Many people will tell you that age is just a number; it is an attitude and all about how old or young you feel. To come to think that is the perfect way of defining age. Let us view the same thoughts in another way – if you allow yourself to feel young, you will feel age lift away from you!
The point that is being emphasized is that it is not our physical ages – those numbers that we are constantly made aware of by magazines and the media and sadly, our doctors – that decides how ‘old’ we are. Rather, age is a comparison between creativity and joy versus decay and stagnation. Which side of the balance do you fall on? Do you know the little and surprisingly simple secrets to staying young that don’t include anything so superficial as knives and needles? Here are 20 secrets to staying young that everyone needs to follow –
Secrets for the body
Exercise – This may be obvious to some, but many don’t realize that exercise makes us feel good about ourselves. Becoming a couch potato will make our bodies and minds deteriorate – which is undoubtedly the first sign of aging. If you’re healthy, maintain it. If your health is poor, improve it. If you can’t do it yourself, get help.
Eat nutritional food – You don’t have to be obsessed with diets to eat healthy. Just know the most nutritional foods that your body needs to keep healthy and include those in your meals and have a balanced calorie intake. This will help keep cardiovascular problems diseases and other age related diseases at bay.
Sleep and rest – Your body requires adequate sleep and rest to function properly and heal itself. Ensure you get ample rest so you feel rejuvenated each day.
Secrets for the mind
Positivity is life-affirming – Remember how you were always enthusiastic and energetic when you were young? That is a quality we tend to lose as we grow older. Bring your enthusiasm back into your life and you will feel the years fall away from you. Continue doing things that you enjoyed doing when you were younger or better still learn new skills.
Take pleasure in simple things – You will learn to enjoy each moment more when you take the time to notice the little things that give you pleasure each day. This will relieve you of stress and act as an antidote to strain, anxiety and constant worries.
Learn something new – Learning is a sign of vitality, of growth. Did you know that we can keep learning new things all our lives? Pick up a new hobby or activity that you’ve never done before. It could be fishing, or candle-making, book binding or carpentry. It will keep you learning and keep your brain cells active.
Laugh as much as you can – Laughter beats stress, and stress negates life. A sense of humor will help you to see the funny things in life. It will keep things balanced, maintain your perspective. It will let you enjoy life more, and make you feel young again.
Throw away the numbers – Stop giving any thought to unnecessary things like age, height and weight. As long as you are reasonably healthy, those numbers given undue importance by the media will only make you think of who you are not, rather than who you are. That’s additional stress to make you feel old.
Have cheerful people around you – Don’t let the negativity of others bring you down. Instead, surround yourself with cheerful people. Their attitude can be infectious.
Spend time with the young – If you spend more time with children and young people, you will find that their enthusiasm is infectious as well. Who doesn’t want more enthusiasm in their lives?
Be content, with who you are – When we try to be something we are not, it creates stress, and that is a surefire weapon to make us feel like we have aged. Of course, act your age, but that doesn’t mean you must feel old.
Read good books – If you get into the habit of reading varieties of good books, you will keep your brain cells constantly working. If you don’t like to read, cultivating a little reading habit can help tremendously.
Do what you love to do – That’s another way of beating stress. Life is too short to be fretting over what we don’t enjoy. Of course, it can be easier said than done for many of us that aren’t able to make a living doing what we enjoy. But it always helps to come to some kind of a positive mental compromise so that we are able to enjoy what we do at the very least.
Spend more time outdoors – Nature refreshes us and we are more active when we are outdoors. Go out often. Staying indoors and becoming couch potatoes is not the way to feel young.
Spend some time on gratitude – Give a little time to reflecting on what you have. It will make you appreciative and thankful, which is a life-affirming feeling.
Take sorrow in your stride – Sorrow and loss must be given their due respect. But remember each one of us must live our lives alone, and to the best of our abilities. Learn to move on from loss and live again. Don’t hold on to loss so dearly that it begins affecting who you are.
Keep your loved ones around you – Surround yourself with those that love you and those you love. You will feel cherished and wanted and that will give you a tremendous amount of vitality and energy.
Teach something – Share your knowledge and skill with others. Teaching others something worthwhile will make you feel significant and worthwhile.
Take risks – Challenge yourself to take risks; do things you’ve never done before. That is what we do when we’re young. As we grow older we start losing our courage, when it doesn’t have to be like that!
Live life to the fullest – This is a thought you must keep with you at all times. It’s a long-term quest, and you will constantly be striving to make the most of every moment of every day. But this is most life-affirming attitude that you can adopt.
Remember, your life is your own, and how you choose to feel about yourself is not dictated by the media or magazines. Growing older is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop living!