I had a lot to be thankful for last long weekend; in addition to two big turkey dinners (one for each side of the family), I was invited to my friend's home for a 50th birthday celebration.
Reflecting on healthy living and aging, here are seven tips to staying young and healthy.
Be Like My Dad
Be yourself, and don't act your age. Don't waste this day preoccupied with what you don't have to worry about today. Keep working as long as you're having fun. If you're not having fun, start looking for another job.
Don't Avoid Doctors
Don't avoid doctors but avoid the things that will increase your need for medical care. If your recreational choices are harmful to your health, sooner or later you will be spending time in the hospital.
When you see your family physician, ask what you can do to maintain your wellbeing. Are you due for any screening tests? What can you do right now to improve your health?
Make Each Day a School Day
When I drive my daughter to school, I remind her of the three essentials of each day: learn something new, help someone else, and have fun.
Healthy Living
Keep doing the things that make you feel good in the long term, but avoid some of the things that make you feel good in the short term. In the former category are a supportive social network, meaningful activity, enjoyable exercise and healthy eating. In the latter, recreational drugs, excessive alcohol, unsafe sex and smoking.
Life Begins at Forty
If you were born before 1962, start counting your birthdays backwards each year. "30" will be the new "50." Keep flossing and brushing so that you will have more teeth when you are five again, and if you are lucky enough to be one again, hope that you won't need diapers and spoonfeeding.
I'm looking forward (again) to doing all the things I hoped to accomplish by age 30.
Check Out Realage. com.
Calculate your physical age, based on your health risks and lifestyle choices. It may give you a better age than the calendar and it's based on medical science rather than the preferred methods used by most over 30: fantasy and denial.
See With the Eyes of a Child
Continue to see each day, your world and the people in your life with the eyes of a child. Greet each day with the enthusiasm and open mind of a toddler, and see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Laugh as loudly and as often as a child. We see a lot of ridiculous and silly things in our lives, instead of complaining, we can giggle.
Dr. Davidicus Wong is a physician and writer. His Healthwise column appears regularly in this paper. For more on healthy living and positive change, read his posts at davidicuswong.wordpress.com and listen to his Positive Potential Medicine podcast at wgrnradio.
