Beat the clock by staying active & well:

Staying active and well at every stage of life is a goal most of us hope to attain. One way to accomplish healthy longevity, is to beat the clock and fears of an ageing mind and body. It’s doable, and what’s more, it’s good for your health.

Time isn’t toxic

There’s no reason for our wellbeing to decline after a certain number of sunrises and sunsets. Nor should our thinking capacity wind-down with each tick of the clock. Researchers believe "ageing is unnatural… there may be no immutable biological law that decrees human beings have to get old and sick and die…By design, the body should go on forever." Also, meditative practices can actually aid longevity.   

This is certainly encouraging news that can change our outlook and raise our expectations for living a long and healthy life.

• Resist noting the passage of time and fearing what it might mean for your health and life-style. 

• Don’t limit the good things you can accomplish down the track.

• Look forward to maintaining your “vigour, freshness and promise” at every stage. 

• Quit thinking that you grow old because of the number of birthdays you’ve clocked up.

• Plan now to join the growing number of supercentenarians - those who’ve reached 110 years or more. 

Encouraging role models

Maybe you've heard more about mature people declining in later years, than those who’ve remained active and useful. Yet mental faculties, energy, and wellness can remain intact throughout life despite the number of times the earth revolves around the sun. 

Clara Barton who founded the American Red Cross, never let the age clock beat her into submission.She lived a long, useful life, working tirelessly into her nineties. Interviewed by journalist Viola Rogers for the New York American, Barton expressed this opinion about ageing.

"Most troubles are exaggerated by the mental attitude, if not entirely caused by them.The mind” she maintained, “is so constructed that we have become firmly convinced that after a certain length of time we cease to be useful, and when our birthday calendar indicates that we have reached or are nearing that time, we become lax in our work and finally cease to accomplish; not because we feel in reality that we are no longer useful, but because we are supposed by all laws and dictums to have finished the span of life allotted to work.”

Barton’s advice to beat the time clock and remain alert and healthy is simple.

“Let your life be counted by the mile-stones of achievement and not by the timepiece of years.”  As a consequence, she believed that we’d “all be younger and would live to be much older”. 

• Be heartened by individuals who’ve beaten the mental and physical limitations often associated with old age.

• Refuse to say that you used to be able to do this or that, and now you can’t because you’re older.

• Accept as true this ancient wisdom. You can “flourish like the palm tree: …bring forth fruit in old age…and be healthy and flourishing.”

• Beat the stop clock by expecting to retain a fit mind and body as the norm into the future.  

• Look forward to leading a long, active, productive life.