Health and Wellness
Six Tips for a Youthful and Healthy Life as We Age.
Fundamental steps leveraging healthy lifestyle choices and preventative measures with psychosomatic health principles
Purpose of the Article
This article creates awareness of critical risk factors and provides a high-level framework to improve healthspan and lifespan using healthy lifestyle choices and preventative measures focusing on psychosomatic health.
My goal is to provide a practical checklist highlighting the fundamentals of holistic health covering body and mind. Holistic health is an emerging field in the healthcare systems, proactively covering all aspects of our being, not just physical but also mental, emotional, social, and spiritual.
I summarize the critical points affecting our health and lifespan under six headings covering cellular health, metabolism, mental health, hormones, disease prevention, and activating the self-healing systems of the body and mind for sustained health and wellness outcomes.
1 — Start with Cells, Genes, and Mitochondria.
Our health starts with well-functioning cells, genes, and mitochondria. DNA provides information, and mitochondria give energy to cells. Thus, cellular health is critical for healthspan and lifespan.
Cells need information, nutrition, and energy to survive and grow. Food serves as signaling, necessary nutrients, and required power for cells. They need both macronutrients like proteins, fats, and carbs and micronutrients like vitamins and minerals.
Cells also need to communicate through hormones and neurotransmitters and need enzymes to create various reactions through the metabolic pathway. In addition, like other organisms, cells need movement and rest too. Thus exercise, recovery, and sleep are essential for cellular health.
As cells and mitochondria don’t like harmful materials like toxins and pathogens, we must refrain from them. The body has a robust defense system to deal with contaminated materials. However, we also need to put the body to activate the self-healing system, which I cover in the last section.
Stress and inflammation play a critical role in cellular health, affecting cell membranes, mitochondria, and DNA. As I explained in a previous article, stress affects us genetically. However, we can make epigenetic changes to improve them with healthy lifestyle habits.
2 — Fix metabolic issues timely.
After cellular health, the most crucial aspect is our metabolism. Metabolism refers to chemical reactions to generate energy in the body. Multiple hormones and enzymes catalyze this process. The body has a complex metabolic pathway. Our metabolism tends to slow as we age.
Metabolic activities can be anabolic or catabolic for healthy weight management. Anabolic activities allow the cells to grow and catabolic activities to shrink. Food, movement, sleep, and rest are the primary lifestyle factors affecting metabolic activities positively or negatively.
Our metabolic rate matters. It determines the size of our waistlines, muscle mass, fitness levels, and overall well-being. A healthy metabolism requires adequate fat and muscle mass. Too much or too little of both can be problematic. Therefore, optimizing metabolic hormones play a critical role in the functioning of our metabolism. I cover it in section #4.
As I wrote about metabolic health intensely, I won’t repeat the details here. Instead, interested readers might check the summary in a recent article titled Seven Tips to Boost Metabolism and Shrink Waistline.
In my experience, the most effective way to improve my metabolic health was to make my body fat adapted. I explained it in an article titled Here’s How to Become Fat-Adapted and Trim Waistline in Three Steps.
3 — Monitor mental health proactively.
Metabolic health is tightly coupled with mental health. Our metabolism can affect our neurological and mental health. Energy and nutrition provided by metabolic activities are critical for the brain and mind.
Besides physical aspects, managing our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors is crucial for maintaining our mental health. Observing thoughts and expressing feelings might change our behavior as desired.
Healthy lifestyle choices such as consuming nutritious food, regular movement, rest, recovery, fun, time-restricted eating, and mindfulness activities such as meditation and working in a flow state might improve mental health.
As we get older, we are more prone to neurodegenerative disorders like dementia and mental health conditions like anxiety, mood disorders, brain fog, and depression. So taking earlier precautions might prevent cognitive decline.
I provided practical tips to prevent cognitive declines and enhance mental reserves to lower the effects of neurodegenerative disorders as we age in an article titled 7 Tips to Prevent Cognitive Decline and Impairment.
The key to neurological and mental health, from my experience, is supporting neurogenesis via healthy lifestyle choices, such as by improving BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) with exercise and fasting.
4 — Optimize hormones and neurotransmitters.
At the fundamental level, besides physical changes in the body, hormones and neurotransmitters can change our feelings and mood. Balanced hormones can make us feel good. Imbalanced hormones might produce unpleasant feelings. Pain and pleasure are the indicators of fluctuating hormones and neurotransmitters.
Our behavior and relationships also impact hormones and neurotransmitters. Emotional stress can adversely impact hormones and cause imbalances. For example, suppressed emotions coded as traumatic memories might disrupt the activities of hormones and neurotransmitters and lead to DNA damage in the long run.
The critical point is to optimize and balance hormones with healthy lifestyle choices like good nutrition, restorative sleep, regular exercise, rest, timely recovery, and fun. However, as we get older, we might also need hormonal adjustments and replacement therapies with support from specialists.
Therefore, getting our hormones checked regularly with support from our family physicians with referrals to endocrinologists can be helpful. Hormonal imbalances can cause weight gain and lead to mood fluctuations.
The critical change for me was balancing my hormones. Learning about the master hormones like insulin and cortisol impacted my physical and mental health the most.
5 — Reduce risks of known diseases proactively.
