Reach your 50s and enjoy staying young by changing your goals and mindset.
Are you scared of getting old and frail in your 50s? Well, most of us are. Do something about it by aiming towards holistic aging.
You may want to know what holistic aging is. In the most simple terms, it is achieving a good state of physical, mental, and emotional well-being as you advance in years. It is a new approach to an age-old idea of aging gracefully. Here, we will discuss the first steps to achieving it.
Compared to several decades ago, folks in their older years now have better opportunities to undertake a new path or even a vocation thanks to the evolution of technology and new approaches to thinking. The world is now more open to seniors who working, mastering a new trade, or doing things other than plain retirement – in other words, start all over again. You don’t want to be missing out, do you?
Why Holistic Aging Is So Important
Getting old sucks big time and there is no other way to go around it. However, there are still reasons why you should be striving to function physically and mentally as well as you possibly can. Living longer, have more meaningful relationships, being there for your loved ones – those are just some of the reasons why holistic aging is important
Until very recently, the 50s meant reaching the point of ‘twilight years’, and that one should have already achieved success in life. However, it is a reality of life that a lot of people have no means of achieving that in their younger years due to various circumstances. Getting into your 50s does not mean everything is lost. Everyone can try again and chase their dreams.
Here at Silver Athletes, we want you to enjoy life and feel younger as you advance in years. Holistic aging is one of the best goals you should have, so you can enjoy your best years ahead. Here are the first steps to take.
Identify the Things that Hinder Your Way
With so many things going around in our lives, it is so easy to forget to prepare for our aging. Taking care of children, health scares, having a career, minding about income stability, mortgage, and relationships – you have to balance and cope with these issues. Identify those things and work around them.
Preparing for holistic aging is easy to say but hard to do, but you have to strive. One of the first things to accomplish is focusing on things that we can control, and then hope to achieve more difficult goals later on.
For example, you might find it difficult juggling several schedules on a daily basis, but you can carve out 10 minutes of your time every day to exercise, read several pages of your favorite book, or do something you really enjoy. On the other hand, you can dedicate a morning or afternoon out of a busy week to socialize, travel to places, or do healthy shopping.
Change Your Mindset
A positive but realistic attitude, the one that lives in the moment, and finds joy in learning and humor, is the hallmark of a healthy mental state. Holistic aging is about achieving a healthy state of mind, therefore you should change your mindset and try to be mentally healthy as possible.
You can help change your mindset by identifying the motivations behind holistic aging. That could be staying for your grandchildren, spending a longer time in a preferred job position, striving for career advancement, having a hobby, etc.
Getting older is something that is bound to happen. However, there are modifiable factors such as smoking, consumption of alcohol, diet patterns, physical activity, following doctor’s orders, and social activity – these things have a lot to say about your future wellness. Your everyday choices have a lot to do with your physical and mental fitness in the upcoming years.
At this point, you probably realize that you have wasted a lot of your younger years on unhealthy living and bad choices. Those things already happened and you have to let it go, as living without regrets is a part of healthy aging.
Start Building Your Socials
You should realize how important socialization is in keeping you more active, having more physical activity, and more positivity. Interacting with others means less time spent watching TV or browsing your phone. No need to be the stereotypical grumpy old man.
To start, you can try to search and join groups in your community or hobbies. Or, try to reconnect with old friends or buddies. Take a stroll outside of your house and roam around more often. Older people tend to feel lonely, so avoiding isolation is something that you should strive for.
Start Exercising
If you aspire to be in great physical shape, you have to exercise. Older people are often less inclined to exercise due to reasons such as lack of interest, time, and perceived fitness. A lot of seniors also have problems such as shortness of breath, joint pains, and lack of transport options.
There is no need to adopt a physically-intensive, bodybuilder-level training or shred like an Olympic athlete. Starting a regular, low-intensity exercise will do. (link to an exercise article)
A lot of people don’t exercise because they worry about their overall physical fitness. To start, a health checkup will objectively determine if it is safe for you to exercise.
Accept and Find Enjoyment
No matter what we have or what we do, there is no way we can stop or even delay aging. However, you can change your mindset and behaviour to turn things around. Holistic aging is all about acceptance and finding fun in the aging process. You have to accept things as they are, while identifying what you can do and what are the things you enjoy doing.
People nowadays tend to live longer, so why not try to do something worthwhile? In most cases, searching for the meaning of life is a fruitless endeavour. What we should be doing is just enjoy what we have.
Reaching 50’s doesn’t mean it is twilight already. There are many more things to come.