Top tips on how to stay younger for longer

Keeping your body and mind young, healthy and nimble as you age comes down to many things. But most important of all is the way you feel about yourself and the way you approach ageing mentally. If you keep pushing yourself, keep challenging yourself and look after yourself, then you can enjoy a full and healthy life at any age.

But it also comes down to the details. The strategies, tricks and techniques you can use to slow down ageing and look better. Here are some top tips for your easy reference.

Diet

Woman eating healthy

Balanced diet

Eating the right diet is highly important for maintaining your youthful looks and your healthy cells and organs. Vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids… they’re all responsible for countless important functions in the body. When you don’t get these, you will find it adds up to cumulative damage that can become obvious in old age.

Make sure you eat a healthy and balanced diet and you should be able to avoid these negatives. Get advice from a nutritional therapist, it’s one of the best investments you can ever make.

Have a Berry Smoothie

If you want a food that is high in antioxidants for slowing the effects of ageing, then consider blueberries.

Berries are one of the very best sources of antioxidants and a smoothie provides a convenient and tasty way that you can easily get them into your diet.

Eat Fish, Meat, Soybean

Not only are amino acids important for your health and longevity generally but increasing your intake of these sources will provide you with cysteine – an important building block in glutathione – one of the most important antioxidants often considered the ‘master’ antioxidant.

Consume Caffeine

Caffeine has been shown to help reduce the likelihood of age-related neurological decline and protects the neurons against oxidation.

Bone Broth

Bone broth is made by stewing bones from animals and then consuming the infused fluid as a soup. This is highly effective at enhancing connective tissues and bones and this can help to improve strength and prevent breakages as you age.

Top supplements to help you age slower

Blocks with letters

Omega 3 Fatty Acid

To protect your brain from cognitive decline, avoid cellular damage and help reduce inflammation. Omega 3 works by increasing cell membrane permeability and reducing too-high amounts of omega 6 which causes inflammation.

Resveratrol

Resveratrol is found in red grapes and red wine. It is highly effective at improving the efficiency of the mitochondria, which in turn means less oxidation.

Lutein

Another substance that can enhance mitochondrial function is lutein. Lutein will also protect the eyes from macular degeneration as you age, giving it multiple important benefits as an anti-ageing supplement.

ZMA

ZMA is zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6. This is a highly powerful combination for raising testosterone and for enhancing sleep.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is very important for improving the immune system and recent studies show that it can help significantly reduce the likelihood of developing colds and flu. In fact, it may even be more effective than vaccines in some cases. Preventing colds and infections is very important as you age, so get this vital vitamin. This also helps to improve the absorption of calcium, to enhance bone strength.

Turmeric

Turmeric has a number of powerful benefits for the body but one of the most interesting is its ability to enhance brain plasticity. This is crucial for the ageing brain as it can help to encourage fluid intelligence and learning.

Magnesium Threonate

Another powerful supplement when it comes to improving brain plasticity is magnesium threonate. Due to the formulation of the compound, it’s easily absorbed. It is said to improve memory and learning abilities.

Skin

Older and younger woman

Hyaluronic Acid

For keeping your skin looking youthful look for products containing humectants such as hyaluronic acid.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E is another vital substance for combating free radicals, hydrating the skin and generally preventing the appearance of wrinkles as you age. Of course, you won’t want to spend money on all these nutrients, which is why you need to pick and choose the ones that work for you while maintaining a healthy, balanced and nutritious diet.

Sunscreen

Sit by a window in your office? This blocks UVB but not UVA rays from the sun. That means it can still deeply penetrate and damage the skin cells, which is one reason that we often have more freckles on one side of our face. Yes, so even when you are indoors, wear your sunscreen!

Ionize Your Water

 A water ionizing filter can help to reduce the free radical activity of your water and thus help you to look younger and longer, while also avoiding the onset of cancer.

Moisturise

Moisturizing is important as you age to keep the skin looking youthful and hydrated. Look for a moisturizing cream that has a little sunblock in it as mentioned, to help prevent damage to the cells over time as well. Moisturize your hands too! Hands are often what give away our true age, even if we look otherwise young.

Brain

Woman meditating

Play Chess

One of the most notable ways that cognitive function declines as we get older is in ‘fluid intelligence’. While knowledge (crystallised intelligence) actually increases, the ability to store information and reason abstractly is impaired. This is due to a reduction in working memory but you can keep this alive and well by supporting it with activities that challenge the brain to store information and plan ahead. Chess is perfect for this!

Keep Learning

Even more important is to keep stimulating the brain by learning new things, taking on new challenges, experiencing new places and even interacting with as many people as possible. This keeps the brain plastic meaning you’ll more easily learn new things and meaning you’ll be less likely to see impairments in brain function over time. This is how to disprove the saying ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’.

Meditate

In the short term, meditation will help you to prevent the negative side effects of stress on the brain. It also enhances brain plasticity and learning.

Sleep

Sleep is incredibly important for the brain and the body. Over time, a lack of sleep will cause cumulative damage that can add up and cause a lot of negative effects we associated with old age

Exercise

Tying a shoelace

HIIT

HIIT is ‘High-Intensity Interval Training’. This is an exercise that involves alternating between periods of intense activity and periods of relative calm and recovery. This has been shown to help support the mitochondria and thereby encourage greater efficiency. This can give you the vigour and youthful energy of a much younger person even in old age, as well as further prevent oxidative damage!

Mobility Exercise

It’s also a good idea to consider mobility exercises as a way to stay mobile and limber and to avoid many of the aches and pains that we consider ‘normal’ as we age. These are not normal and in fact, it is very important to keep yourself flexible and healthy as you get older. Yoga can help, as can gymnastics.

Weight Training

Weight training is generally a very good idea as you get older too. This keeps the muscles and the bones stronger, preventing the weakness that can lead to accidents, falls, breaks and other problems. Not only that, but weight training can also stimulate the production of testosterone in men and has been shown to further support brain function.

Lifestyle

Water

Hydrating with water is very important as you get older and will help you to keep yourself healthy and prevent cumulative damage once more. Avoid smoking and drinking in large amounts, avoid sunbathing… generally maintain a healthy lifestyle now to look and feel amazing later!

Stress

Stress similarly can cause serious problems over time as it wreaks cumulative damage on your body and mind. If you live a very stressful lifestyle and are constantly putting out fires in your workplace, consider the impact this is having on your long-term health.

Groom

Grooming yourself as you get older will help you to look younger and feel healthier. This changes the way you feel about yourself, as well as the way that others think of you!

Women can use makeup in order to look younger, while men in particular need to remember to trim nose hairs and eyebrows as they start sprouting more hair. Dress for your age and you will find ways to ‘work’ a more mature look that makes you feel like a million bucks.

We’ve all looked at different kinds of lifestyle changes and health tips that can help us to age slower and stay looking and feeling much better even well past middle age.

Go one, choose one each day and give it a go!