Most of time‘s aging effects are preventable, even reversible with these natural and consistent practices.
As a 37-year-old, it is fun meeting new people often a decade or more younger than me believing I am around their age or younger. Although many may attribute this to luck or genetics, since my other family members have not all necessarily been able to maintain the same level of youth and fitness, sometimes by a long shot, it is clearly more than just chance. Always happy to share what works for me, it may give you a springboard to figure out all the things that work for you, or maybe we are not all so different, it just depends on our daily habits and lifestyle, the type of person we are able to become. So here are 15 tips to keep you young and healthy for the long term:
1 Sleep as much & as often as possible
The most underrated way to stay young and healthy is to simply sleep as much as possible. There are trending quotes like “Sleep is for the weak” and “grind culture” which promotes staying up as much as possible to squeeze out more work hours, but there is a lot to be said about spending quality time over quantity when approaching productivity. Squeezing more results out of the time rather than more time spent and less productivity per minute.
With more sleep, not only do you get to most likely keep your hair, youth and vitality, you can even be sharper, with more energy to get more done within less time. A theme here is doing better than average, using that as your minimum. Therefore 8 hours is not a full sleep; that is the minimum. Cannot do that with your busy schedule? Work in 20–30 minute power naps throughout the day or other unorthodox, simple-yet-effective methods or routines to make it happen.
2 Stay hydrated as much as possible
This is the most under-utilized tip for sure. We all know the adage of “8 cups of water a day” to be the average consumption for health. Have you ever thought about how average only means a basic standard? That means 8 cups a day should be absolutely bare minimum for a lot of people, especially for taller people and those who take on on any dehydrating tasks or consume dehydrating substances, food and drink.
If you are to live a healthy lifestyle, you will at least include some form of regular exercise or physical activity that will dehydrate you. Also if you are any larger than average (when we include all people, that means most men) then you will definitely need more than the average amount as a base level before you even add the dehydration from caffeine, alcohol, smoking, vaping — things you may want to avoid in the first place — as well as hot weather, exercise or even sleep itself, things which you definitely should not neglect.
Many make the excuse “I do not want to be going to pee all day” which is a small price to pay for not aging as quickly as most seem to at this point; keeping soft elastic skin, preventing all kinds of health problems and keeping your energy up with some simple clean H20. You can purify tap water yourself by boiling a full kettle amount or more at a time and ensuring to only drinking the top 2/3rds, as fluoride concentrates to the bottom. If you are not sure whether you are dehydrated or even overdoing it, just check your urine colour, if it is yellow you can hydrate more if it is clear you have hydrated enough and should maintain, but no need to increase from there.
3 Do intensive exercise w/ cardio 3+ times a week
If you can work a good sweat from cardiovascular exercise around 3 times a week or more, you will be able to speed up your metabolism over several months if it is too slow, making it easier for your body to burn fat and calories when idle, keeping you in good shape even during the times in between activity when you are not doing anything physically active. This will usually require at least 20 minutes of solid sweat inducing cardiovascular exercise every time, at least 3 times a week if not more. This means you need to stay extra hydrated to deal with all the sweating and heavy breathing, but it also means you get your whole body exercised via the legs, increasing testosterone production and muscle tone in both men and women.
This increases your stamina for physical tasks and your overall attractiveness to others. Notice how I made this 3rd after sleep and water, meaning exercise alone will not keep you young without these other aspects taken care of, in fact those that rely on hard exercise alone may actually age faster without the right self-care and balancing it with a natural healthy lifestyle and the softer exercises, like proper warm-ups and stretching to keep your injuries minimized and your recovery time solid too.
4 Meditate, warm up, stretch, yoga & conditioning
Also a physically attractive trait is someone who does their yoga on a regular. A very good tip for doing any exercise is to first start with a warm up. Unlike some might get confused, yoga or stretching is not a warm-up in itself and you can more easily hurt yourself if you do it cold.
