by Judi Sheppard Missett – Think of your health like a savings account. Are you saving for a rainy day? There’s so much we can do right now to contribute to our future wellbeing and longevity. Ask yourself these questions to get on track for a long, happy, healthy life.
How healthy are you now?
Whatever your age or health, now is the time to get a thorough and accurate baseline. Schedule a full physical with your health care provider and ask about any concerns. Do a self check-up as well — how healthy to do you feel? Do an honest inventory of your habits, lifestyle, physical changes, weight and level of self-care.
Are you an optimist?
New research from the University of Illinois found a strong connection between outlook and heart health. The study found that optimists are twice as likely to be in ideal cardiovascular health as pessimists. Choosing to view the glass as half full can pay off now and in the future.
Are you having fun?
If not, what are you waiting for? Sure, there’s work, family obligations, bills and worries. But there’s also laughter, vacations, silliness, trashy novels, walks outside, whole days in your pajamas, relationships and time with friends. You just have to seek it out. Find ways to combat and release stress and live in the moment — it will do wonders for your physical and emotional wellbeing.
What are you doing today for your body?
While we can’t change our genetic risk factors, there are several things we can do right now to increase our odds of living and aging well. Are you getting enough exercise? The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans from the Department of Health and Human Services recommend adults get at least 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity each week and do strengthening activities at least two days a week. Increasing your strength and balance can prevent falls and maintaining healthy bone density can prevent injury. How’s your memory? Research from Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center and Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center shows mentally stimulating activities like reading, card games, crossword puzzles and visiting museums may reduce Alzheimer’s risk. Are you getting enough sleep? According to research from the National Institute of Health, one third of American adults aren’t getting the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep.
Are you working toward something?
Having a purpose and a goal keeps us living, striving and moving. What’s yours? Reaching a professional milestone, giving back, climbing Mount Whitney, getting fit, going back to school, remodeling your house — whatever the goal, once you reach it, set another one.
The start of a new year makes it the perfect time to think about short and long term changes. Your future self will thank you for the contributions you make now to your health and wellbeing. It’s never too late to make changes to feel better today and increase your chances of living a longer, healthier and happier life.
What are you doing to age well?
Read all the comments! Way to Go! I adhere to the belief…as a man thinketh so it shall be. I feel better at 81 than I felt at 21. We come into the world like blank slates…and much of what we learn is erroneous. My father said..”Don’t believe everything you read.” He was right. It takes living to learn. In regard to health, people would never get sick, if they simply knew the truth. We destroy our bodies, because we follow the same old eating patterns; generation, after generation.
If we would eat as our Creator intended, when there were no stoves…health would be the natural state of mankind.
The most toxic activity we can do is consume sugar based foods, sweet soft drinks, hydrogenated foods, or baked goods made with hydrogenated oils such as pizza or sugary frosted cakes ect. and then sit and live a sedentary life. Sugar is the real poison. Western medicine, with it’s chemicals and drugs, has it’s place, and I’m glad it’s available. Is it poison? Sometimes, because the therapeutic dose is just short of the toxic dose, intake must balance output, it’s a fine line. I do not support taking medicines indiscriminately, in fact the less the better. Timing, dosage, strength and compliance, are variables that must be worked out. Vitamins taken when they’re not required result in expensive urine, for example if you don’t have a vitamin C deficiency, adding more vitamin C will not absorb into your system and bring you added benefits. Are there bad doctors? Yes, but there are good, excellent, and exceptional ones as well. Use your doctor’s knowledge to help yourself. For myself, if I tear a bicep tendon, I want an exceptional orthopedic surgeon, not a herbal remedy. If I get bitten by a lyme disease caring tick, on a nature walk, I want proven antibiotics – not extra vitamins.
Chemotherapy costs $8,000-$10,000. It’s a readily prescribed treatment and the Oncologist get 50% for doing so. Chemotherapy has a 97% failure rate!
I am growing younger by rebuilding my telomeres on my stem cells with a Nobel Prize winning technology to grow younger. The product is TS-X manufactured and sold by Sisel. My biological age is much less than when I started. Two years ago it was 58 according to a telomere county protocol done by SpectraCell. Last year it had reversed to 52 and this year it is 46 and I feel it and look it.
Science has made a major breakthrough and I am a living testimony to it. I am 72 and look like I am 50 and feel it too.
I do chia seeds and flax seeds and flax seed oil. I am 71 years old and have no body pains of any kind. I don’t take any medication and fiirmly believe that many doctors mis-dianose you to make money. I also believe that the sooner you start taking the drugs they pass out the sooner your health will deterioate. The life extension magazine recently had an article telling that the HMO’s were paying doctors $350 a month to dictate what the doctor could do for a cancer patient– if it worked for you all well and good but if not it was your tough luck–no wonder so many cancer patients are not surviving.
I stay far, far, far away from any pharmaceutical drugs. They’re all poison. Both of us are pharmaceutical-free. I even quit taking aspirin because it gave me tinnitus. I take herbs and supplements. I am 70 years old, and I can walk five miles in one day, and do advanced taekwondo. My favorite activity is birding. This involves hiking in some cases. Pharmaceutical companies what to keep you sick, because if you get better, you stop being a customer. That’s why they sell toxic drugs and work to suppress knowledge of natural remedies. Their cancer treatments are particularly pernicious. The information about natural cancer CURES is being suppressed. As said before, the internet is a good source of information. I have found doctors who write newsletters that tell me what natural supplements to take for different conditions.
I agree with you, Pat. Had a doctor tell me I had high blood pressure. I was checking my blood pressure with our home monitors, plus the ones at every store we visited, and I was 118/76 constantly. I argued and he got angry. I told him I would rather not take medication but maybe just alter my diet, to what I thought would please him. He was furious. I have a friend who is a pharmacist, but was a drug rep. She said if your doctor gets made in cases like this because you refuse the medicine, it’s because they get rewards and blood pressure medication pays the most and it the least likely one to be checked.
I let God handle my health, and if I break a leg, I will go to the hostpital, but not to a doctor in private practice. I am 66 and walk three miles a day, take no prescription drugs and do weight exercises sevaral times a week.
Just remember one thing, a doctor is a businessman first, he only makes money by treating sick people … He makes nothing if you’re healthy and don’t visit him … I prescribe to “an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure” … That means I research natural remedies first, I take vitamin supplements that have NO SIDE EFFECTS … The last time I visited a doctor and took his advice I got a kidney stone after not having one for 12 years! … When the doctor last prescribed a prescription to control my high uric acid to control my not continually getting kidney stones or gout and then told me I would probably take this medication for the rest of my life, I said no way! … I now take a Tart Cherry supplement that not only controls my uric acid but has taken away the arthritic pain I had been experiencing in my knees and fingers! No drugs and no side effects!
The internet can be a wonderful intellectual tool if you use it, you can research natural remedies like never before! … Use it!
I agree, get away from the computer and TV, get involved, do something exciting. Optimists are much more fun to be around.
IF YOU SMOKE, QUIT! GO OUTSIDE BREATH SOME FRESH AIR ENJOY THE SUNSHINE.