Anti Aging: Planning For the Retirement Years
I am writing this anti aging article because I want to raise awareness to the need to plan and manage our extended longevity just as we do with our financial planning.
Anti aging, are there any benefits to plan for it? Yes, but you cannot be measured by the benefits of planning for your retirement years in monetary terms but rather in the “Quality of Your Life”
Life Expectancy
It is a fact that our life expectancy continues to increase. Each generation gradually outlives the previous generation. Living longer or well past the 65-year-old milestone is a relatively new phenomenon for us here in the US.
Numerous social, physical, emotional, and economical changes take place as we age. The majority of us are not aware, or prepared for these changes. However, prepared or not, we are, or soon will be, in the final stage of our lives. How we respond to this extended segment of our life, and how we realistically prepare for it, will determine if these will be the golden years or difficult times ahead.
Negatives Of Aging
We hear a great deal about the negatives of aging, sometimes referred to as the “downhill slide”. We are told that we may experience:
- slower reflexes,
- gray hair, or balding,
- wrinkling of the skin,
- decreasing vision and hearing,
- high blood pressure,
- arthritis, osteoporosis, and all the other degenerative diseases.
So the question arises – what do we have to look forward to in retirement? How enjoyable can life in older age be? Actually, the quality of our life in older age can be as rewarding as we plan it to be.
Components Of Anti Aging
Once you see how the various components of aging affect us all, you can make informed decisions regarding your aging process.
- Minimize your stress
- Try to get close to eight hours of sleep.
- Eat moderate amounts of nutritious foods
- Get lots of exercise.
- Do not smokes.
It is not any one component that affects aging, rather it is the cumulative factors, most of which we can influence, that ultimately determines how we can slow down the rapidity of our aging.
By utilizing anti aging principles and practices, we can prepare ourselves physical, emotionally, physiologically, and spiritually to be in the best possible condition to enjoy life especially in the later years.
Most Americans, unfortunately, do not follow healthy habits. The greatest irony would be to discover that a pill is not, in the end, any more effective than the healthy habits we already ignore.