7 Healthy Habits That Will Help You Stay Youthful For Longer

Long-term health and wellness is the result of healthy choices that have and will continue to have an impact on your health today, tomorrow, and beyond. If you want to age healthy and gracefully, start following these seven healthy lifestyle habits that can help fight the signs of aging and keep you looking and feeling young.

Drink More Water, Less Caffeine, And No Alcohol

Our skin is made up of 64% water, so when we are dehydrated, our skin appears drier and the wrinkles and blemishes are more significant. Whereas, drinking more water (2-3 ltr./day) hydrates our skin from within and plumps it up, diminishing the signs of aging like dryness and wrinkles. In addition to this, drinking more water increases the blood flow to the skin, lending it a more youthful, supple, and glowing hue.

So, drink enough water and eat lots of water-rich foods like fresh fruits and vegetables. Since coffee and alcohol can be more dehydrating and cause aging, limit its consumption.

Eat More Fruits and Green Vegetables

We all know that fruits and vegetables are good for us, especially when it comes to anti-aging. They are high in essential vitamins, minerals, natural antioxidants, and other bioactive compounds that work together to prevent age-related diseases.

Green leafy veggies are also very low in calories, and high in dietary fibre and water, which means eating more of them can also help in weight management. So try to incorporate it to your daily diet in as many ways as possible.

Cut Back on Sugar

Refined sugar ages people both externally as well as internally. Even the skin is not spared. The more refined and processed sugar is in your diet, the more insulin response your bodies have. Higher insulin levels are associated with disease-promoting inflammation in the body causing obesity and metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance and diabetes. All this affects the heart health as well. Simple sugar does not provide any nutrient and is just a source of empty calories. Also, too much simple sugar can lead to early aging of skin such as dryness, acne, pigmentation, sagginess, wrinkles, among other things.

Therefore, avoid excessive refined sugar by eliminating sugared soft/aerated drinks, breakfast cereals with added sugar, and desserts. If you can't avoid them completely, atleast try to minimize their intake. Replace sugary dessert with healthy fruits. Instead of adding refined sugar to your tea and coffee, use natural sweeteners like Stevia.

Eat More Antioxidant-Rich Foods

Aging is caused by free radicals in our bodies. They are unstable cells that the body produces as a reaction to environmental and other pressures such as UV rays, radiation, pollution, bad eating habits, more junk and fried foods, exposure to drugs/medicine, pesticides, chemicals, etc.

These free-radicals can be countered by anti-oxidants. They help to neutralize the free radicals and protect cells from potential damage. Antioxidant-rich foods are a key to anti-aging. They both go hand-in-hand. In short, Anti-oxidants = Anti-aging. Therefore, eating more antioxidant-rich foods such as berries, leafy veggies, etc. can prevent the damage to cells caused by free radicals.

Sleep Well

A good night’s sleep is essential for your overall wellbeing and healthy aging. During sleep, the body heals and repairs itself, which means that the essential cells get regenerated, vital hormones are produced, which work together to strengthen the body’s natural repair mechanisms.

It is also responsible for maintaining skin elasticity, preventing and delaying the appearance of wrinkles—that’s why people who regularly get more sleep have a certain glow. The day-to-day sleep deprivation promotes cognitive degeneration, and also makes people more prone to falling sick. Without enough sleep, our immune systems also suffer and become weaker. Poor sleep also results in a less efficient circulatory system, which causes dark circles and puffy eyes, which make them appear tired and older.
For how many hours should we sleep daily? The answer is at least 6- 8 hours. Good quality sleep is absolutely vital—for good health, bolstered energy levels, healthy immunity, and a youthful appearance, among other things. Make sure to create a bedtime routine for yourself to get a good sleep.

Develop an Active Lifestyle (Daily Exercise)

Exercise is probably one of the best things you can do for your health. Whether you want to focus on weight loss or just your overall wellness, it is very important to get a move on. Being physically active can reduce your risk of many chronic diseases such as heart ailments, strokes, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, cognitive degenerative diseases like Alzheimers and dementia, among other things.

