods.’ 

Superfoods contain high levels of antioxidants, amino acids, and loads of vitamins and minerals.

Eating the right amounts will help you sleep better, strengthen your immune system, and boost memory!

5. Drink More Water!

Drinking water and staying hydrated keeps your cells supple and healthy. Did you know that people who drink large amounts of water tend to have fewer wrinkles and soft lines than people who don’t drink enough water? 

Some drinks, such as green tea, can lower the risk of certain types of cancer. Several studies indicate that drinking at least one cup a day boosts concentration and memory and keeps your brain sharp.

You Can’t Stop Time, But You Can Slow Its Effects…

Everyone grows old; some age faster, some slower. But by practicing these easy habits, you can enjoy a youthful spirit, a positive outlook, a stronger mind, and a much younger body that allows you to live your best life well into the golden years. 

Photo by Mauro-Fabio Cilurzo on Unsplash

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The US comes in 13th on a list of countries with the worst work-life balance, according to a World Economic Forum article on the topic. One main reason behind this is that Americans work very long hours. Still, a work-life balance is crucial to avoid stress and burnout that can lead to underperformance at work. This is especially important for particularly busy professionals who handle more responsibilities than the average worker, like doctors and business owners.

Luckily, this balance is attainable even for these people, as demonstrated below. Let’s hear a few pieces of advice from 4 busy professionals who have figured out how to achieve balance:

Avoid Electronics

There’s no doubt that teachers have a lot on their plate. From grading homework to making lesson plans, their job takes up most of their time. This is why public high school English teacher Nancy Barile makes it a point to shut off her electronics whenever she can.

Her work consists of using email and online education platforms, tempting her to do work past midnight. To solve this, she lets her students and colleagues know that she won’t reply after 7 PM. With this, she achieves a work-life balance that benefits her mental and emotional well-being.

In the same way, set boundaries for when you will receive and respond to work-related messages. Adjust work communication platform settings so notifications are automatically switched off at certain times.

Work Remotely

Being a medical professional is very demanding. Telehealth provider Wheel understands that physician burnout is real, which is why many doctors opt to work remotely to prevent it. Working in telehealth allows them to avoid common causes of burnout, like completing many administrative tasks and not having enough time with patients.

Dr. Sally is a family medicine physician that has adopted remote work to have more time for family. In an interview with Wheel, she shares how she wants to work from home to better take care of her four kids and spend time with her family. When the pandemic hit, she took the opportunity to practice telemedicine. If you have the option to work remotely, consider doing so because it grants you more time for other activities while maintaining your career.

Monitor Your Time

CEOs overlook a whole company. They delegate agendas and manage different structures within the company, making them one of the busiest careers. Despite this, top CEOs can achieve a work-life balance. In particular, Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of cloud computing software VMware, adds and deducts points on his “personal chart” depending on how much time he spends with family.

It lets him make specific changes so he can spend more time outside of work. Some of the things he’s changed are to shorten meetings and calls. You don’t have to establish a system like this, however, what you can do is have dedicated time for other activities outside of work. For example, use weekends to indulge in hobbies or make 6 PM the time you start relaxing.

Share Your Responsibilities

Music artists often go on tour and spend a lot of time working on their songs. In spite of this, country music artist Jo Dee Messina shared in our post Balancing Family & Career how she juggles everything by sharing certain responsibilities.

One thing she does is share her tasks with her husband. While they make it a point to do things together, it’s not always doable. When she’s too busy being a singer, she lets her husband take care of the kids. This way, she’s not too overwhelmed with both her work and family life. If you have someone to depend on for work or family tasks, don’t be afraid to ask them for help sometimes.

By switching off your devices, working remotely, tracking your time, and asking for help with your responsibilities, you can achieve a work-life balance like these busy professionals, too.

(Article written Exclusively for Lifestyle Magazine by Sophia Emma.)

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Then you’re not alone. It’s frustrating and discouraging to see less than desirable results on the scale after so much hard work and effort. Luckily, you can do a few things to move the needle in the desired direction.   

But First, Why Is Losing Weight So Hard After 50?

There are a couple of things working against you. First, the typical post-50 lifestyle is slower. Most people aren’t as active as in younger years; they’re more sedentary. And their social life is slower, too; they’re not constantly chasing after kids or joining friends for jogs in the park. Life is much less active.

Second, we experience metabolic changes after turning 50, resulting in less energy and weight gain.

Can You Turn Things Around?

Just because the circumstances in your life have slowed doesn’t mean you have to too. Don’t wait around for friends to invite you to join them in doing something active. Invite them for a walk or jog or to the gym. Take the lead. Set the pace. Enjoy physical activity and social connection with people you enjoy all simultaneously.

And if you haven’t already, it’s time to revamp your diet. Switch to healthier food choices. Monitoring and reducing your sugar intake is a great starting place.

It was easier to burn calories when you were younger, but it’s probably not as easy anymore. It takes more activity to burn calories now because of slower metabolism. So, make it easier on yourself by following a healthier diet.

