Aging gracefully starts by accepting the aging process of your individual body. But it doesn’t mean that you need to accept pain as a factor of aging.
Summary
- In order to find balance between our injury rate and our healing rate, we need to adjust our activities as we age, or improve our methods of self-care.
- Choose a form of exercise that works for your body type. If you consistently get injured when running, take that as a message from your body.
- Reduce sugars, simple carbohydrates and red meat, and replace them with more vegetables and complex carbohydrates like beans and legumes to reduce acidity and inflammation in the body.
- Excessive weight causes increased pressure on your weight bearing joints. If you’re overweight consider healthy lifestyle changes to reach a more optimal weight.
- Supplementing with vitamin D, B12 and omega 3’s can help to reduce pain as we age.
Excerpt from Pain-Free Aging, Part 1 by Dr. Heather Tick MD
Published in House Calls December 2008
“As the Baby Boomers navigate middle age, there is a new and energetic definition of aging. There is an acceptance of older faces peering at us from billboards, and more advertising is geared toward the generation that has always been a defining force for the marketplace. But there is still a struggle with the implications of aging in this generation.
For some, it is only acceptable to age if they can still act as though they are 30 years old. Those who aim for eternal youth often throw caution to the wind as they pursue healthy habits for as long as they can. For these people, aging may seem shocking. The process is easier for those who acknowledge that they will age but want to do it gracefully; one of the key factors in pain-free aging is to accept the aging process of your own body. Some assume that aging necessarily means we will be in more pain, and this is not necessarily the case.”