Regular exercising improves the circulatory system. It strengthens the bones and muscles, keeps the joints and prevents cartilage damage all of which are potential symptoms of arthritis. It can also elevate your mood by secreting the feel-good hormone ‘oxytocin’ and may actually reverse the signs of aging on the skin by improving the blood circulatory system. With aging, we lose muscle mass more easily and so it is more important to include a strength training or weight-bearing exercise in our daily routine.

Build physical activity into your daily life. Make it a habit to exercise for atleast 30 minutes every day, eat healthy food and stay well hydrated. You can take up cardio exercises like brisk walking, running/jogging, dancing, aerobics, or strengthening workouts like pilates, yoga, HIIT etc.

Keep Stress At Bay

Stress is an inevitable part of life. Long-term, chronic stress, can really affect your health in a bad way – by compromising your sleep, physical health, and emotional well-being. Chronic stress can accelerate aging process, which could lead to fine lines and wrinkles, hair loss, and the premature onset of chronic diseases, among other things. Moreover, it can also reduce the body’s immune response to flu and infections.

Therefore, managing stress is very important as completely eliminating it is too ideal and seems impossible in real scenarios. To deal with stress better, you can try out mediation. You can also treat yourself to regular massage/spa to melt the stress away. Music is a great stress buster and lifts your mood as well. Engage yourself in your favourite hobbies such as painting, cooking, baking, travelling, gardening, and the like.

Take Away

Nutrition science is complicated and is debated endlessly, but the basics are well established: Eat plenty of plant foods, (which include fresh fruits and greens), drink plenty of water, go easy on refined sugar, sleep well and stay active. Engage in these healthy habits, and you will not only look younger from outside, but also feel it on the inside!

Hmmm….do you still find it difficult to follow these habits altogether? No Worries… by adding DAILY-GREENS in your daily routine you can easily add 4 healthy habits without any hassle. Want to see how?

1. Made with 39 Superfood organic fruits and green veggies, DAILY GREENS naturally adds more greens to your daily diet.
2. It provides more antioxidants to you as one effervescent tablet of DAILY GREENS provides you the same amount of antioxidants that a single serving of fruits and vegetables do.
3. With each effervescent tablet of DAILY GREENS, you naturally drink a full glass of liquid and keep yourself well hydrated.
4. Being 100% ‘Sugar-Free’, DAILY GREENS can be a healthy alternative to sugary beverage or juice and help you cut sugar from the diet completely.

References:

• Water, Hydration and Health, Barry M. Popkin, Kristen E. D’Anci, and Irwin H. Rosenberg, Nutrition Review, 2010, doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2010.00304.x,(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908954/)
  
• Health Benefits of Fruits and Vegetables, Joanne L. Slavin, and Beate Lloyd, Advances in Nutrition, 2012, doi: 10.3945/an.112.002154, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649719/)
• “Cutting Down on Sugar” by Non-Dieting Young Women: An Impact on Diet Quality on Weekdays and the Weekend, Magdalena Czlapka-Matyasik, Marta Lonnie, Lidia Wadolowska, and Agnieszka Frelich, Nutrients Journal, 2018, doi: 10.3390/nu10101463,(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6213198/)
• https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/antioxidants/
• The Extraordinary Importance of Sleep, Susan L. Worley, Pharmacology & Therapeutics Journal, 2018, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6281147/)
• Health benefits of physical activity: the evidence, Darren E.R. Warburton, Crystal Whitney Nicol, and Shannon S.D. Bredin, CMAJ, 2006, doi: 10.1503/cmaj.051351, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1402378/)
• STRESS AND HEALTH: Psychological, Behavioral, and Biological Determinants, Neil Schneiderman, Gail Ironson, and Scott D. Siegel, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2005, doi: 10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.1.102803.144141, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2568977/)