To What Extent Does a Healthy Lifestyle Affect Aging?
As the world continues to change, so does our understanding of aging. We know that living a healthy lifestyle is important for our overall wellbeing, but many are not aware of how it can impact the aging process. Understanding how your lifestyle choices affect your aging will help you make better decisions about how to stay healthy and happy as you get older. Let’s explore what we know about the effects of a healthy lifestyle on aging.
What Is a Healthy Lifestyle?
A healthy lifestyle includes making good choices in terms of diet, exercise, sleep habits, and stress management. Eating nutritious foods helps keep your body functioning properly and helps to reduce inflammation, which can contribute to chronic health issues in later life. Exercise is also important because it strengthens your muscles and bones while increasing your cardiovascular endurance. Getting enough sleep every night helps keep your mental faculties sharp and reduces fatigue during the day. Stress management is essential as well since excessive stress can have significant long-term impacts on both physical and mental health.
How Does This Affect Aging?
The effects of these lifestyle choices on aging depend largely upon how early they are adopted. An individual who adopts a healthy lifestyle at an early age—say, in their thirties or forties—will most likely experience fewer age-related health issues than someone who only begins taking care of themselves after they reach retirement age.
Eating nutritious foods and getting regular exercise can help slow down the effects of aging by reducing inflammation throughout the body, strengthening muscles and bones, and increasing cardiovascular endurance. Eating nutritious foods also helps reduce weight gain associated with age-related metabolic changes that occur over time.
Managing stress levels helps protect against cognitive decline associated with aging by keeping the brain active and engaged in activities that stimulate thinking skills such as problem solving or learning new tasks or hobbies.
The Benefits of Exercise as You Age
The most effective way to maintain a healthy lifestyle as you age is to stay active. According to NIH research, regular physical activity can reduce your risk of falling by up to 40%. It also helps reduce pain in muscles and joints, improves cognitive functioning and memory, boosts energy levels, enhances sleep quality, strengthens bone density, increases flexibility and balance.
Exercise doesn’t have to mean joining a gym or taking on running marathons. Even light activities like walking or yoga can make significant improvements in your overall health.
Regular physical activity has been shown to be beneficial in reducing stress levels and promoting mental clarity. Furthermore, exercise reduces inflammation which helps protect against many age-related illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, diabetes, cancer, and dementia.
Helping Hands for Seniors
For over 20 years, Helping Hands for Seniors of Portland, OR has helped seniors throughout Portland, OR find the assisted living community that meets their individual needs. Our services are of no cost to you, and we are contracted with preferred providers throughout Oregon, Washington, and California. We are here to answer all questions and assist with applying for benefits, private pay, and making decisions with respect to needs, cost, and lifestyle. Contact Helping Hands for Seniors today at 503-694-9577 to schedule a free consultation!