Can You Change The Way You Age?
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According to the World Health Organisation, in 2020, the number of people aged 60 years and older outnumbered children younger than 5 years. By 2023 1 in 6 people will be aged 60 years and older. You may think, that turning 60 and being ‘old’ is far in the future for you. However, our bodies start ageing a lot earlier in life.
One of the first apparent signs of ageing are wrinkles, which can start to form in people as young as 25. Ageing is a relentless biological process and if left unchecked many body functions decline. As an example we lose 3-8% of muscle mass per decade after we turn 30. However, you don't have to accept ageing passively - there are things you can do to optimise your body proactively increase your health span.
Taking Charge Of The Way You Age
Maintaining or even improving how your body and mind functions as you age, does not require a complete lifestyle overhaul. In fact, there are many examples of how small changes impact our health and wellbeing.
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- Losing just 5% of your body weight significantly lowers your risk of developing diabetes and heart disease. It also improves metabolic function in your liver, fat and muscle tissue.
- Walking 8,000 steps per day halves the risk of all-cause mortality, compared to taking 4,000 steps per day.
- Being able to do 40 push ups per day significantly decreases your risk of cardiovascular disease.
- Gradually reducing the consumption of packaged, ultra-processed foods rich in salts and sugars will significantly reduce the risk of obesity, heart-disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.
While those examples illustrate the reduction in risk of disease and death, it is important to note, that implementing small, sustainable lifestyle changes also increase the quality of life, as they help us to feel more energetic and able to do all the things we enjoy doing as we get older.
What To Focus On
Even though small changes are the cornerstone of taking control of how we age, it can be overwhelming to find out and prioritise what aspects of your particular lifestyle to focus on. It is easy to go down a path of completely changing your diet and exercise routine and starting a new mindfulness routine, just to find out that it is not sustainable. Again, it is about starting small, rather than tackling all aspects of life at the same time. To do that, it is important to become aware of what your current health risk factors are, how our health has changed as you age and then to identify what lifestyle changes will help you make the biggest contribution to your health and wellbeing.
Getting To Know Your Body
Historically, the only tool people had in their houses to gauge their health was a scale. For some time now, we also have access to phones and wearable devices, such as smart watches to count how many steps we took, how many hours we slept or what our heart rate is. While these devices can be very helpful, there is a new emerging technology that helps us to understand how healthy our bodies are on the inside as well as the impact our daily habits in having on our health. The better our understanding of our health is, the easier it becomes to implement the most valuable lifestyle adjustments. This will in turn, enable us to take control of how we age.
The Bottom Line
While we all age, and that process begins earlier than we think, it is possible to take control of how we age. Identifying and implementing the right, small lifestyle changes are key to maintain how our bodies and minds function as we go through life.
Taking action to live a healthier longer life
The WellBeing test gives you insight into how your health is changing over time. We analyse lifestyle and blood biomarker variations to provide a personalised assessment to help you nurture your health now and into the future.
The ability to take the WellBeing Test from home saves you time as well as provides convenience, comfort, and confidentiality. All you have to do is to select a testing schedule, order your testing kit online, collect a finger-prick blood sample and mail it back to our laboratory in a pre-paid envelope. You will receive your results in your lifetime secure online account.
