Oh, What a Difference Time Makes!

So how many times have you thought about what better shape/health you were in 10 years ago than you are today? Then, the even better shape you were in 10 years before that? How many times have you looked back over the last five years and kicked yourself for not starting or doing something for yourself that would or could have made the shape you are in today better that what you’ve gotten yourself into?

It’s an interesting thought. There are a very few individuals who can say that they are in better shape, better health and better “everything else” now than they were 10 years ago. I know that I can’t! Here’s the catcher, if time has done this to our bodies these last 10 years, what’s it going to do the next 10 years to come? Now, that’s a topic worth discussing and thinking about.

Oh, the joys of every decade of our life. As your body ages, you can expect it to undergo gradual changes, at its own pace and it’s going to happen no matter what we do about it. How your body ages depend in part on your genetics, some of us are luckier than others in this department and in part your lifestyle.

Let’s see what the last 10 years have brought. How’s your skin and hair? Finding your skin little more wrinkled and drier than years past? Is your hair a little more grey? Have you lost any height? It’s normal for that to happen due to posture and compression of joints and spinal bones and discs. Having a little harder time hearing those high-frequency sounds and/or hearing your spouse and friends talking to you? You wearing those reading glasses yet and finding that driving at night is a lot more difficult? How’s your waist line doing these days, is it a little bigger? How’s your memory these days, is it all clicking the way it used to? Got all your teeth?

Our bones start to lose some mineral content and become less dense and strong. Over time, the body typically needs less energy, and this causes your metabolism to slow. Hormone changes in the aging body result in a shift to more body fat and less muscle. Starting in your 30’s the brain’s weight, the size of its nerve network and its blood flow decrease. The heart naturally becomes less efficient as it ages and it has to work harder than it once did during activity. Lungs become less efficient over time, supplying the body with less oxygen. Kidneys decline in size and function and they don’t clear wastes and some medications from the blood as quickly and they don’t help the body handle dehydration as well as in the past. Lastly, we make less hormones starting in our 50s. Men produce less sperm and slower sexual response. Women stop ovulating and have all kinds of fun with menopause issues.

What else can I think of? Like all these things aren’t enough!

So let’s look to the future, let’s say about 10 years from now. Should we accelerate our aging, experience normal aging or slow the next 10 years of aging down a little? If you do nothing, all these issues both internal and external will continue to age another 10 years and you will be in worse health and shape than you are today. But there is good news, you can slow this process down and fight the aging process! Do you really need for me to say it? Exercise and practicing good health habits!

With the multi-million dollar industry that fitness, health and anti-aging has continued to experience, there are some proven methods of reducing what aging does to our bodies. Eating healthy, drinking plenty of water, multi-vitamins, antioxidants and peptides, moisturizers and sunscreen, wearing sunglasses and exercising on a regular basis to name a few.

Every anti-aging article that I read, agrees that the biggest magic pill for slowing the aging process and staying youthful is exercise. Daily doses of exercise have been proven to reduce a number of aging health risk factors; stress, obesity, heart disease and diabetes. As well as improve on many of those “quality of life” factors that start to diminish like; aches and pains, flexibility, balance, breathing, posture, strength, alertness, sleeping better, lower body fat, endurance and so much more!

So my question to you today is whether you are going to put off starting what you know will improve your quality of life now or wait for another 10 years and kick yourself for being 10 years worse than you could be.

 

Deborah Holmes

August 5, 2008