Hey there! I’m Keke. I’m Chris’s wife, best friend, and business partner here at Mind-Body-Spirit-Wellness. Sometimes I hijack the blog to drop some gems about healthy living and better aging. Yes, you are in charge of doing both, and here are the top five reasons you must take better care of yourself BEFORE you start aging.
#5 Life Is ZERO Fun When Your Body Falls Apart
I get it. Eating the right foods (vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, healthy grains, lean meat, healthy fat) ninety percent of the time might not seem like your idea of a good time. And yeah, you might want to gouge out your eyes with a spoon before you spend 45 minutes working out each morning. Here’s the thing, regular good eating and daily exercise are the two primary tools involved in keeping your body from disintegrating. If you decide you don’t want these tools in your life, you have nothing to look forward to except your internal and external organs failing. When it happens, it’s painful and ugly. You end up not wanting to do very much because you don’t feel good, and even when you get out and try to enjoy events, you’ll wish you looked and moved better. Long story short, life will suck, and it will be your fault.
#4 You Put A Life Tax On Your Family – Especially Your Kids
This subject is hard to bring up because it involves thinking about your loved ones, but I need you to consider this. If you are in your thirties or forties and you ignore good health habits (mainly eating right and daily exercise), you will need medication and or regular doctor visits at some point in your sixties or seventies. Who will be concerned about the meds you have to take? Your spouse/kids/loved ones. Who might have to drive you to those doctor visits? Your spouse/kids/loved ones. Yes, they love you and want to see you well so they won’t tell you. I will. You ignored your body, and now you are paying for it, and they are paying too! Don’t do this to your kids! It’s just not fair to them.
#3 Your Hair and Teeth and Skin Suffer
Vanity is a sin, but there is something to be said for taking proper care of the three things most people notice while talking to you. If you avoid good dental care and your teeth fall out, you’ll look even older than your chronological age. Hair, especially for men, has a high genetic component, so guys, don’t stress if you bald early. Just take good care of your skin and scalp and work on having a dynamite body. The best action you can take with your skin is to wear a daily natural sunscreen, sleep eight hours per night, drink plenty of water, and (this is a big one) stay away from smoke-filled rooms. Having a drink every so often with friends is fine, but avoid heavy drinking and illegal drugs if you want to age well. Remember that missing or damaged teeth, patchy hair issues, and sagging discolored skin screams old.
#2 Pain and Stiffness Take Your Body Captive
In your twenties and thirties, it might seem like fun to laugh at the folk who rush to their yoga class every other morning, but the jokes on you if you never join them. As we age, time catches up with our muscles. Scar tissue develops because of tiny tears that have healed over the years. Eventually, the scar tissue and other types of body plaque bond together. When this happens, you get stiff if you don’t regularly stretch or foam roll to break those bonds and demolish the plaque. I’m talking about the type of stiffness that doesn’t go away after a quick morning walk. If you become stiff, your movement is impaired, and you won’t walk, climb stairs, or even enter your car with ease. When you avoid stretching and foam rolling, you allow your body to imprison you.
#1 Your Brain Starts Dying
Brain impairment is the saddest aging topic to discuss. I can’t joke about it because it’s not funny. It’s terrible in every imaginable way. When a loved one’s brain deteriorates, entire families are affected. Grammy or Pop-pop isn’t the same anymore, and there are no cures for dementia. Hear me clearly: you must handle dementia in your twenties, thirties, and forties through preventive measures. Take action against it daily by doing the following:
- Eat an essential healthy diet with a minimal amount of processed foods: green vegetables, berries/brightly colored fruits, nuts, beans, seeds, lean protein, healthy fats, and oils.
- Enjoy daily exercise that challenges you to raise your heart rate.
- Nix the social isolation and meet to talk and laugh with friends several times per week.
- Learn something new each year. Languages. Card games. Chess. Anything that challenges your brain to do something different than the day before.
- Set a daily schedule with morning wake-up time, set bedtime, and 7-8 hours of sleep. Proper sleep allows your brain to release stress, one of the main factors for developing dementia.
Whew! That was a lot. Are you all right? I hope so.
But are we clear right now? Do you have all the leverage you need to grab your aging by the horns and make it behave to your liking? Excellent! Meet us here on the blog next week, and we’ll drop so more knowledge. Until then, be well, and live your best life for real!
MindBodySpiritWellness 