You are better off warming up by loosening and rotating your joints, jogging in place, deep breathing and many light movements from there as you warm-up you can move onto your stretch, yoga or exercise. This is a form of conditioning, just how calisthenics can condition you, stretching not only conditions you for flexibility, it improves muscle recovery from exercises and prevents injuries or spasms when done patiently with proper breathing and techniques like power stretching when more advanced.
These skills should be developed gradually over a long time with daily consistency as much as possible, never pushing passed your current level nor skipping steps. The more consistent you stretch, the less effort or strain you will experience to feel better.
5 Flip the food pyramid portions, putting protein 1st & carbs last
The classic food pyramid we are taught as kids in school seems to make sense as it emphasizes immediate energy, food affordability and promotes a strong amount of fibrous foods like vegetables, but where it gets things wrong is the protein and grain portions should probably be reversed, at least with some moderation. Protein is the most important element for your body’s tissues to repair themselves, while fibre should still be a strong component for its digestive properties along with the nutrients found in fibrous and healthy foods.
Carbs however should be towards high fibre and complex choices instead of the standard white wheat flour which lacks substantial nutritional value, is easily addictive and damaging to the body longterm when not moderated (though it does have some plant protein but not as healthy overall as other grain choices). Refined white sugar is even worse, just as or more addictive and takes less time to create unwanted inflammation and adverse health effects. Keeping simple carbs and sugars reduced and mitigated is a key to keeping in healthy condition. That does not mean you can never consume them, just to make sure they are definitely not the majority of your intake.
Eggs and other animal protein, are not only more easily absorbed by your body than other proteins, it is the best form of protein for your muscles’ recovery from training. Animal fats found in meats are more edible from better quality meats and cuts and are able to increase your cardiovascular, enabling the “keto effect” for a metabolism boost and increased definition. For muscle mass however, plant protein and legumes, peas, beans and nuts are better than animal protein. To increase the length at which your muscles generate tissue, dairy protein allows for that effect. Meat and dairy also contain a lot of vitamins but alternative options as well as plant protein based foods and vegetables also do, so the easiest way to get all you need is to include them all as part of a complete diet. For those that want to limit what type of foods they eat, finding the right alternatives to what you are missing, and potentially taking natural supplements, based on your own research for your situation, should be able to counter-balance different diet choices.
6 Consume superfoods, fermented foods, healthy oils & greens
This even applies easily to vegan diets, which are not always necessarily healthy after all, depending on the food choices within that. Whether it be simply more fruits and vegetables, yogurt and raw olive oil, you can lean into the health foods that provide you with nutrition, probiotics, omega-3 oils and fibre to keep your body well tuned. As is the theme, sticking to the basics as much as possible in an informed and complete way tends to be the way to go.
Some rarer fruits are even higher caliber superfoods like goji berries, mangosteen, açai and more. However amongst the more common fruits some are also considered superfoods like blueberries, apples, and oranges. Even bananas can help to balance the sodium in your system with potassium. The issue with vegetables like potato is the custom of overloading it with salt, but like popcorn, with less salt these are actually healthy and natural foods that have good fibre. Potato also has potassium.
Fermented foods include probiotic rich traditional style cheeses, yogurt, kefir, kombucha and asian foods like natto and tempeh. Essential oils are balanced with having a higher ratio of omega-3s and less omega-6s, while omega-9s like coconut oil or butter are neutral. Omega-3s are found in raw olive oil, raw fish oil, fresh eggs, and other natural oils, usually raw or only lightly cooked. The smoking point of the fat or oil matters since it can be cooked only under its smoking point — which is unique to each oil — and maintain its omega-3 fatty acids without them transforming them into trans fats. You can often find the smoking point written on the oil bottle’s label.
7 Keep a positive & lighthearted mentality, solution orientation
Although this might seem unrelated or out-of-the-box it is actually not as far out as you may initially think since psychosomatic influences on your body and condition are known to determine a lot of health outcomes for an individual. That is why even hospitals do not have patients be left to their own devices, being suggested to have a positive mentality under trying times, doctors teaching how doing so tends to have patients turning out with better results. It has been noted since ancient times the possibility for the mind to directly affect the body to some degree, and under the current modern context, developments have come closer to comprehending that too.
