BA50 TalkersYou can’t fight mother nature. Even though you can temporarily reverse the aging process, there is no current technology that permanently reverses the aging process. Even so, there are some things you can do which will help your mind stay active, right up until the end.
Take Care Of Your Teeth
It seems like an odd suggestion, but taking good care of your oral health is important. If you don’t, it could mean more than just a filling. Normal resident bacteria that live in your mouth, which are normally harmless, become pathogenic when you allow plaque to build up.
These bacteria enter your bloodstream and they can migrate to the heart, brain, pancreas, and other organs.
Research shows that poor oral hygiene can cause serious health problems like heart disease, stroke, and even diabetes. It might kill you slowly, or very quickly, depending on how bad the condition is.
Get More Exercise
In case you’ve been living under a rock for 20 years, you’ve heard that exercise is good for you. Professional bodybuilders, like 75 year-old Ernestine Shepherd, look better than most people do in their 40s and 50s. In fact, she looks more muscled and in-shape than most people in their 20s and 30s.
By lifting weights, walking, running, and staying active, you will naturally look younger because your body packs on more muscle mass, creates more mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) which creates more energy, and all of this helps you stay youthful.
It also helps your mind stay active.
Exercise helps nutrients circulate, and it helps move oxygen to your skin so that you look more radiant. It “kick-starts” the collagen production process, which helps you replace old, worn out, skin with new, more elastic, skin.
It also helps improve your posture, which will help you feel younger. It naturally increases growth hormone (HGH), without you having to get hormone injections as you get older.
It also “turns back the clock” on aging by lengthening your telomeres — the “fuse” on every cell which gets shorter as you age. When that fuse becomes short enough, your cells stop dividing and you start to die. According to at least one study, people who exercised had telomeres that were as long as someone in their 20s.
Try Intermittent Fasting
There is some exciting research being done in the area of intermittent fasting. What is intermittent fasting? It’s a very special way of eating that increases your human growth hormone levels, and optimizes hormones in your body to help you lose weight naturally, without dieting aids.
Basically, the way it works is, you fast (do not eat) for between 14 and 16 hours per day, and then eat for 8 hours per day.
This isn’t as hard as it sounds. If you stop eating at 5PM or 6PM, you can eat again at 10AM. Or, if you skip breakfast, and eat at noon, you can eat until 8PM.
What this does is induce autophagy, which is where the cells in your body repair themselves to make newer and healthier cells that help prevent aging.
Have More Sex
This one shouldn’t be too hard, right? Having sex at least 3 times per week can make you look up to 10 years younger, according to Dr. David Weeks. Sex helps you release HGH, which means you’re going to be releasing the same hormones as when you lift weights, which helps you live longer and feel younger.
Get More Sleep
Getting enough sleep is difficult for most people. But, it’s the most important thing you can do for your mental health. People who are sleep deprived are often said to be as cognitively functional as someone with a blood alcohol content of .08%.
When you don’t get enough sleep, your body shuts down, and you become fatigued and stressed out more easily. Your body will release a hormone, called cortisol, to try to cope with this, which can accelerate the aging process. You will also end up with puffy eyes, and can look many years older than you really are. Get into the habit of getting between 8 and 10 hours of sleep every night.
Most people don’t get nearly this much. Most people swear they can function on 4 to 6 hours of sleep. But, research consistently shows that not getting at least 7 hours of sleep every night can make you seriously mentally impaired. And, it accelerates the aging process.
Jessica Giles spends her days as a fitness instructor. She enjoys sharing her insights in hopes of helping people live healthier. Her posts can be found commonly on health and beauty blogs.