A disease risk reduction approach can be invaluable to maintaining our physical and mental health. Many diseases have common risk factors. Understanding these factors and addressing them with diligence can be helpful.
For example, obesity, metabolic syndrome, sedentary life, sleep deprivation, chronic stress, and chronic inflammation are root causes of significant diseases such as type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases, shortening our lifespan.
A practical approach is to get screened for significant diseases via various tests, including blood, urine, saliva, and feces. Leveraging the power of technological monitoring tools such as CT, PET, MRI, and DEXA scans can give us clues about the indications of some disorders.
Monitoring blood sugar and pressure is a low-hanging fruit. Making the body insulin-sensitive and leptin-receptive is a preventative approach. Lowering stress and addressing chronic inflammation is vital. Finally, fixing digestive and gut issues might prevent numerous physical and mental health disorders.
Observing symptoms of diseases is crucial for timely diagnosis and treatment. In addition, proactive risk management with timely professional support can contribute to health and lifespan.
6 — Initiate the self-healing abilities of the body.
The previous items covered the fundamentals of holistic health improvements using healthy lifestyle choices. However, we must also initiate the body’s self-healing abilities again by using lifestyle choices to improve cellular health, which I touched on in the first section.
From my reviews and experience, two recently discovered mechanisms called autophagy and mitophagy show us how to initiate the body’s self-healing mechanisms, creating better homeostasis.
Autophagy is the self-healing process in specific systems in the body. The process is initiated with energy deficiency in the body. The body uses the autophagy process by consuming useless cells, damaged proteins, pathogens, and bacterial toxins as an energy source.
It is possible to initiate autophagy and mitophagy naturally. The known methods are time-restricted eating, intense workouts, and thermogenesis. Scientists are also working on biochemicals to mimic and induce similar effects of these natural processes.
Furthermore, activating the lymphatic system can also contribute to self-healing by removing toxins from the body. One of the most effective ways to activate the flow of fluids in the lymph nodes is by moving the body. From my experience, the best method was using a trampoline, giving the best movement to activate the lymphatic system.
Conclusions and Takeaways
The six steps in this post are not prescriptive but serve as a model or a checklist to customize our solutions. While processes and procedures might differ for each person, principles don’t change. Personalizing solutions for our needs is a practical holistic health approach.
Age plays a crucial role in health and lifespan. Aging is inevitable. As we age, we are more prone to physical and mental disorders. Our telomeres get shortened, and hormones get imbalanced.
Aging is inescapable. We are not fully capable of anti-aging or reversing it yet, but it is possible to age gracefully by slowing it with healthy lifestyle choices and professional support.
Thanks to scientific breakthroughs and technological advancements, we might slow down aging, lower the risks of diseases, prevent them from occurring, and reduce their effects by improving our bodily and cognitive reserves. In summary, we can:
1 — Improve cellular and mitochondrial health.
2 — Fix metabolic and digestive issues.
3 — Manage thoughts and emotions proactively.
4 — Optimize hormones and neurotransmitters.
5 — Lower risks of known diseases proactively.
6 — Activate the self-healing abilities of the body.
Knowledge is power, but taking action is critical for success. Therefore, practicing our knowledge by taking necessary measures and experimenting safely and sensibly can be valuable to improving our health and lifespan.
We all make mistakes. We should see them as life lessons for improvement. Understanding our mistakes and learning from others can be invaluable in making progress. Forgiveness is paramount for mental health.
A mindful living with acceptance, compassion, empathy, self-love, flexibility, a growth mindset, and optimism might put us in a mentally and emotionally advantaged position in dealing with life's challenges.
More importantly, seeking timely support from professionals, friends, and loved ones is necessary. Asking for support when required is not a weakness. Everyone needs help in different ways.
Besides aiming to increase the hormonal intelligence of my readers and writing about neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine, one of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
Petechiae, ALS, Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Thyroid Disorders, Anemia, Dysautonomia, cardiac output, and urinary track disorders.
I also wrote about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:
Lutein/Zeaxanthin, Phosphatidylserine, Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, and other nutrients.
Disclaimer: My posts do not include professional or health advice. I only document my reviews, observations, experiences, and perspectives to provide information and create awareness.
As part of my creative non-fiction writing goals, I’d like to share a few stories that might warm our hearts with a bit of humor into weighty topics.
Sample Humorous Stories
Based on my writing experience and observations, I documented findings and strategies that might help you amplify your voice, engage your audience, and achieve your desired outcomes in your writing journey.
I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. My focus is on cellular, mitochondrial, metabolic, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
You might join my six publications on Medium as a writer by sending a request via this link. 25K writers contribute to my publications. You might find more information about my professional background.
Here are some of my boosted stories.
Here’s How I Train My Brain Daily for Mental Clarity and Intellectual Productivity.
Meditation Can Boost the Cortical Thickness in the Brain and Prevent the Thinning of It
Here’s How to Make the Nervous System More Flexible and Functional
A New Clinical Trial Found a Low-Carb Diet Better Than the Dash.
How Writers Can Attract More Readers by Using Design Thinking Principles
Here’s Why I Focus on Nutritional Biochemistry Rather Than Diets
Queer Organisms: Nature’s Lesson for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equality
