How to age well? Keep exercising, stay busy and be socially engaged, experts say
- To beat the rising trend of dependency and frailty in older age, safeguard your physical and mental health through lifestyle changes, and learn new things
- A daily 10-minute walk has been shown to slow our rate of ageing, and a plant-rich diet to support the gut-brain axis and lower the risk of having dementia
Hong Kong has the highest life expectancy in the world – 82 years for men and 88 for women. But residents shouldn’t be complacent about that, cautions Professor Jean Woo.
The emeritus professor of medicine and director of the CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing has long studied chronic diseases among the elderly and how we can age more healthily.
The 73-year-old Woo notes that government statistics don’t indicate how many of these advanced years are lived in good physical and mental health: “There is a rising trend of increasing dependency and frailty accompanying this increase in total life expectancy.”
September is Healthy Ageing Month, a time to remember that there is ageing, and there is ageing well; that there is longevity and there’s living a long life to the full; and that in both cases there’s a massive difference between the two.
Annabel Streets and Susan Saunders, co-founders of the UK’s Age Well Project, each authors of books on ageing well, couldn’t agree more.
“You can’t fight ageing … it happens to everything and everyone, always has and always will,” they say on their website, which documents the latest medical studies into ageing and how they overhauled their lives by applying the findings.
Rural community dubbed ‘The First Yoga Village in China’ becomes internet hit
They approach the inevitable with their aim “to make the second halves of our lives the best halves”. And they advocate ‘rewiring’ – not retiring.
So how do you age optimally?
Absolutely, says Streets, who earlier this year published, 52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time.
Hong Kong is tops for longevity, but experts flag health problems ahead
“A daily 10-minute walk has been shown to slow our rate of ageing and a recent study found that regular brisk walkers had – by middle age – accumulated an additional 16 years of life,” Streets says.
Walking does not cause many injuries and is unlikely to strain our bodies, she continues, but “we recommend walking poles for extra stability and for burning more calories without fatigue”. Woo says resistance training is important too, to maintain muscle.
Age-related mobility problems are a fact of life – 30 per cent of adults over the age of 70 have difficulty climbing stairs or getting up out of chairs. This doesn’t just make getting up and about difficult, it adds to the risk of falls, as well as chronic age-associated illness.
To be on track for optimal physical ageing we need to be moving, doing strength training and eating what Woo calls an “appropriate diet” – one that provides sufficient calories and protein, contains little to no fast food, and is rich in plant-based food and foods high in antioxidants such as vegetables and fruit.
What to do to keep our brains working well, to prevent dementia?
“As a teenager I’d watched my mum care for her own mother, who also had dementia. With two young daughters, I wanted to do everything I could to prevent history repeating itself. There’s no cure for Alzheimer’s, but lifestyle factors have been shown to greatly reduce the risk. Currently, this is our only hope.”
What is the biggest hazard to ageing well? Woo, Streets and Saunders are in agreement: a sedentary lifestyle.
Tips for a healthy heart – are you taking care of yours?
Saunders adds: “Very little ageing is dictated by genetics. We can make a real difference to our health with simple lifestyle changes, but we need to be consistent and have confidence in that change.”
The Age Well Project’s top three tips for ageing optimally
1. Get outside in the morning Morning light, within an hour of waking, helps set the circadian “clock” which dictates our sleep/wake cycle. A good night’s sleep starts in the morning. Bonus points if you exercise outside.
2. 10 minutes of weight/resistance training daily Building and maintaining muscle is vital – and is about so much more than staying strong. Muscle has been linked to improved cell function, reduced inflammation, better cognition and slower bone loss.
3. Pursue novelty Seek out new experiences, new people, new landscapes, new flavours, new passions, new languages and hobbies.
As we grow older we are less inclined to hunt down novelty, but our brains thrive on it, building neural pathways that keep them in good working order.
