How to Age with Grace

Getting older is a double-edged sword. The potential is there for great wisdom, expanded opportunities, and a comfortable life. But at the same time, your health can begin to decline if you don’t take care of yourself properly. As you age, you will also inevitably undergo physical changes like wrinkles and hair loss. There is no avoiding getting older, but that doesn’t mean you have to resign yourself to a reduced quality of living as you age. By taking a few precautions, however, you can set yourself up to age with grace and dignity, ensuring that your best years will never be behind you.

Staying Physically Healthy

If you wish to age gracefully (and why wouldn’t you?), the golden rule is to stay active. A good way to conceptualize this is to think in terms of the conservation of energy. The older you get, the more your body relies on “momentum” for energy. Take a walk, go on a bike ride, get a gym membership: find something that works with your schedule and stick to it. It doesn’t get any easier to start moving, but once you’re already in motion, you’ll find yourself much more capable of maintaining your energy.

If you stop being active, it’ll only become more difficult for you to do all the things young people take for granted. If you don’t already have an active lifestyle, get started as soon as you can. Again, even if it’s just taking a walk once a day or swimming a couple laps in the pool, every little bit of activity helps maintain your momentum to keep you moving as you age. If you allow yourself to become lazy, soon you’ll find yourself missing out on life’s greatest pleasures.

With this being said, exercising is just one of many good habits you should develop. The same rituals you should be establishing in your youth become even more important as you age. Getting enough sleep, maintaining good oral hygiene, getting regular vaccinations, and washing your hands after using the restroom will go a long way toward keeping you healthy and allowing you to age gracefully.

Beauty

One of the greatest hurdles for men and women alike is the sense that aging is equivalent to becoming less attractive. While your body will undeniably change as you age, this does not mean that you will become uglier. The real issue, rather, is that so many people work against their aging features by trying to look younger. Instead of fighting your changing appearance, the key to aging gracefully is to embrace your new look.

Resist the temptation to try and hide your wrinkles with makeup. Caking it on in an attempt to cover up every new nook and cranny of skin runs the risk of making you appear desperate. No amount of makeup will make you look like you did in your twenties, so it is much more efficient to recalibrate and apply makeup based on how you look today rather than how you used to look. A more judicious approach will help you look and feel more confident, telling the world that you are happy with the way you look and proud of your maturing beauty.

A good skin care regimen including a quality moisturizer will help keep your skin healthy and, to an extent, can reduce wrinkles. This goes for men too: if you’ve spent your youth shrugging off lotions and moisturizers, now is the time to embrace them. You’ll be amazed at the improvement in how your skin looks and feels.

Taking Care of Your Hair

Among the many physical changes that you may encounter as you age, hair loss and discoloration is a special circumstance. For many, gray hair is the first sign of crossing the threshold into old age. Unlike with wrinkles and other physical features, there are actually several options for adults hoping to maintain their hair as they age.

Once upon a time, there were no viable solutions to graying hair. Today, hair dying products have become sophisticated enough that you have the choice to keep up your hair color as you age. Keep in mind, however, that it can still look unnatural to have richly colored hair when the rest of your body has begun to show signs of getting older.

Regardless of your choice whether or not to color your hair, you will also almost definitely encounter thinning as you age. There are steps you can take to slow this process—changing your diet, taking supplements, or getting a fancy conditioner—but thinner hair is ultimately inevitable.

For those affected by it, hair loss is a much more worrisome issue than hair discoloration or even hair thinning. Hair loss affects a large percentage of adults, although men encounter it more frequently than women. By the age of fifty, 25% of women and about half of all men experience some level of baldness. Some folks are able to take hair loss in stride, or nip it in the bud by shaving their heads and going completely bald. But there is no need to feel ashamed if this isn’t the case for you. If you aren’t yet ready to lose your hair, there are now many effective treatments (both surgical and non-surgical) you can undergo in order to preserve or regain your full head of hair.

By requesting a virtual consultation with a skilled dermatologist like Dr. Feinberg of Hair Restoration Center of New York & New Jersey, you can begin to learn what the different treatments are for hair loss, and what option works best for you.

Staying Mentally Healthy

Keeping your mind sharp is a must if you want to remain independent and happy as you enter old age. Taking care of your mind is similar to taking care of your body: it’s all about momentum. You must regularly exercise your brain in order to stay on your mental game. Thankfully, there are several steps you can take to this end. Sign up for an adult education class, join a book group, or consider taking up a musical instrument. This is a great opportunity for you to pick up a new hobby that will not only keep your mind sharp, but will also serve as a new source of entertainment and social interaction for you.

Understanding that your body will change and learning to accept your changing appearance are the key to remaining happy and content in this stage of your life. You may find it beneficial to incorporate meditation into your life as a means to reduce stress, which has the unfortunate side effect of speeding up the aging process. You may also decide to meet with a therapist if you are struggling to control your worries about aging—in fact, I recommend therapy for adults of all ages! Ultimately, your state of mind is the most important defense you have against any and all negative effects of aging, so don’t be afraid to do whatever it takes to maintain a positive outlook.