It does not have to be hard work to slow down the ageing process. These simple ideas can help, says Helen Foster
We all get old-what differs is how fast we do it. While genetics do play a role in this, the number one factor that determines whether you age faster or slower than your friends, neighbours, or even your siblings, seems to be lifestyle. What you eat, how you move and even how you think can all play a role. Here’s the latest advice for turning back time.
EAT BERRIES
US researchers found that women with the highest intake of strawberries and blueberries in their diet delayed how fast their brains aged by about 2.5 years. It’s not known exactly why, but other studies have shown that berries actually trigger a cleaning process in the brain that stops the build-up of toxic proteins that accelerate ageing.
Eat those berries while you do a brain teaser and you’ll begin to see improvements in no time. According to Di Gary Small, completing just one brain-teasing puzzle a day helps make your memory perform more youthfully in around three months
Eyes – Hold things further away.
Eyesight-particularly the ability to see dose up-declines with age and women suffer problems before men do US experts now think they know why We have shorter arms than men and hold things closer to our faces and this increases our risk of eye strain in turn making symptoms of any developing long sight more pronounced
So how can we avoid eye strain? “Read print books rather than e-readers as they are more eye-friendly says optometrist Melissa Allen. “But if that’s difficult, match the brightness of your screen to the room you’re reading in Increase the texts, and avoid reading on a screen that has sunlight glare”
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Slow down your ageing by worrying less
Ears – Try a silent commute
Three percent of Australians aged 15 to 50 already have less than optimal hearing, but that rises to 17 percent by age 60. Recent trials show people with poor hearing suffer mental decline 3.2 years earlier than other folks. What you do today determines how fast your hearing declines in the future.
Audiologist Janette Thorburn from Hearing Australia says that for most of us the biggest cause of hearing damage is listening to music turned up too loud on headphones or in cars. She suggests buying noise-cancelling headphones to block out background noise and keeping the volume low.
Teeth – Take a fish oil supplement
We might not be as likely to end up wearing dentures as our parents were, but 31 percent of people aged 25 to 44 do have some form of advanced gum disease, and this increases to 65 percent past age 45. As gums recede and the risk of tooth loss increases, gum disease ages the mouth. But it may also make the body older as gum disease is associated with inflammation that speeds up ageing.
This is where taking fish oils can help as they contain omega-3s which fight inflammation. “Inflammation seems to be suppressed by metabolites called resolvins Created when omega-3s break down,’ says Dr Alison Coates from the University of South Australia. But don’t stop flossing and brushing. Omega-3s may mitigate the damage but they don’t cure gum disease.
Heart – Join a sports team
While most of us know that regular exercise is the best way to slow down the ageing of our hearts and keep them young, what may surprise is how much difference it can make. Recent University of Copenhagen trials found that within three months of starting to play football, men with diabetes had hearts that performed 10 years younger than before. “We believe the effect on cardiac function is similar in healthy subjects,” says trial author Jakob Friis Schmidt.
So why soccer? Partly it was because it’s a sprint-stop activity, similar to interval training, he says, “but we also think the social element of team sports makes it more likely that people will do them regularly and that’s vital to trigger health benefits from any exercise”.
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