Carolyn Hansen: Active ageing and wellness — the future is in your hands

Are you ready to join the growing numbers of healthy older people easily making 70 the new 40? Imagine being able to live like you are 40 or 50 for the rest of your life? How cool would that be? Photo / 123rf

OPINION

In the minds of many, old age has become a disease to be “cured”. In fact, there is a kind of quest for an endless middle age. Baby Boomers worldwide are at the forefront of the quest to control ageing or avoid it altogether. People are no longer satisfied with ageing as it is. They are actively searching for quality old age. They want a healthy, youth-filled life, the good life now and well into their future.

Two strategies have gained significant popularity as new lifestyle-based anti-ageing plans that can literally alter what is going on within the DNA that is involved in disease and the ageing process.

Over 30 years of research continues to uncover the truth about the status of our health; the more we change our lifestyles to healthier ones, particularly in the areas of physical activity and nutrition, the more we improve as we turn off the bad genes that lead us down the path of poor health and turn on the good genes that protect us from disease.

Extra quality years can be had just by turning on self-healing processes that promote longevity and stellar health. The right lifestyle changes can alter how we age by lengthening rather than shortening the telomeres that exist at the ends of our DNA, thereby slowing or even reversing the ageing process from within.

Telomeres are like the plastic ends of a shoelace and serve a similar purpose. They protect the end of chromosomes from entanglement or from fraying. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter until they can no longer divide and eventually die.

The result is super-health/wellness at the cellular level as old worn-out cells and tissues are replaced with new, younger, healthier and stronger ones, turning back the biological clock in our body, muscles and our brain. Super-wellness is all about staying well when we are healthy. It’s about building a strong, disease-resistant body before tragedy happens, not after it strikes. If sickness does hit home, then it is about eliminating the cause of the disease, not just managing the symptoms.

The goals of an anti-ageing lifestyle are the same no matter one’s age and should include robust healing and cell renewal — activating our personal self-healing processes within. Being healthy beyond simply “not being sick”. Slowing down the ageing process as we allow ourselves to live life to peak performance along with improved body composition (our muscle-to-fat ratio) with healthier, stronger, more stable, emotional, mental and physical bodies.

Wellness is more than simply the absence of disease. It is about having a positive proactive attitude towards our own health along with prevention — not waiting until disease symptoms strike, leaving us no choice but to react.

There’s no time like now to make changes. Increasing evidence points to the fact that age or health status does not matter. The time to begin preparing for healthier, happier ageing/senior years is now.

Are you ready to join those extending middle age into the far reaches of old age and to increase the healthy span of ageing while avoiding the worst aspects of old age until the very end?

Are you ready to join the growing numbers of healthy older people easily making 70 the new 40? Imagine being able to live like you are 40 or 50 for the rest of your life? How cool would that be?

The great news is, for the first time in recorded human history, we have the anti-ageing tools, resources and knowledge to avoid the worst effects of old age. We are progressively obtaining new answers to age-old questions and much of this new knowledge is positive and exciting.

The formula is simple. Wellness is a voluntary seeking out of ways to provide a higher quality of life, one focused on staying well not waiting for disease to manifest before lifestyle changes are made.

Adopting an anti-ageing lifestyle is the key to keeping our bodies and minds young for a much longer time than has traditionally been the case. It means being free of and not at risk of disease.

It is wellness through every decade of life as our health span equals our life span. But no one is empowered to make these choices/changes in your life and your health except you.

Carolyn Hansen is co-owner of Anytime Fitness