Aging Healthy Is A Personal Choice

Sooner or later we will all grow old. As much as we don’t want to celebrate birthdays or worry because the first wrinkles appeared, time passes and we all reach old age. However, even if we cannot choose between aging or not, there is a choice that is in our hands: to age healthy.

I often heard young people say: “When I get old, I won’t mind taking care of myself”. It’s as if age consisted of hanging up your boots and not liking what you see in the mirror anymore. As if when our face is full of wrinkles and skin is thinner and with age spots, taking care of yourself and trying to like yourself is a waste of time.

I’ve also heard people say that now they eat well and play sports, but when they get older they will be able to indulge their every whim, they won’t mind getting fat. This is a big misunderstanding, as when you get older you need to have more care and health concerns. However, as we’ve already mentioned, how we age is, to a large extent, in our hands.

Old age is not always synonymous with disease

The likely reason people have the kind of thinking we’ve already mentioned is because they associate old age with a stage in life when illnesses, problems, and a whole host of difficulties limit our well-being. Suddenly, we become slower and more limited, we have to take medicine for the heart, the hair starts to fall out…

Thinking about all the bad things that will afflict us, inexorably, will limit the possibilities to enjoy life, to live this stage intensely and to believe that we will have a good quality of life. It’s normal to feel lonely because our kids have left home. However, we can do many things besides complaining about our condition.

We can age in health as long as we don’t take refuge in self-pity and victimization. Reaching old age does not mean that life is over, as many young people might think. There are many possibilities and options. For example, we have the story of Miguel, a Spaniard who recently made the news.

Miguel is 80 years old and is a geography and history student at the University of Valencia, Spain. Some mistake him for a teacher, others for a student’s father. However, he is just another student, he takes notes, is very interested in history and has decided to join the Erasmus exchange program and travel to Verona (Italy). His family supports him and is very happy for him.

Aging healthy is in our hands

Healthy aging is an alternative we can choose. Don’t put it off until tomorrow, even though we feel good now, even though we don’t have illnesses and health problems. We often forget that, in health matters, everything we do now will have consequences in the future.

But what can we do about it? For starters: take care of your diet and exercise, without forgetting the mental aspect. Developing a positive mindset will be essential to facing all the pressure we feel as time goes on. However, if we are among those who, until old age, neglect these aspects, there is also a solution.

For example, we can create a place for these activities in our lives by exercising. There are many exercise programs aimed at people who have reached a certain age and which encourage positive emotional states because they help relieve stress. In this sense, participating in group activities will also allow us to meet new people and, therefore, make new friends and enjoy new company, have a drink and, who knows, if we are single, even start a beautiful relationship.

Currently, there are programs at universities that allow people like Miguel to study what they like and keep learning. In addition, there are spaces where activities are carried out during the day and socialization is encouraged. As you will have noticed, we have far fewer limitations than we really think, and there are realities that we can adapt to continue living, no matter how old we are.

So, therefore, let us not leave for tomorrow everything we can do today to grow old and live this stage of our lives happily, intensely and without losing the will to live. Aging can weaken our fragile bones, reduce agility, but it doesn’t have to affect our willingness to get up every morning and keep discovering the world.