10.25.2017

Go gracefully into old age

There’s no way of escaping it. As you go through your 20’s, you’ll realise hangovers aren’t as easy as they used to be. Your 30’s? You’ll have a spurt of energy and a lust for life, make the most of it! During your 40’s and 50’s you’ll be heading towards retirements and longing for no more work. You’ll start to realised that a night in front of the TV watching your favourite soap show is a lot better than meeting up with friends. If you do meet up with friends, it always seems like a lot more effort than it should do. You’ll notice the aches and pains are creeping in, and you can’t quite keep up with the kids like you used to. It’s easy for people to turn 30 and think, OMG I’m old! But you aren’t, when you hit your 50’s and 60’s is when you truly realise that you’re past your younger days, and it’s time to grow old gracefully with memories to look back on. Some people are very in denial of growing old, but if you do it with class and style it can be made one of the best times of your life. Take a look at these tips to try and give you a nudge in the right direction.
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To grow old gracefully, you first need to enjoy your retirement to the fullest. Most of you reading this won’t be close to that age yet, only longing for it to come. You’ll have built up a pension that’s been hard earned, and you’ll most likely have a lump sum payout when you do leave, especially if you’re in the public sector. Use this time to go and live your life whilst you’re still able to. Travel enriches your mind and life. Go to that country you’ve always wished to. See that theater show you’ve never had time to. Just go and do all the things you’ve always wanted to do. By the age of retirement, you children should either be at college, or at least able to survive on their own for a while if you take a few trips. You need to enjoy this pure freedom. It might be worth creating a bucket list of all the things you’d have liked to have done before retirement age. Whether it be travel, buy a dream home, run a marathon. It’s all things that before you know it, you won’t be able to do. You need to use this freedom to find a love for life that you might not have truly understood whilst stuck at work.

One of the most important things you need to do is spend quality time with your family. It’s no secret that as you grow older, you’ll become more susceptible to health issues that will limit how you spend your time with them. You’ll look back one day and wish you’d done so much more with them, just like your parents will have with you. Yet it’s so easy to still get caught up in the whirlwind of life, and time passes you by before you know it. Include the whole family in your bucket list if time will allow. Before you know it, your kids will be old enough and independent enough that they won’t have as much time for family activities. Do what you can, whilst you can. Your friends are some of the best people in your life, they’ll most likely be growing old gracefully alongside you. Make the most of your time with them as well. If there’s one thing about the older generation, they always know how to have a laugh together. Make as many memories with them as you can, as well as family.

Looking after your health whilst doing all of this should be your number one priority. As you grow older, you’ll notice that your body will one by one become a little weaker and more brittle. You’ll be more susceptible to colds and flus and will most likely have many other aches and pains that get in the way. The earlier you start to take care of your body, the easier old age will be. Focus on maintaining a healthy lifestyle and a good amount of exercise. Try practicing yoga or Thai chi to keep your muscles more stretched and flexible. Light exercise will serve you a lot better than than heavy weight lifting etc. Your body just won’t cope under the stress and you’ll do it more harm than good. Focus on a diet full of all the essential vitamins and minerals and a decent amount of fiber. You’ll notice the difference in your energy levels from the start. As you get older, your body will struggle to digest and process foods with high levels of saturated fats and salt. An organic diet filled with extra vitamin tablets will be perfect.

Now, as you move on through the years, and have hopefully completed all of the steps above, you’ll most likely be getting to the age where you just can’t seem to do things as well as you used to. Even simple tasks such as making the dinner, or hoovering the house become a little though, especially if you live on your own. There will come a time where you might have to accept some help. The one thing you’ll realise as you get is you fiercely try to protect your independence for as long as possible. Accepting that you might just not be able to do things for yourself is hard. But there are so many retirement communities out there that’ll still help you keep your independence, whilst helping with the little things you can’t do. See McKnight Place for more with regards to the benefits of a community.

Growing old gracefully is easy when you know how to do it. Just live life to the fullest and have plenty of happy times to look back on. Don’t be in denial about old age, embrace it for the better.

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