Look and feel five years younger

From being relaxed about stress to ‘eating’ water, there are simple ways to slow down ageing.

We all want to look and feel great for our age. And the more science discovers about how we age, the more it becomes clear that some simple lifestyle hacks can help your body to be not only healthier, but look younger, too!

Here’s some more good news. There are plenty of other benefits to turning back the clock than just glowing with good health. “Most of the major diseases we confront rarely occur until our bodies begin to show signs of ageing,” says Dr Michael Roizen, author of the bestselling RealAge book series. So, read on for what you can do, starting today, to look and feel years younger.

A US study of women between the ages of 20 and 50 found that those who felt the most stressed aged 10 years faster than women with the same levels of stress, but who felt more relaxed.

One of the main ways scientists establish our biological age is to measure telomeres, which are the caps at the end of each chromosome in the body. These become shorter as we age.

In this study on stress, the women with the highest perceived level of stress had hastened the shortening of their telomeres.

According to Dr Howard Murad – a leading authority in the field of anti-ageing – stress and anxiety not only reduce telomere length but also impair our immune response and cause ageing inflammation. The upshot is that we become more vulnerable to chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and arthritis, as well as other issues associated with ageing, such as shortsightedness and hearing loss. Dr Howard says that we “sort of worry ourselves older”.

Dr Murad says that if you change your perception of stress, you can alter how fast you age. His research has shown that putting more feel-good activities into your life, such as yoga or even a cooking class, can actually increase the length of your telomeres. In one study he conducted, people took part in activities such as mindfulness, practising positive thinking, regular exercise and enjoying social connections with friends and family. At the end, all participants were shown to have reduced the damage to their DNA.

A similar study by Dr Dean Ornish, founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in the US, has shown that a combination of the above strategies can increase the length of telomeres. And a US study of 70,000 women, with an average age of 70, showed that the most optimistic group had a lifespan almost 15 per cent longer than the least optimistic group. Now that’s positive news!

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Sure, we know that turning off Netflix and doing a workout is good for our health, but how many of us realise that doing nothing makes us physically age faster? Exercise physiologist Mark McKeon says that, without active intervention after the age of 30, women on average lose two per cent of strength a year, four per cent of flexibility/mobility and about six per cent of cardiovascular fitness.

“The good news is you can maintain strength and stay younger with two weekly workouts, where you do at least one set of exercises for major muscle groups until you can’t do even one more in that session,” Mark says. As you get stronger, you’ll be able to increase the number. “Also, yoga, Pilates, tai chi or stretching on a mat at home each morning will pay huge anti-ageing benefits.”

We also need cardiovascular exercise, the kind that gets our heart pumping. Mark says that if you’re returning to fitness after not being active for some time, it’s important to cut yourself some slack and not judge your success or failure by what you did in your 20s, or what others in your training class may be doing.

“My best advice is to be kind to yourself by mixing it up with two to three comfortable cardio sessions each week,” he suggests.

In a study of people over 70 who had made exercise a lifelong habit, scientists discovered that the subjects’ hearts, lungs and muscles were in equivalent shape to people in their 40s.

If that’s not you, don’t despair. Further studies have shown that, regardless of your previous fitness levels, investing just 30 minutes a day into exercise can increase your lifespan. Those walking shoes, or that gym membership, really are a good investment, after all.

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