Some Secrets of Staying Young

Everybody wants to stay healthy and live a long and fruitful life.  Here are some tips from top experts to help you live a longer life and keep looking and feeling young all the way.

Do Lots of Exercise


According to the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, older people who are physically active have healthier cerebral blood vessels. Regular exercise also helps you lose weight, boost your mood and helps you think more clearly, tone muscles and build healthier bones.

Studies from the National Institute on Aging show a clear connection between physical exercise and having better brain power. According to Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Centre on Aging, walking for just 10 minutes a day lowers your risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 40 percent.

Avoid Stress

Recent studies indicate that stress can cause physical changes inside our bodies that actually make us age faster. Dr. Herb Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute in Boston, says that between sixty and 90 percent of all our visits to the doctor each year are related to stress-related incidences. Relaxing for as little at 10 minutes a day can bring us back to normal, says Dr. Benson.

Meditation is another way that helps us calm down. Meditation was shown to help prevent age-related changes in the brain according to a 2005 study at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Watch Your Diet


When we eat a proper diet, it helps us ward off diseases, stay healthier, and younger. But eating lean meats and lots of veggies and fruits is only part of the solution. These other foods will also help keep you young:

• Berries – Fight the chemicals in your body that can cause cell damage and chronic inflammation.
• Coffee – 3 or 4 cups each day cuts dementia risk 65% according to a 2014 study by Swedish and Finnish researchers.
• Dark chocolate – Keeps your arteries functioning well, but don’t eat too much or you’ll gain weight.
• Dark, leafy green vegetables – Deliver extra amounts of Vitamin K to help prevent bone loss.
• Green tea – 2 or 3 cups each day can help block the progression of cancer, says Dr. Amy Yee, biochemistry professor at Tufts University.
• Nuts, seeds and olive oil – Highly important in giving us omega-3 fatty acids for numerous health benefits.
• Red wine – Reseratrol in red wine helps lessen inflammations and is one of our best artery protectors.
• Whole grains – Protect us against heart disease and stroke, diabetes and colon cancer.
• Yogurt – Along with most other low-fat dairy products is a terrific source of protein and bone-building protein and calcium.

Watch Your Weight


According to a 2003 study at Johns Hopkins University, obesity can increase your risk of dementia by an average of 80 percent. In the U.S. alone, statistics show that 1/3 of all adults 20 years of age and older are obese. Being obese increases your risk of a number of diseases and disturbing health conditions, including:

• Arthritis
• Coronary heart disease
• Gallbladder disease
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Sleep apnea
• Some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon).
• Stroke
• Type 2 diabetes

The results of the study showed that both men and women lose years of life when they’re obese. Losing as little as 10 percent of your body weight can improve your health, but the study recommends that you lose it at a safe rate, no more than 1/2 to 2 pounds each week.

Keep Your Lungs Free of Pollutants


Your lungs keep you alive:

• Smoking cigarettes quadruples the chances that you’ll develop blindness in later life.
• Do not smoke and stay away from people who smoke and places where smoking is allowed.
• Close your windows if it’s polluted or where the air is smoggy outside.
• Stay away from people who smoke.
• Stay out of closed spaces where smoking is allowed.

According to the American Lung Association, smoking seriously damages your lungs. It keeps your lungs from being able to clean and repair themselves and destroys the cilia in your lungs that protect you against infection. That puts you at risk for developing chronic cough, chest infections, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Sleep Regularly 

Going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day, including weekends, helps you sleep better. That’s because being consistent helps to reinforce your body’s sleep-wake cycle, and that enables you to get a better night’s rest every night.

Your bedroom should be the ultimate example of slumberland, and not a storehouse for electronic gadgets — so keep your laptop, smartphone and TV out of the bedroom. The bedroom should be reserved for sleeping and sex, and nothing else.

The temperature should be kept cool, and it should be as quiet and as dark as you can make it. Choose the most comfortable mattress and pillow combination you can find, and make sure there’s room to move around if you have a significant other who’s sharing the same bed.

Do Lots of Exercise

According to the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, older people who are physically active have healthier cerebral blood vessels. Regular exercise also helps you lose weight, boost your mood and helps you think more clearly, tone muscles and build healthier bones.

Studies from the National Institute on Aging show a clear connection between physical exercise and having better brain power. According to Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Centre on Aging, walking for just 10 minutes a day lowers your risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 40 percent.

Avoid Stress

Recent studies indicate that stress can cause physical changes inside our bodies that actually make us age faster. Dr. Herb Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute in Boston, says that between sixty and 90 percent of all our visits to the doctor each year are related to stress-related incidences. Relaxing for as little at 10 minutes a day can bring us back to normal, says Dr. Benson.