An important part about this journey is being able to deal with difficult or unexpected situations in a way that they will likely be overcome without compromise nor indefinite stall to your progress. When a sudden pain, discomfort or other such issue is to arise, freaking out or going for the quickest solution may be what most people want to do initially but taking a step back, doing what you can to relax yourself, breathe and look at the situation neutrally might have you deal with it in a more patient and step-by-step way that could prevent worsening the problem or complicating the healing process, even obstructing a simple solution. For example a simple cramp can sometimes be sharp and painful leading one to believe it is potentially very serious when a massage of the area with some breathing might have you realize it was nothing more than congested gas. So making sure it is not something lighter and simpler first before going to a hospital, is important to prevent unwanted problems like reverse placebo effects.
This is different than ignoring the problem and telling yourself it is “fine” with no improvement. If you have not identified and implemented a working solution from a coolheaded and optimistic standpoint, just pretending like it does not exist is not the same as a positive mentality but rather a careless ignorant one.
8 Incorporate Relaxing Activities Into Your Life
After all the exercise and taking responsibilities of a busy day, you need to find ways to keep stress levels low and make it easier for your body to recover when resting. You do not need to necessarily go to a spa to achieve relaxation on deeper levels at home. Whether it be a sea salt bath while reading some classic paper books or comics or using a handheld massager to get out some kinks in your muscles when at leisure, there are many ways to get your relax mode on. It may even just be to sit back and chill to some of your fave tunes in a laid back atmosphere. The key is to do your best to make your own home or living spaces as relaxing as possible to enable better recovery possibilities more easily.
You can get creative, basing it in your personal preferences as to how you can find ways to relax. Although it may sometimes seem obvious, a lot of the conventional ways to relax are not always conducive to reducing stress. Though it is true that a small amount of clean alcohol when enjoyed in moderation can actually have some health benefits while the most typical beer or sweet drinks that are high in carbs and sugars however can not only have a unhealthy toll on your liver and body but actually increase stress while being yet another dehydrating activity. Thus even the issue of relaxing can be a discipline in itself to both choose healthy and effective ways to relax while implementing them consistently.
9 Never stop committing to better your grooming & hygiene
Although it might seem superficial, grooming and hygiene does connect itself well to the rest of your health. If these areas are neglected too long, they can also lead to more serious and deeper health issues. Furthermore it makes it difficult to retain your youth and best condition if you let yourself slide here. Whether it be rotting out your teeth or gangrene in the toe, lice on the head or any kind of untreated infection and many other such unsavoury issues, maintaining your hygiene and grooming well are key to staying healthy and retaining your youthfulness.
An obvious example is the maintenance of feet to prevent callouses from over-drying to the point of breaking and causing injury. The dryness can also be multiplied if you have nail fungus which ends up absorbing much of the moisture out of your potentially already dry and calloused foot. This leads to the callous on your toe potentially cracking into an open wound and a dangerous injury prone to serious infection, that in the worst of cases could lead to amputation. Therefore you should take your hygiene and grooming just as seriously as all other health.
Though you may regularly brush your teeth, are you always making sure to use the best brushing techniques? Sometimes that can make all the difference. Furthermore, neglecting flossing can lead to serious problems in the long run. You can also buy a tooth picker to scrape out plaque and tartar as part of your regular teeth hygiene routine. You can also avoid toxins from conventional toothpaste as there are many natural toothpaste options available and accessible today, some even including whitening ingredients as effective as the big brands. For your ears cotton swabs are not recommended and it even says so on the box, so using ear wax oil or g-grips or equivalent instead will help to keep your ears clean.
You also need to keep your bottom clean. Even if you do an excellent job wiping yourself after having a bowel movement, you may still have remaining dirt or even pulp from the toilet paper. All of these can cause issues. These can be compounded by dehydration and a lack of fibre in your diet. There are ways to help solve these issues like calendula salve, but doing just as much to prevent it is even more important. Keeping yourself not only clean, but also clear down there while avoiding excessive; dehydration, malnutrition and irritation; can prevent this issue and allow it to heal when it happens.
