Older adults are prone to negative physical and psychological changes, and you definitely don’t want these for yourself. Thankfully, there are habits you can drop to make your senior years easier to live through. We’ve compiled 17 of these habits for you to stop today.
Pessimism About Aging
To adapt to all the changes that come with old age, you first have to be optimistic about aging. Worrying about your senior years only forces you to have irrational thoughts and behaviors that make it difficult to manage your health. These lead to more diagnoses and lower life satisfaction.
Unhealthy Meals
Fried foods, foods with added sugar, high-salt foods, and processed meat are the worst foods an older adult can eat. They expose you to greater risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even cancer. Switch to diets with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and lean proteins instead.
Being Inactive
If you’re used to staying on the couch or bed for most of the day, it’s time to stop this habit. The CDC explains that even just 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activities per week, such as brisk walking, can prevent or delay many health problems in your senior years.
Holding Grudges
Forgiveness should be an important virtue in the latter years of life. Grudges can lead to resentment, irritability, anger, and even anxiety. They also increase stress levels, prevent you from enjoying the present, and prevent you from building better relationships for the future.
Overconsuming Alcohol
When you continue to consume alcohol, you risk developing colon and rectal cancers, as well as damage to your brain, liver, and immune system. You also worsen age-related conditions like osteoporosis, diabetes, stroke, memory loss, and mood disorders. The earlier you quit alcohol, the better for your physical and mental health.
Avoiding Visits to the Hospital
Medical care in the US is expensive, but with old age comes a plethora of age-related health issues, and medical checkups allow you to identify and start treatment for them early. By visiting the hospital when necessary, you can easily save yourself from spending more on medical treatment in the long term.
Thinking of Past Mistakes
Harvard Business Review sets it out clearly: “Rumination isn’t just unpleasant. It’s closely linked to poor problem-solving, anxiety, and depression.” Dwelling on the failures or shortcomings you’ve had to deal with in the past without learning from them directly negatively affects your satisfaction and quality of life as a senior.
Toxic Relationships
When you remain in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship, you place your mental well-being in harm’s way. Going into your senior years, you deal with heightened feelings of isolation and loneliness that are known to worsen your health. So, keep your relationships maintained, and cut off toxic people from your life!
Procrastination
Chronic procrastination is very dangerous for seniors. Not only does it expose them to higher levels of anxiety and stress, but it may also affect their attitude toward personal care. Worrying about the effects of unaddressed health issues reduces their quality of life, so just do it!
Being a Perfectionist
An NLM-published study led by Fry and Debats shows that perfectionism is associated with higher mortality risks in older adults. When you avoid putting yourself under pressure to meet high, unrealistic standards, you become more productive and less stressed, and you improve your quality of life.
Skipping Sleep
Yes, work is important, and it’s easy to lose sleep over it. However, a cumulative lack of sleep has long-term consequences for your health, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and stroke. To sleep better, have a regular, early bedtime schedule and avoid excessive use of caffeine.
Anti-Social Behavior
Being verbally abusive, violent, deceitful, unapologetic, and consistently unreliable pushes people away from you. That’s just not what you need in your senior years. Older adults are more prone to loneliness, and antisocial behavior only increases your risks even further. It exposes you to more problems, so it’s time to grow out of this habit!
Smoking Cigarettes
When you quit smoking, you stand a better chance of avoiding conditions like diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, and lung disease. This isn’t all, though; you also avoid worsening age-related eye problems like macular degeneration, cataracts, and glaucoma in your senior years. Quitting smoking really is a win-win.
Financial Irrationality
Overspending to the extent that you rack up debt and fail to save up for healthcare, investments, and retirement is risky for your life after 60. You expose yourself to financial stress, which a Federal Reserve survey concluded is directly associated with lower life satisfaction!
Unused Old Items
The older we get, the more possessions we accumulate, making our homes cluttered. Sadly, clutter causes more frustration and mental chaos in older adults and only worsens cognitive conditions that are already present. Hence, you must get rid of things you don’t use and adopt minimalism.
Social Comparisons
Comparing yourself with others easily breeds feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, and negative self-perception when you judge that they are doing “better” than you. It forces you into envy and social isolation, both bad habits that you must ditch for a better life after 60!
People-Pleasing
Finally, whether it’s due to fears of abandonment or a lack of boundaries, living your life fulfilling the interests of others is synonymous with self-neglect. You put your own individualism and life-fulfilling happiness aside, and, as Psych Central points out, you expose yourself to resentment. After 60, you should simply be your unapologetic self!
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