That said, this is not an all-or-nothing recommendation. Some amount of physical activity is better than none at all. When it comes to the type of movement, choose what makes you most excited. For some, it might mean taking long walks in nature , attending fitness classes, practicing yoga, or dancing.

Research shows that people who engage in new experiences or make efforts to go beyond their mental comfort zones stay mentally and physically younger.

There are plenty of meaningful activities that stimulate the mind, such as:. Your attitude can impact your longevity. According to research from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS , optimism is related to an 11—15 percent longer life span and greater odds of living to the age of 85 or beyond.

Many optimistic people stay positive by creating gratitude lists, acknowledging and accepting what can and cannot be controlled, and turning off the news from time to time , among other methods. However, there are many benefits to staying physically and mentally active.

Connecting with friends, family, and people outside of your immediate social circles can benefit you in many ways, including providing you with higher levels of physical well-being , a more optimistic attitude, and lower levels of depression.

Additionally, stay informed about your health so you can easily find, understand, and use appropriate services to make health-related decisions and advocate for your care. As you find ways to celebrate all this decade has to offer, look to a WesleyLife Community for Healthy Living.

Whether you prioritize socialization, convenience, community involvement, physical and mental health, or a combination of these, our communities support independence and help you live a good life, whatever that means to you.

Find out more about how we can support you by reading our guide to living your best life. Topics: Well-Being. Resident Shares Talent to Spread Holiday Cheer. Look for the silver lining. If your own poor choices contributed to a stressful situation, reflect on them and learn from your mistakes.

Take daily action to deal with life's challenges. When a challenge seems too big to handle, sweeping it under the carpet often appears the easiest option. But ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away; it allows both the problem and your anxiety to build.

Instead, take things one small step at a time. Even a small step can go a long way to boosting your confidence and reminding you that you are not powerless. Laughter is strong medicine for both the body and the mind. It helps you stay balanced, energetic, joyful, and healthy at any age.

A sense of humor helps you get through tough times, look outside yourself, laugh at the absurdities of life, and transcend difficulties. See: Laughter is the Best Medicine. A key ingredient in the recipe for healthy aging is the continuing ability to find meaning and joy in life.

As you age, your life will change and you will gradually lose things that previously occupied your time and gave your life purpose. For example, your job may change, you may eventually retire from your career, your children may leave home, or other friends and family may move far away.

But this is not a time to stop moving forward. Later life can be a time of exciting new adventures if you let it. Everyone has different ways of experiencing meaning and joy, and the activities you enjoy may change over time.

If your career slows down or you retire, or if your children leave home, you may find you have more time to enjoy activities outside of work and immediate family. Either way, taking time to nourish your spirit is never wasted.

Pick up a long-neglected hobby or try a new hobby. Taking a class or joining a club or sports team is a great way to pursue a hobby and expand your social network at the same time. Learn something new , such as an instrument, a foreign language, a new game, or a new sport.

Learning new activities not only adds meaning and joy to life, but can also help to maintain your brain health and prevent mental decline. Get involved in your community. Try attending a local event or volunteering for a cause that's important to you. The meaning and purpose you find in helping others will enrich and expand your life.

Community work can also be a great way of utilizing and passing on the skills you honed in your career—without the commitment or stress of regular employment.

Spend time in nature. Take a scenic hike, go fishing or camping, enjoy a ski trip, or walk a dog in the park. Enjoy the arts. Visit a museum, go to a concert or a play, join a book group, or take an art appreciation class.

The possibilities are endless. The important thing is to find activities that are both meaningful and enjoyable for you. BetterHelp is an online therapy service that matches you to licensed, accredited therapists who can help with depression, anxiety, relationships, and more.

Take the assessment and get matched with a therapist in as little as 48 hours. One of the greatest challenges of aging is maintaining your support network.

Staying connected isn't always easy as you grow older—even for those who have always had an active social life. Career changes, retirement , illness, and moves out of the local area can take away close friends and family members.

And the older you get, the more people you inevitably lose. In later life, getting around may become difficult for either you or members of your social network. It's important to find ways to reach out and connect to others, regardless of whether or not you live with a spouse or partner.