10 Learn from your mistakes & stay consistent in your healthy habits
Nobody is going to be perfect but that always allows us the opportunity to improve forever. With that kind of life-learner mentality you can constantly pick up what works and what does not, constantly refining your approach to always be better. When you do find something that works you then have to make sure to continuously implement it from that time forward. Your mindfulness in learning, stopping what does not work, finding out what does, and maintaining the best practices is a surefire process to get a hang of all that is needed to be in your best shape and condition.
Without an independent perspective on these matters it will be difficult not to either be sucked into a lot of conventional practices that only provide average outcomes, or to feel hopeless — not knowing a better way. With your own willingness to carefully and thoroughly learn the ins and outs yourself over the long run — no matter when you started — you will have the essence of what you need in this subject too. The average daily practices of the average person without putting any further thought into it will not get you to be your best self and even if you think this area is “not your thing,” in reality it is everybody’s thing and it should be taken as an important and integral part of your life.
11 Skin Hygiene, Washing & Toner
Avoiding conventional soaps is a good way to prevent irritation and potential damage to your skin. Opting for natural soaps is always a better option. Also prevent over-drying by not soaping the same area multiple times heavily in one session unless particularly dirty. Using a lot of soap in the same area multiple times in a day, is usually not recommended unless it is an area of heavy perspiration and you just finished intensive enough activity to work a good sweat. Aloe gel is excellent for your skin’s general maintenance and is easily absorbed by the skin, moisturizing and soothing skin when overly dry from soap or other issues like flaking. Tea tree oil is great for sanitization, killing infections and acne but can have a very pungent smell. I personally opt for an aloe gel that includes tea tree oil, but you can always mix them yourself. This reduces the overly strong smell of tea tree oil while still getting all its benefits.
For temporary relief, witch hazel is also an option you apply topically. Vitamin E is also known to be good for the skin. As for ingested recommendations, you can also consume edible natural aloe jelly as well as other collagen generating foods like meat cartilage or foods containing zinc. As mentioned, staying hydrated is also key to your skin health. Think of a grape, once it is void of moisture it wrinkles up into a raisin. To undo wrinkles and maintain youthful skin hydration is a key component. Do your water research, making sure it is of good quality and not contaminated by heavy metals, chemicals nor soft plastics and ideally contains natural minerals. You can use gentle toners, or even blemish patches (which are usually sold online) to tone your skin and give that extra glow after you have taken care of maintaining the above.
12 Foot Health, fungi killer & balm
As mentioned how important foot health is there are practices you can take to treat and maintain healthy feet at all stages of your life. From the classic peel smoothening rock to deeply moisturizing foot balm, there are several small things you can do to keep your feet from deteriorating heavily over time and return them to a beautiful shape. Keeping with the basics, you should be sure to wear shoes of the right size as that simple issue can cause a lot of extra unneeded damage to your cuticles and joints, not to mention ingrown nails. Treating and curing nail fungus is also of great importance. We hear a lot about the issue and various solutions, but not a lot about prevention. There are also various ways to buff your feet other than the standard stone.
Making these practices easier and more convenient for yourself will be key to maintaining them. When buffing the feet it is best to do it at the same time frame as while you are showering since it will be much more effective and less painful when treating your feet this way when warm and wet. The same goes with foot buffers which are sold at the pharmacy. These often are like little sandpaper surfaces of different grades on a handle you can use for deeper and finer buffing. After your shower immediately applying balm on your feet before putting on socks will have your feet absorb the deep moisture and smooth out the remaining roughness. For an exceptional smoothness you can go even further and use a nail file on your feet and toes when dry for an even finer buff.
Tea tree oil as well as other off-the-shelf solutions are available and work to kill the surface fungus in between your toes but you need to apply it diligently. Though it may take a year or two for it to completely grow out, preventing the issue is key to it truly ameliorating in the long term. The fungus is caused by too much consistent moisture and congestion in your feet. The fungus grows in that environment and then ironically sucks away all moisture damaging your feet and warping your nails in the process. By simply keeping your feet aired out intermittently you can reduce and even prevent this problem. Keeping your feet outside the blankets when sleeping, though it may seem initially cold can truly help. Airing out your feet completely after heavy activity or exercise. Always wearing socks when wearing shoes that never have holes in them. Always keeping your socks fresh. Wearing sandals or open-toe footwear when appropriate and always grooming your toes will allow, over time the issue of nail fungus to reduce or even be completely eliminated.
