The N°1 Advice People Over Fifty Would Give to Their Younger Selves
What twenty-somethings often forget to do before it’s too late
What’s the N°1 piece of advice you’d give your younger self?
I always ask that question to my English students as part of an English assignment. As a writer fascinated by all things human, I chose this topic over any other because I’m always keen to learn from those with more life experience.
Ranging from their late forties to their sixties, my students don’t miss a beat when answering my prompt. And after doing this activity with most of them, I’ve started to notice a pattern.
Over and over, my students over fifty confess they’d tell their younger selves to “take care of their minds”.
Take Care of Your Mind
“Why?” I ask afterward.
Some of my students then share the story of an ailing parent who’s struggling with dementia; others simply shrug and say that if they’d understood and cared for their minds from a young age, they could’ve saved themselves a lot of unnecessary pain — and perhaps gone after their dreams.
It took me a while to understand that, to them, “taking care of our minds” meant more than simply having good brain health. It meant having a healthy relationship with our inner selves. It meant prioritizing mental health.
In the words of my 54-year-old English student, “Without a healthy mind, your youth is wasted.” Yikes!
How To Take Care of Your Mind
“What would you’ve done differently?” I go on. “What would you tell other twenty-somethings like me?”
Perhaps this is limited to my students, but they love to share advice when asked. They didn’t hesitate to give me tips on how to care for my mind. Here they are:
- Take care of your body. A healthy mind starts with a healthy body, so the first step twenty-somethings should follow is to establish at least some basic health habits like taking regular walks, eating veggies and fruits every single day, reducing the amount of sugar and processed foods, avoiding smoking and drinking (though many of my students said that a little bit doesn’t hurt anybody), and sleeping the amount that makes you feel good.
- Understand your thoughts. According to many of my students, one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is a deep understanding of how your mind works. It’s a surefire way to start breaking out of harmful thought cycles. So start self-reflecting to learn why you react the way you do. Start listening to the voices in your head that interfere with your happiness (the messages and people who’ve left a long-lasting negative impression). Start fighting back.
- Limit social media. All of my students over fifty believe that too much social media is the cause of many of our current problems. It enhances unfair social comparison, making us miserable. It makes us addicted to quick dopamine rushes. It isolates us from the real world and only leaves us with superficial relationships that don’t satisfy our deepest emotional needs. That’s why many of my students said to limit social media and to take everything we see there with a grain of salt.
- Stop trying to be perfect. We all know this, yet we still try to be perfect in at least one area of our lives. And though it’s the perfect “flaw” to have when they ask you in a job interview, it really is a very mind-damaging flaw to have. Perfection is unattainable. There will always be something more you could do to chase your dreams, to have your desired looks, to have the “perfect” relationship. But it’s exhausting. A surefire way to always feel like you’re not enough — and damage your mental health in the process — is to seek perfection.
- Surround yourself with people who really love you. I would argue that this one, along with understanding our thoughts, is the hardest tip to follow. Finding people who truly wish us nothing but the best, who share our successes and actually share our sadness (we all have that “friend” who is so sad we didn’t get a promotion) is perhaps one of our life’s many challenges. That’s why my older students told me that as long as we have a couple of people who genuinely love us, we’ll be alright. Our minds will be alright.
Without Our Minds, We Are Nothing
As someone who’s lost family to Alzheimer’s and who’s struggled with anxiety born of childhood trauma, I can perfectly understand where my students are coming from. Without our minds, we truly are nothing.
Without our minds, we act erratically. We lose sight of what’s real and what isn’t. We harm the people closest to us — especially ourselves.
Whether you’re twenty-something or eighty, taking care of your mind should always be a priority. When we face our demons, surround ourselves with people who love us, and shove the middle finger to perfection, we can open the doors to a happy and wholesome life.
With healthy minds, the possibilities are endless.
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