7 Simple Habits to Try For Healthy Aging
Daily rituals that protect your body from the wear & tear of time.
You’ve heard of celery juice, fasting, and cold plunges, but these 7 habits are simpler and science-backed to help you with healthy aging. These are a collection of habits I’ve collected from patients over the years and I hope they are just as effective for you.
1. Get Early Morning Natural Light
Some prefer to wake up with natural morning light while others go out for a walk to grab a cup of coffee. Especially if you are struggling with restful sleep, early exposure to natural sunlight can help balance out melatonin levels and help you with your vitamin D levels.
Try a light walk around the block for 5-10 minutes. If you have voice messages to listen to or a favorite podcast, that’ll keep you more engaged.
2. Stretching Before Work
Right before sitting down for a marathon of work before your computer screen, a few good stretches can help prevent stiffness, give your body a workout, and activate the lymphatic system for better circulation.
Before you scroll, stretch. It signals your body that it’s time to move, not freeze. Try a 60 second guided routine before getting started.
3. Challenge Your Tastebuds
Over the years, your tongue has gotten accustomed to certain flavors, sweets, sour, or salty. We enjoy fatty foods with salt, sweet foods with sour notes, etc. We don’t often get enough bitter flavor from arugula, radicchio, or lemon water. This can help digestion but also retrains the tastebuds to be less reliant on the old standbys.
Add one bitter food to your next meal or snack and see if you notice a change in digestion or cravings.
4. Tune Into Your Stress
We often try to avoid stressful thoughts or bring to the forefront thoughts and feelings that are intense. It’s a good practice to tune into such strong emotions and really let yourself feel them. It often will calm your stress and make you less afraid of confronting emotions as a part of your healthy aging journey.
Try to reflect on your stressors to reduce their intensity. Sit down with a journal and write about something stressful.
5. Curb Your Snacks
In my nutrition plans with clients I always incorporate snacking. But there is a worthwhile practice of skipping a snack especially when the craving is overwhelming. The time when your blood sugar is really low or anxiety is high, the body may crave a snack.
Try creating a no-snack window in your day that spans 3-4 hours and see if your energy changes or your digestion improves.
6. Don’t Give Into Cravings
When I’m distracted it’s common for me to reach for my cell phone to check for text messages, voicemails, emails, etc. When the urge comes, notice it, grab your phone if you need to, but resist the temptation to dig into it. Part of healthy aging is to calm the mind and give it cues for relaxation.
Try going for a walk with your phone at home. Or just spend a day running errands with dedicated times of when you’ll reach for your phone.
7. Breathing Exercises Before Bed
Most of the day we are bombarded with stimuli - good and bad. Breathing often gets shallow and that can put us on that sympathetic edge. Healthy aging is about creating a good balance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system.
Try to lay completely flat on your bed with the pillow to the side. Place your hands on your chest and abdomen, take in a deep breath, let it out slowly. Try it any way that feels good, as long as it doesn’t make you anxious.