13 Skin Tags, moles & acne
Other than general maintenance, there are things you can do to treat breakouts in your skin. Blemish patches (you can buy online) work for helping the treatment of acne, reducing spots and skin tags. They can also be used on moles, but in that case you will need to pluck them of any hair first for them to work properly. Their main ingredient is tea tree oil and the best ones tend to be hydrocolloid based at the same time.
In general you do want to be sure to stay gentle avoiding harshly popping pimples and that kind of thing, which you should have less excuse to avoid with the above resources. If you pop even the smallest whitehead on a very soft area like a cheek it can leave a virtually permanent red mark due to capillary damage which can only be resolved with many expensive esthetic laser sessions over more than half a dozen months. Know which acne is which as well. Do not be demotivated if even the patch (which is usually worn nightly during sleep) takes several days to work because some pimple types would usually take weeks to die. For the most basic of whiteheads the patches can work in a matter of hours, but often overnight if not a couple nights with larger blemishes.
Compound pimples that are made up of many smaller ones or stick out greatly will take several days, but avoids you weeks of embarrassment. You do not necessarily need to squeeze or clear every blackhead either but with regular face washing and exfoliating combined with the rare clearing of pores with safe, gentle products, you should be able to achieve a relatively clear face. The reason I think you should moderate aggressive pore cleaning techniques on your face is, doing so may lead to those areas getting more spotty when hit with the sun. In some cases it might look good though depending on the style. Thus you can add to this staying gentle on how much sun you let your skin be exposed to if you want to maintain a clearer tone, but I would avoid heavy chemicals found in most sunscreens which may worsen the skin and cause skin cancer too. If you like tanning, do so in very gradual, careful and for short periods of time to avoid sunburns or other issues.
Though blemish patches can reduce and minimize skin tags over time with consistent use, to permanently get rid of skin tags in a timely manner, skin tag removal cream is the best option. I tried the standard approach of freezing with liquid nitrogen finding it only slightly reduced the worst of skin tags while being a very painful method that can also leave a mark. Though a mark may be left from the skin tag removal cream, it usually comes with a solution to aid in full healing and usually heals eventually and otherwise can be cleared with the silicone scar removal tape as well. This is different from the kind of discoloration liquid nitrogen might cause. It is recommended you go for the skin tag removal cream that includes skin shields to make the skin tag removal process safer and easier. Though the process may still cause some pain and requires care for the healing process (I recommend hydrocolloid based bandages) it is not as awkward, painful nor as ineffective as the usually employed liquid nitrogen method.
14 Stimulate the scalp & hair brushing
Brushing your hair is excellent for the health of your scalp, yet cutting your hair is not always necessary. You would be better off consistently brushing, and only lightly trimming your hair, than constantly cutting it, yet refusing to brush. Washing your hair with shampoo or other soap, even when massaging deeply into your scalp cannot replace the types of benefits regular brushing provides.
From freeing congested flakes to freeing pores for new hair to grow while stimulating circulation on your head, it is one vital way to stay in your best shape. Brushing also can prevent head acne and the potential for infections caused by those plus the potentially resultant scars from mishandling them. Unlike other scars on the face or body with less hair that can be aided with silicone scar healing tape, the head is a different story. It is the example I decided to bring up since it would seem like a small matter but can have large consequences.
Moreover you can look up ways to maintain healthy hair, as the aforementioned zinc and generally staying well-nourished with natural vitamins. One natural topical solution of note, to have found to be about as effective as rogaine, when applied consistently, is rosemary oil. Just like tea tree oil, the various essential oils can be amazing resources for improving health and wellness but will not be as effective if you are not also taking care of all the other details simultaneously.