Along with regular exercise, staying social can have the most impact on your health as you age. Having an array of people you can turn to for company and support as you age is a buffer against loneliness, depression, disability, hardship, and loss. The good news is that there are lots of ways to be with other people.

It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you find ways to get out of the house if possible and socialize:. Connect regularly with friends and family. Spend time with people you enjoy and who make you feel upbeat. It may be a neighbor who you like to exercise with, a lunch date with an old friend, shopping with your children, or playing with your grandkids.

Even if you are not close by, call or email frequently to keep relationships fresh. Make an effort to make new friends. As you lose people in your circle, it is vital to make new connections so your social life doesn't decline. Make it a point to befriend people who are younger than you. Younger friends can reenergize you and help you see life from a fresh perspective.

Spend time with at least one person every day. Whatever your living or work situation, you shouldn't be alone day after day. Phone or email contact is not a replacement for spending time with other people.

Regular face-to-face contact helps you ward off depression and stay positive. Giving back to the community is a wonderful way to strengthen social bonds and meet others interested in similar activities or who share similar values. Even if your mobility becomes limited, you can get involved by volunteering on the phone.

Find support groups in times of change. If you or a loved one is coping with a serious illness or recent loss, it can be very helpful to participate in a support group with others undergoing the same challenges. Don't fall for the myth that growing older automatically means you're not going to feel good anymore.

It is true that aging involves physical changes, but it doesn't have to mean discomfort and disability. While not all illness or pain is avoidable, many of the physical challenges associated with aging can be overcome or drastically mitigated by exercising, eating right, and taking care of yourself.

And it's never too late to start! No matter how old you are or how unhealthy you've been in the past, caring for your body has enormous benefits that will help you stay active, sharpen your memory, boost your immune system, manage health problems, and increase your energy.

In fact, adults who take up exercise later in life, for example, often show greater physical and mental improvements than their younger counterparts—because they aren't encumbered by the same sports injuries that many regular exercisers experience as they age. Similarly, many older adults report feeling better than ever because they are making more of an effort to be healthy than they did when they were younger.

A recent Swedish study found that exercise is the number one contributor to longevity, adding extra years to your life—even if you don't start exercising until your senior years. But it's not just about adding years to your life, it's about adding life to your years. Exercise helps you maintain your strength and agility, increases vitality, improves sleep, gives your mental health a boost, and can even help diminish chronic pain.

Exercise can also have a profound effect on the brain, helping prevent memory loss, cognitive decline, and dementia. Enter a search term:. Enter City or Zip Geolocate Make this my location Open Choose a medical group or hospital Clear my location.

Change Location X. Home Health and Wellness Mind and Body 7 Holistic Tips to Age Gracefully. Ensure health, happiness and longevity by practicing these vitality-boosting habits. Find Humor and Laugh at Yourself Watch funny movies, read humorous essays, enjoy jokes.

Be Flexible in Body and Mind Yoga can help both. Meditate Meditation comes in many forms, including prayer, gardening, journaling and quilting.

Be Grateful Learn to appreciate the good things around you. Related Articles. Complementary Care for an Aching Back Complementary Medicine: A Healthy Choice Start a Kitchen Pharmacy Targeted Treatment for Pain Move to Heal Building Personal Boundaries.

More Resources. Healthwise Resource Library Look up helpful health information. Patient Information Practical info for Sutter patients. Tools and Quizzes Online tools to help you make decisions about your health. The Sutter Health Network of Care. Expertise to fit your needs.

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It's no secret that growing older brings natural change, affecting nearly every part of your body— including your hair , skin , heart, muscles, brain , and more—but giving yourself a fighting chance at aging well may be as simple as adopting these healthy and mostly easy everyday habits.

Here are the best ways to give your brain and body a leg up as you age. You are what you think you are when it comes to aging. Seniors who think of age as a means to wisdom and overall satisfaction are more than 40 percent more likely to recover from a disability than those who see aging as synonymous with helplessness or uselessness, according to The Journal of the American Medical Association.

So perspective and mindset can play a huge role in how physically and emotionally resilient you can continue to be as you age. RELATED: 5 Ways to Train Your Brain for Lifelong Mental Fitness. Nutrition plays a major role in how your body ages.

