What’s age got to do

Ageing well is no destination, where you will reach, but a journey towards good health. It’s a choice that you make and temper your lifestyle decisions with this objective in mind. Just like wine that matures with age, maturity makes us wise. The wisdom that emerged from the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest, most comprehensive examination of ageing ever conducted destructed certain stereotypes and gave force to the few facts that we believed in but never with conviction. Since the 1930s, researchers have studied more than 800 men and women, following them from adolescence into old age, and seeking clues to the behaviours that translate into happy and healthy longevity. If cholesterol is on your mind, research has a good news for you. The research says that rather than preoccupying with the numbers of your lipid profile, it makes more sense to incorporate these in your lifestyle.–

• Avoiding cigarettes
• Good adjustment or coping skills (”making lemonade out of lemons”)
• Keeping a healthy weight
• Exercising regularly
• Maintaining strong social relationships (including a stable marriage)
• Pursuing education

Friends can help you in making friends with age
Psychiatrist George Vaillant, MD, director of the Harvard study and senior physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, whose book Aging Well describes the decades-long Harvard study, says that it’s “astonishing how many of the ingredients that predict longevity are within your control.” Undoubtedly, one of them is oiling your social connections and maintaining friends. You got to have friends to make that day last long,” sings Bette Midler. But, beyond banishing loneliness good friends may help your life last longer, too, according to an Australian study. Conducted by the Centre for Ageing Studies at Flinders University, the study followed nearly 1,500 older people for 10 years. It found that those who had a large network of friends outlived those with the fewest friends by 22%. Why is this so? The authors suspect that good friends discourage unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and heavy drinking. And the companionship provided by friends may ward off depression, boost self-esteem, and provide support. Also, as people age, they may become more selective in their choice of friends, so they spend more time with people they like.

Never the right weight

The wait is over, because fretting over weight does us no good. Agreed, weighing scales are good predictors for our overall health. If you weigh more you increase your chances of developing type II diabetes, osteoarthritis and other degenerative illnesses. Losing few pounds can help people tame the soaring blood pressure and blood sugar numbers too. Yet, what most of us end up doing in the weight loss game is—losing and regaining weight—weight cycling, where the pounds lost, bounce back with vengeance. Dr. David Lipschitz writes in the book Breaking the rules of aging, “Losing weight and gaining it back often causes a drop in HDL and a rise in total cholesterol. Blood pressure may creep upward, too. The risk of heart attack, high cholesterol and other health problems are especially pronounced too in the periods of weight gain.”

Ageing well

This brings us back to the basic question—the mantra to stay fit as you age. Ageing is natural, but ageing well is choice. The formula for good health is the same old, oft-quoted rhetoric, but how true it is! So if you want to grow sage as you age it makes sense to revise the tenets of healthy ageing. We age along a continuum rather than all of a sudden. The age-related nutrition issues that confront seniors—from osteoporosis to heart disease-begin in the early adult years. The most accepted theory on ageing is the onslaught made by free radicals on our cells. As we process food for energy, our body produces substances called, free radicals. Just like rust on a car, free radicals can cause damage to cells and may contribute to ageing. Free radicals travel through the cell, disrupting the structure of other molecules and resulting in cellular damage. Such damage is believed to contribute to ageing and various health problems. Nature has not left us defenceless against this onslaught of free radicals. To counter the ill effects of free radicals, we need help from anti-oxidants. Fruits and veggies, especially the ones with richer hues, like strawberries, purple grapes, cantaloupes, leafy greens are imbued with flavonoids that help us in our battle against antioxidants and its inevitable—ageing.

As we grow older, our bodies do not assimilate nutrients as well as they once did. At the same time, as the body ages, its systems slow down and become less efficient, so the correct nutrients are more important than ever for the support, repair and regeneration of the cells. The nutrition plan and exercise can make us breeze through our old age.

Tips to breeze through old age

• Quit smoking and chewing of tobacco in any form.
• Eat a balanced diet that includes raw vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, fish and soy foods.
• Instead of three large meals, eat five to six small meals through out the day.
• Go for nuts for they build immunity. Raw fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins and antioxidants. For women undergoing menopausal symptoms, soy offers relief.
• For your health take a bowl of yoghurt everyday. Yoghurt is rich in B12, calcium, phosphorus and is more easily absorbed in the system rather than milk.
• Exercise helps people of all age groups. It can reduce risks for depression, heart disease, osteoarthritis. Start walking or enroll yourself in a nearby gym.
• Improve your blood’s oxygenation and circulation with deep breathing exercises.
• As we age we have fitful sleep. Try napping during the day to compensate for sleep loss.
• As we grow older, we should keep learning new skills. It keeps our mind alert. Invest in your hobbies. Learn new skills and break the monotony of mundane day-to-day living.
• Most importantly, age should not decide what you should wear and eat and whether you should watch the new movie or not.

After all, age is just a number. Our society worships youth and sans a whole lot of pleasures for elderly, which makes seniors feel deprived. You grow sage with age and life becomes easier with experience. Ageing well is in our hands. The lifestyle decisions that you make in thirties and forties decide the status of your health in sixties and seventies, and if seniors can make friends with health, nothing can stop them from creating a splash.

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