15 Eye health, retinal detachment, chalazion & face yoga
Other than the typical vision issues (often helped by eye exercises and worsened by squinting) sight problems best handled by an optometrist, eye health considerations include drying, redness, irritation as well as signs of aging like bags under the eyes, or other complications like retinal detachment or chalazions which are small pimple-like formations or styes that appear on the eyelid. A lot of the basic issues like redness, drying and irritation are usually solved or prevented by a combination of staying well hydrated and keeping your eyes clean, making sure to use cold clean water or the correct eye cleaning solutions available along with staying out of polluted or eye-irritating environments. Always ensuring you dust your surroundings is also a key component for that.
What to do of baggy eyes and other signs of aging around the face not yet covered here? There is facial yoga where you can practice the proper face stretches, which you can look up from the many yogis online. Facial yoga can bring back circulation to your face, tone the face, tighten the skin and reverse some of the typical aging issues that occur in the face due to the weakening of the face muscles over time when not exercised with yoga or other face exercises regularly. You can also practice eye movement exercises and massage your skin in a sanitary fashion. Heavy glasses should also be of caution as wearing them frequently, if not handled well can also damage your face’s appearance over time even when you take them off. This of course can usually recover over time, but it is worth noting.
One issue of note is retinal detachment. This can happen if you experienced a fall or got into a fight, otherwise somehow some aggressive heavy and intense quick movement especially to your head near the eye can cause the retina of your eye to begin to tear from its socket. It may have very few to even no symptoms however so it is good to be aware of it. Getting an eye exam regularly with the latest tools will ensure that any issues get found as soon as possible. The biggest issue is that even a tiny tear can extend and even reach the point of your entire eye detaching from its socket. By the time symptoms are obvious it may easily detach. When detached it is much more complicated and difficult an issue to fix and must be done immediately. Instead with regular check ups and avoiding inversions (putting your head upside down) when a tear in your retina is discovered; until a retinal laser surgery appointment is scheduled, accomplished and healed, that is how you overcome this potential problem.
When you notice a stye or chalazion forming on your eyelid it may eventually heal on its own, but there are ways to ensure it recovers because in certain cases it will only get worse when left alone. The most recommended method is to do a hot compress with hot water on a towel or equivalent, pushing it on the area for several minutes, multiple times in a day. This method however I find difficult in practice and not as effective as I had hoped.
In my experience I found the most effective method was to use micro soap bubbles from soap foam. This is done by lathering soap (ideally natural bar soap) vigorously in your hands and ensuring the finest foam is made, usually finer than what you would normally need for washing and dabbing the smallest amount on your fingertip to apply to the stye. This has to be done carefully so as to not get soap in your eye. If you did it right, the foam should be thick enough to almost form a light soap paste that will not as easily drip into your eye, but you are best to keep a tissue handy anyway if you feel like it is going to leak onto your naked eye, so you can stop it. Just leaving that bit of microfine soap foam on the area, throughout the day or right before going to bed, is the most effective and fastest way I have found to get rid of the chalazion. You will know when it works when it turns into what looks like a mini popped pimple that is in the process of healing. This can take many days, even a week or more to accomplish so be patient and consistent.
It Is Not All Genetics
As you may have read above, there are many ways, practices, resources and lifestyle choices you can consistently employ to maintain your youthfulness, health and even reverse the aging process to some degree. It is not just an issue of genetics. Even when genetics are considered, epigenetics has it so that a change in your customs or vices compared to previous generations in your bloodline may actually reprogram your genetic code to be aligned with your new way of life compared to your ancestors.
Many people think aging is an inevitable result of time passing, but it seems to be more of a wear and tear issue with the added bonus of self healing that inanimate objects do not have. What we are capable of is often completely underrated with our incredible potential taken for granted. However you too can be your best in health and beauty by going hard on the basics while being consistent, natural and carefully gentle in your approach as outlined in this article.
I hope this is the launching pad for you to go deeper on these issues yourself and do ever better in the most foundational aspects of your health, wellness, strength, fitness, constitution youthfulness and vitality.