One great example is the Mediterranean diet , which has been named the Best Overall Diet in by U. It's a holistic, nutrient-rich diet rich in plant-based foods, whole grains, nuts , seafood, and healthy fats —and even lets you enjoy red wine in moderation.

The Mediterranean diet involves eating fish twice each week and cutting back on excess salt. Research shows that this type of diet may help you age better by warding off heart attacks, strokes, and premature death, according to Harvard Medical School.

An added bonus: Dr. Benabio says that foods rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, such as walnuts, extra-virgin olive oil , salmon, and flaxseed, help your skin manufacture the essential oils it needs to protect itself and can help skin look younger.

In contrast, sugary, carbohydrate-heavy , and unhealthy fatty foods—think, chips, soda, and white bread—can speed up the aging process, Dr. Benabio warns. RELATED: The 30 Healthiest Foods to Eat Every Day.

Chronically overeating—eating way past feeling healthily full and satisfied—can lead to health risks, including shorter life span, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. To age well and live longer, it's best to stick to a balanced diet and healthy eating patterns.

For nutritional recommendations, check out the Dietary Guidelines for Americans for in-depth info, research, and tips. Staying active is a vital part of aging well. The average woman can lose 23 percent of her muscle mass between ages of 30 and 70, says exercise physiologist Fabio Comana, a faculty instructor at the National Academy of Sports Medicine.

You lose muscle more rapidly as you age, but exercise— resistance workouts in particular—can increase mass and strength, even well into your 90s, Comana says. Staying fit may also reduce age-related memory loss, according to a study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Plus, Alzheimer's disease accounts for approximately 60 to 70 percent of all dementia cases, says Comana, adding that increasing physical activity can decrease this statistic by 25 percent. That's because exercise strengthens the hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with learning and working memory.

RELATED: 5 Ways Being Physically Inactive Affects Our Mind and Mood. Belonging to a community and staying connected with people you love is a big deal. Spending time with friends and relatives isn't just fun, it can help you live longer.

Those of us with strong social ties were shown to have a 50 percent higher chance of living longer than those with poor or insufficient relationships, according to a study published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

Too much time in the sun can cause wrinkles, not to mention skin cancer. But wearing sunscreen can help prevent your skin's aging. And while the sun's UV rays do trigger vitamin D production, which is essential for bone health, that's hardly a good reason to expose yourself.

Benabio says. Wear sunscreen every day—even on days when you'll be indoors or traveling—making a habit of incorporating an SPF into your regular skincare routine.

Buy a sun hat you love and a pair of sunglasses with legit UVA and UVB protection. You probably know that you need seven to nine hours of sleep each night and that a solid power nap can help make up for lost night of Zs. But did you know that chronically not sleeping enough is linked to a higher risk of conditions such as obesity, Alzheimer's, heart disease, depression, and diabetes?

And it turns out that "beauty sleep" isn't a myth. During sleep, your body releases a growth hormone that helps restore collagen and elastin, the essential building blocks of young, healthy skin, says Dr. Recent research has also shown a connection between insomnia and accelerated aging of the brain, Dr.

Benabio points out. In other words, chronic lack of sleep adversely affects your brain structure and function and can speed up the aging process. Levy BR, Slade MD, Murphy TE, Gill TM. Association between positive age stereotypes and recovery from disability in older persons. Ni C, Jia Q, Ding G, Wu X, Yang M.

Low-glycemic index diets as an intervention in metabolic diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Balić A, Vlašić D, Žužul K, Marinović B, Bukvić Mokos Z. Omega-3 versus omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the prevention and treatment of inflammatory skin diseases.

Int J Mol Sci. Leung C, Laraia BA, Needham BL, et al. Soda and cell aging: associations between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and leukocyte telomere length in healthy adults from the national health and nutrition examination survey. Am J Public Health.

Cercato C, Fonseca FA. Cardiovascular risk and obesity. Diabetol Metab Syndr. For more about how to prevent chronic disease and maintain a healthy lifestyle, follow CDCChronic on Twitter or visit www. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link.

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