By: Farzin A. Espahani
By middle age, you have experienced enough of life to know what really matters. You have earned the right to speak your mind, and you no longer feel the need to waste precious energy on people and things that don’t serve you. You know who you are, and you are no longer swayed by the push and pull of every opinion. Maintaining your good health in middle age is especially important, as the choices you make now will greatly influence your well-being in the years to come.
Pay More Attention to Your Diet
As you age, you begin to lose muscle and your metabolism starts to slow down. Unfortunately, this means that you can no longer get away with eating whatever you want, whenever you want it! If you haven’t already, now is the time to align your diet with the disease-fighting directives that nutritionists have always proclaimed. Namely, eat more fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains, and eat less sugar, salt, meat, and highly processed foods. If you can’t change your diet all at once, start small. You might choose to focus on getting plenty of the best foods before worrying about cutting the unhealthy ones. Or, maybe you would prefer to tweak one meal a day before moving on to the others.
Exercise Daily
Establishing a daily exercise regime will benefit you in a multitude of ways as you age. Cardiovascular exercise strengthens your lungs, heart, and arteries. It also helps to prevent disease, improves your brain function, increases your energy levels, helps you get better sleep, and allows you to keep your full range of motion as you get older. It is also important to include some strength training in your workout plan. Weightlifting not only improves strength, but it also eases depression symptoms. Starting strength training now will help you to stay independent throughout your later years.
Stay Active Socially and Mentally
For the elderly, neurological decline and loneliness are two of the biggest causes of early death. Stave off both by forming connections and developing good habits now. Start a focus group of like-minded individuals, join a club, take lessons, learn new skills, challenge your mind, make new friends, travel, and maintain long-time friendships. These connections and habits will follow and bless you well into your twilight years.
Too many people give the middle years of life a bad rap. However, there is no reason that they shouldn’t be the very best years of your life. Hopefully, now that you have achieved middle age, you are finally living your best life full of compassion, joy, serenity, and good health.
Check out this article on health routines that will make you feel great about yourself!