Meditation is another way that helps us calm down. Meditation was shown to help prevent age-related changes in the brain according to a 2005 study at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Watch Your Diet

When we eat a proper diet, it helps us ward off diseases, stay healthier, and younger. But eating lean meats and lots of veggies and fruits is only part of the solution. These other foods will also help keep you young:

• Berries – Fight the chemicals in your body that can cause cell damage and chronic inflammation.
• Coffee – 3 or 4 cups each day cuts dementia risk 65% according to a 2014 study by Swedish and Finnish researchers.
• Dark chocolate – Keeps your arteries functioning well, but don’t eat too much or you’ll gain weight.
• Dark, leafy green vegetables – Deliver extra amounts of Vitamin K to help prevent bone loss.
• Green tea – 2 or 3 cups each day can help block the progression of cancer, says Dr. Amy Yee, biochemistry professor at Tufts University.
• Nuts, seeds and olive oil – Highly important in giving us omega-3 fatty acids for numerous health benefits.
• Red wine – Reseratrol in red wine helps lessen inflammations and is one of our best artery protectors.
• Whole grains – Protect us against heart disease and stroke, diabetes and colon cancer.
• Yogurt – Along with most other low-fat dairy products is a terrific source of protein and bone-building protein and calcium.

Watch Your Weight

According to a 2003 study at Johns Hopkins University, obesity can increase your risk of dementia by an average of 80 percent. In the U.S. alone, statistics show that 1/3 of all adults 20 years of age and older are obese. Being obese increases your risk of a number of diseases and disturbing health conditions, including:

• Arthritis
• Coronary heart disease
• Gallbladder disease
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Sleep apnea
• Some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon).
• Stroke
• Type 2 diabetes

The results of the study showed that both men and women lose years of life when they’re obese. Losing as little as 10 percent of your body weight can improve your health, but the study recommends that you lose it at a safe rate, no more than 1/2 to 2 pounds each week.

Keep Your Lungs Free of Pollutants

Your lungs keep you alive:

• Smoking cigarettes quadruples the chances that you’ll develop blindness in later life.
• Do not smoke and stay away from people who smoke and places where smoking is allowed.
• Close your windows if it’s polluted or where the air is smoggy outside.
• Stay away from people who smoke.
• Stay out of closed spaces where smoking is allowed.

According to the American Lung Association, smoking seriously damages your lungs. It keeps your lungs from being able to clean and repair themselves and destroys the cilia in your lungs that protect you against infection. That puts you at risk for developing chronic cough, chest infections, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

 Sleep Regularly

Going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day, including weekends, helps you sleep better. That’s because being consistent helps to reinforce your body’s sleep-wake cycle, and that enables you to get a better night’s rest every night.

Your bedroom should be the ultimate example of slumberland, and not a storehouse for electronic gadgets — so keep your laptop, smartphone and TV out of the bedroom. The bedroom should be reserved for sleeping and sex, and nothing else.

The temperature should be kept cool, and it should be as quiet and as dark as you can make it. Choose the most comfortable mattress and pillow combination you can find, and make sure there’s room to move around if you have a significant other who’s sharing the same bed.

Have Regular Sex


Remember that the bedroom is for two things; for sleeping and for healthy and enjoyable sex with your partner. University of Chicago researchers reported in a 2010 study that people who enjoy sex regularly live up to two years longer than those who don’t.

Some of the reasons for this could be attributed to the many health benefits of sex, including the fact that sexual activity does involve physical exercise, burning around 5 calories per minute. Sex also tends to flood our bodies with many hormones that are related to helping us lower stress, reduce pain and provide more restful sleep. Doctors also attribute sex to helping arthritis symptoms and relieving headaches.

Exercise Your Brain


Remember “use it or lose it?” It applies to your brain as well as to physical exercise. In a 2014 study by the American Medical Association, brain exercises have been shown to prevent cognitive decline for as long as five years.

Dr. Gary Small, Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, says many of the common memory slips we all experience nearly every day can be helped by practical strategies and exercises. The latest research confirms that we can boost our memory and keep our brains young by changing our daily lifestyle habits and exercising our brain more to form new habits that bolster our cognitive abilities and, in some cases, stop and even reverse brain aging.

Always Maintain A Positive Attitude

University of Maryland scientists have found that laughing can increase your blood flow by 22 percent and help protect against you against heart problems. In a 2014 Yale University study, younger adults who had the most negative views about aging were reported to be twice as likely to later have cardiovascular problems or a heart attack when compared with subjects who had positive attitudes.

In 1986 Dr. David Snowdon, an expert on Alzheimer’s disease, studied nearly 700 Catholic Nuns in a long-term research project known as The Nun Study and concluded that being positive and serving others can help everyone to live a longer and healthier life.

Thank you for taking time out to read through this article. I hope it was helpful. Please always visit this blog for more health tips.