Also, if you know you’re not the type of person who will engage in physical activity, you will have to cut back on your calories by reducing your portion sizes to avoid gaining weight.

Shift From Cardio To Strength Training

So we’ve already mentioned how important it is to stay active and eat better as you get older, especially after turning 50. But one of the most effective things you can do is add strength training to your routine.

Strength training produces many benefits that become increasingly more important as we age. 

For instance, we lose lean muscle mass and bone strength as we age, which causes injury, falls, and a loss of functional independence. Strength training protects lean muscle mass and strengthens the bones, resulting in fewer injuries and greater independence.

Does that mean you have to ditch cardio? Not at all. Just be sure to add strength training to your routine at least a couple of days a week.

According to an article on Healthline, strength training also helps boost your metabolism because muscle burns more calories than fat. Your metabolism burns fewer calories for every pound of muscle you lose as you age, leading to weight gain, a bigger waist, and flabby arms.

Adding strength training to your routine not only protects and builds lean muscle mass, builds stronger bones, and revs up the metabolism, it boosts energy, too (and, according to research, brightens mood).

The truth is that losing weight after you turn 50 can be a challenge, but the situation isn’t hopeless. Although your metabolism slows and life tends to become more sedentary, it doesn’t mean you’re fighting a losing battle against staying trim and healthy. So, don’t give up.

You can combat the situation by staying socially active, watching your portions and calories (especially sugar), and staying active with a focus on strength training.

These action steps aren’t profound. They’re pretty simple and doable by most everyone. And not only will you feel better, but you will look and feel much younger than the mileage on the odometer as you enter this exciting new phase of your life.

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The simple fact is that asking for help reduces anxiety and stress. Period. So, when you think about it, asking for help might be one of the bravest things you can do.

Here are a few tips to encourage you to ask for help when you need it so that your life can have less anxiety and stress.

Acknowledge the truth: Everyone Needs and Deserves Help

We all need and deserve help at times. It’s a part of life. And if anyone says otherwise, well, they’re wrong (and need help!).

Not only do we need help, we deserve it too. No, we don’t deserve other people to live our lives or to take care of our responsibilities.

But if you’re facing a challenge or struggling with a situation, find someone, or an organization, that can help and ask before things get worse.

Each of us is at a different stage in life. And many of us have traveled further down the road of life than others because of age and experience. The great thing about humans is that most of us are willing to help each other – to share what we’ve learned so life can be a little easier for others! But how can we help if we don’t know and are not asked?

People would rather help you and see you succeed than to sit by and do nothing while watching you fail.

Have An Idea of What You Need

What part of your life do you need help with? Financial? Relational? Health? Spiritual? Emotions? It could be anything from learning how to buy a car or a house to healing an important relationship.

Knowing the kind of help you need, will steer you to the right people.

Be as Clear as Possible

According to Alice Boyes of PsychologyToday.com, “When asking for help, make sure the person knows exactly what you want. For example, if you want your spouse to show you what to do, rather than just tell you, make sure you ask for that.”

But this just doesn’t work at home or in your personal like, it applies to work, too. Sure, work can be tough sometimes. And although there might be rare situations where a boss doesn’t want an employee to succeed, most organizations are filled with good people who understand that a healthy, supportive team is essential to success.

So, if you need help at work, please consider asking. Your boss and colleagues want you to succeed because it strengthens the team! When you do better, they do better!

Always try to be clear and specific both in your personal and professional life to receive the kind of help you need and deserve.

Be a Resource for Someone Else

Offering help is one of the best ways to not only make the world a better place but to also rise above your challenges. It’s almost as if miracles start happening all around you when you offer help and invest in others. So, strive to make time to help other people. It doesn’t even have to be anything big. Just have a compassionate heart for others, even if it’s filling grocery bags with food for hungry families.

Everyone needs and deserves help. It’s a fact of life. So ask for help when you need it, and be quick to offer it when asked or when you notice an opportunity to make a difference.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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Identifying defects in our thoughts and behavior isn’t always easy because of the tendency to blame others or rationalize our actions.

Common Character Defects

FheRehab.com offers this helpful explanation on character defects: “The term character defect refers to any challenge in personal character that may affect your way of life and interactions with others in a less than ideal manner.”

Some common character defects include intolerance, laziness, pride, dishonesty, cowardice, anger, jealousy, and greed.

Character defects keep us from unlocking our best life. They create issues in our relationships, career, and personal growth. They are stumbling blocks that keep tripping us up.

5 Steps To Overcome Character Defects…

Decide to change your life

Do you recognize any character flaws you’d like to overcome or remove?

If so, that’s great because it means you’ve acknowledged a shortcoming within yourself that you want to change, and are ready to take action. You’re not avoiding the issue or living in denial.

Character defects have to do with how you think. Changing your life starts in your mind because it’s the command center of your life.

Know your why

From your list of shortcomings, what’s one you’d like to remove from your life? Why do you want to overcome it?

