While it can be amusing to listen to people talk about anti-aging strategies, it’s unfortunate when people believe in aging myths and choose to live their lives according to these myths.
Myths surrounding aging can be dangerous and encourage your chances of illness in old age. Realizing that they are untrue can cut the risk for chronic illness, inflammation, and a host of issues associated with advanced age.
If you believe the following common misconceptions about aging and hold on to skincare and hair dye as the only real anti-aging techniques, you could be setting yourself up for a future you really don’t want.
Top Myths About Aging
You don’t need to socialize: Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, it might require a little more energy and planning, and the venues may have changed from the nighttime movies, clubs, or festivals, but social interaction is an essential component to healthy aging.After retirement, recreational socialization takes on an added component. Getting together with friends for dinners, card games, events, or joining various groups in your community focused toward your age group allows you to enjoy the health benefits of conversation and socialization.
You can’t exercise: Look, if you can get up out of bed, you can exercise. “Exercise” doesn’t mean running a marathon, sprinting, or lifting hundreds of pounds. Joint pain, weaker bones, and heart trouble may change the way you exercise, but they certainly don’t mean you can’t boost activity.
Instead of running, go for a walk. You can participate in plenty of suitable activities that ease the burden on joints including walking, dancing, water aerobics, swimming, cycling, or Zumba. Exercise doesn’t have to leave you feeling beat up.
You can’t change: Perhaps you’ve been eating the same way for most of your life and think it’s never done you wrong. Dietary habits, however, can wear away at your body over time and lead to weight gain, blood sugar problems, and other conditions that contribute to inflammation. Teaching yourself some new tricks such as focusing on more nutrient-dense foods, swapping white bread for whole-grain or lettuce wraps, ditching fruit juice for water, and opting for more fruits and vegetables over processed foods can all produce anti-aging health benefits very quickly.
Disease is par for the course: This might be the worst myth of all because if you think you’re bound to get sick anyway, there is little incentive to do anything about it. But understanding that you have a substantial amount of control over your health through lifestyle choices such as socializing, getting more activity, and making healthier food choices, you can give yourself a top-notch anti-aging plan.
Devon Andre holds a bachelor’s of forensic science from the University of Windsor in Canada and a Juris Doctor from the University of Pittsburgh. This article was first published on Bel Marra Health. 
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