Article

8 Steps to Successful Aging
From "We Live Too Short and Die Too Long"

What Can You Do Today to Age Successfully?

1. Do at least 30 minutes of sustained, rhythmic, vigorous exercise four times a week. Seek out patterns, times, places and contacts that make exercise as much a part of your day as eating and sleeping.
2. Eat like a bushman. Return to the habit of eating what nature first laid on our tables: fruits, whole grains, vegetables and lean meat.
3. Get as much sleep and rest as you need. Make quiet time a major priority. Exercisers, in particular, must acknowledge that their bodies require respite from workouts and the general clamor of the day.
4. Maintain your sense of humor and deflect anger. Make each day an opportunity for optimism for yourself and others. A positive mindset creates the expectation that something good is about to happen and opens the door to new options for success.
5. Set goals and accept challenges that force you to be as alive and creative as possible. Nature operates in such a way that growth and living are nearly synonymous. When one stops, so does the other. Creativity is not confined to the first part of your life. In fact, accumulated knowledge and experience should make the later decades even more congenial to new accomplishment.
6. Don't depend on anyone else for your wellbeing. A well-developed sense of self-efficacy is the crucial link to a long and meaningful existence. We all need to maintain mastery, autonomy and independence in our daily lives.
7. Be necessary and responsible. Live outside yourself. Beyond independence, we also need to see each day as a chance to help someone or something. Associate with other active, involved individuals. Sharpen your sense of duty to the Earth, which nurses us all.
8. Don't slow down. Stick with the mainstream. Avoid the shadows. Stay together. Universal law dictates that natural order is ordained by only one mechanism- a well-directed, purposeful flow of energy. Aging need not be characterized by loss. Maintaining your energy flow is the antidote.