How is this shortcoming affecting your life and relationships? How would your life be better without it? What will you gain by removing it?

Identifying your why gives you the motivation to overcome it and the emotional power to take steps to find solutions.

Small Steps

Regarding the shortcoming you chose to work on, what’s its opposite? For example, what are the opposites of anger, or jealousy, or laziness?

Think about it, by identifying a shortcoming you want to remove you’re saying you want less of that shortcoming in your life and more of whatever its opposite is. Make sense?

After you’ve acknowledged a character defect, the process of overcoming it starts with replacing the toxic thought or behavior with positive, supportive action.

Instead of engaging in the negative behavior, what’s one small alternative action you can take to replace it? What can you choose to focus on instead of dwelling on the thing that’s troubling you? Can you do something active? Or work on a goal?

For example, instead of giving a coworker the silent treatment because you’re jealous they got a promotion, choose to identify one of their positive traits and congratulate them on their promotion and hard work.

Start replacing the “flawed” behavior with the “flawless” behavior. “Flawless might not be the best choice of words, but you get the point.

Distracting yourself from the character defect by focusing on something productive or beneficial and replacing the “flawed” defect with a “flawless” behavior is a two-step process for rewiring the brain to change how you think, feel, and what you focus on.

Stay the course

Changing your life takes time. So stay the course. And remember to take small steps because this makes it easier to be consistent. You’ll be less tempted to quit too.

And remember, even when you overcome a particular character defect, you’ll find another area in your life you wish to improve. Growth is a lifelong process.

Focus on progress. Enjoy the process of “becoming.” As it’s been said many times before, it’s not the goal that’s important; it’s who we become during the process of achieving the goal that’s important.

Flourish

To keep going forward, let go of the past. Let go of any stories that no longer serve the new you you’ve chosen to become.

Let go of bitterness, grudges, hatred, jealousy – let go of anything that’s been making you unhappy. Let them go even if you’re justified in having them because they’re getting in the way of you unlocking your best life.

You can be right, or you can be happy. The choice is yours.

What kind of person do you want to be? What do you want for your life? What do you want more of? And what would your life look if you had more of it? This is called vision.

Have a vision for your life and be your own best role model.

You have the freedom and power to forge the kind of life you’ve dreamed of having. So start writing your own story by removing any character defects that are keeping you from unlocking your best life.

Image by eko pramono from Pixabay

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Everyone has memory lapses. Sometimes we misplace our keys, forget where we parked the car, or lose our train of thought when talking to someone. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re experiencing cognitive decline or have dementia (what a relief!).  

Normal Forgetfulness vs. Age-Related Memory Loss vs. Dementia

Why you probably don’t have dementia

Before you diagnose yourself with dementia, you should know that memory lapses are normal – especially with age. 

It’s not uncommon for most people to notice a significant decline in their memory when they hit 50. However, memory loss can also happen to people in their 20s, 30s, or 40s due to a myriad of other reasons that have nothing to do with dementia or Alzheimer’s. These include stress, anxiety, depression, ADHD, Vitamin B-12 deficiency, and medication.

Stress, for instance, affects the way your brain processes memories. Therefore, it’s no surprise that it’s harder to remember simple things when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Brain exercises, physical fitness, stress management, and a healthy diet can improve memory.

Age-related memory loss

If you’re still able to function independently despite occasional memory lapses, you’re probably just experiencing age-related memory changes. Another good sign is if you’re able to recall and acknowledge that you’ve had a memory lapse.

It’s perfectly fine if you have to pause to remember directions, as long as you don’t get lost in familiar places. 

It’s also okay if you sometimes struggle to find the right words, as long as you can hold a conversation without going off on a tangent, and your judgment and decision-making are fine. However, you should still take steps to delay age-related memory loss by living a healthy lifestyle.

 When to seek help for memory lapses

While memory lapses don’t necessarily mean you have dementia, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that it’s the 6th leading cause of death in the United States.

Some warning signs include difficulty performing tasks that you’ve been doing all your life, like washing up or getting dressed, and an inability to recall instances when you experienced memory loss. It’s also a bad sign if you keep getting lost in familiar places, or start having trouble with decision-making.

Keep in mind that most people don’t go from occasional memory lapses to full-blown dementia overnight. They go through an intermediate stage known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

The line between normal age-related memory changes and MCI isn’t all that clear.

Important: If you’re having trouble with language, thinking, and judgment, it’s probably a good time to seek medical help.

Occasionally misplacing your keys or forgetting someone’s name is totally normal. Just focus on exercising your brain and body regularly, better stress management, and a healthy diet.

However, if your memory problems seem to be more severe than those of other people your age, you should probably see a doctor. The best-case scenario? Your doctor says everything is fine and gives you more tips on how to improve your memory. Worst case scenario? There’s something more going on that you and your doctor can catch early, and can put a gameplan in place. 

Either way, if you’re still worried about any memory problems after reading this article, please see your doctor as soon as possible.

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