Welcome back to Age Wise, exploring the science of improving physical health and mental wellness at every stage of life. Below, I issue you a challenge to head off holiday stress, crankiness and self-loathing by changing just one behavior… today. But first…
We hear a lot about how to live longer and how to prevent this disease or that. Yet the simple but important concept of aging well tends to get less notice. New research pinpoints nine keys to “successful” or “optimal” aging, defined by the scientists as being fortunate enough to “maintain excellent health across the study period and less likely to develop disabling cognitive, physical, or emotional problems.”
Sounds like the aging I’d like to experience.
The study didn’t aim to generate a popular tips list for healthy aging. Instead, it sought simply to determine what factors influence health and happiness later in life—regardless whether one has control over them or not. But some of the nine factors can be controlled or heavily influenced by the individual, starting long before old age sets in.
These were the traits most highly associated with successful aging:
Being female
Being married
Being physically active
Sleeping well
Not living in poverty
Not smoking
Not being obese
Not having heart disease
Not having arthritis
The research was done on 7,000 Canadians ages 60 and older. All were healthy and happy at the start of the study, but 30% experienced notable declines over the next three years. The results are detailed in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. While there’s no guarantee the findings would be the same or similar in other countries, there’s plenty of other evidence on what vexes people as they age to support that likelihood.
I present the findings not to suggest you should or can change every factor, but as a reminder that no matter how old you are or what your circumstances may be, there are certain key behaviors you can embrace that will greatly improve your chance of not just living longer but being healthy, productive and happy along the way.
Physical activity and quality sleep are the two you might wish to focus on. They offer reciprocal benefits: move more and you’ll sleep better; sleep better and you’ll have more energy and inclination for physical activity. Plus, prioritizing both helps prevent obesity, heart disease, arthritis symptoms, and a host of other chronic conditions, including cancer, type 2 diabetes, depression and dementia.
(Need some guidance? My book Make Sleep Your Superpower offers 20 tactics you can choose from to create a simple, effective strategy to sleep better. It explains in detail the importance of quality, restorative sleep, and how better sleep improves every aspect of life—from mood to mental ability to physical health—and how a virtuous cycle sets in that can flat-out change your life. It’s available from Amazon in paperback or a Kindle version. It’d make a great gift, for yourself or anyone who hasn’t been on top of their game lately.)
Meanwhile, because the holidays can be a challenging time for health, I’ve issued a Holiday Survival Challenge. As I introduced it on Medium:
’Tis the season of excessive eating, boozy parties, slothiness and stress. And you know what comes next: Born of despair for what you’ve done to yourself, you’ll make a vague, doomed-to-fail resolution to lose weight or drink less or exercise more in the new year.
Here’s a better idea:
Without giving up cookie parties, egg nog or whatever holiday cheer matters to you, I hereby challenge you to engage, starting today, in one highly specific new behavior that will improve your sleep, boost your energy level, clear your head so you can think straight, and put you in charge of your emotions instead of being victim to them. Then do it daily through the end of the year.
And you get to choose which one.
If you do nothing else today to take care of yourself, read the story and take my Holiday Survival Challenge, picking any one of the five behavioral changes that science says will boost your health and happiness. Your 2023 self will thank you.
Your support makes this free newsletter possible. If you find it useful, please consider forwarding it. You can find more of my health and wellness writing on Medium. Also find me on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin. And if you ever feel tired, unfocused, stressed or cranky in the afternoon, check out my book, Make Sleep Your Superpower.—Rob