It’s no secret that we can live longer by living a healthy lifestyle. By prioritizing our physical and mental health, we can not only live longer lives but we can also keep our healthcare costs down. As Barron’s Neal Templin reports on the three factors to help maximize our healthy, retired years.
Longer Healthy Living
As it may turn out, genetics might play a significantly less important role in our bodily health. They are still important, and can give us warning when it comes to chronic illness, but when it come to our lifespan, they don’t have as much of an impact. What does have an impact is our physical and mental health. In fact, we can potentially add some longevity to our retirements by focusing on three simple factors. Those three factors are diet and exercise, sleeping well, and social interaction.
Diet and Exercise
For some exercise is the easy part and the hard part for others. Just know that dieting and exercising doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Any positive progress adds to value to your physical health. Seniors can find low impact activities to get started exercising and work up from there.
When it comes to dieting, nutritional balance is key. Avoid processed sugars as best you can and find ways to reward yourself that don’t involve food. Pursuing a balanced diet can lead to a decreased risk of heart disease and less stress. Just start slow and find a way to make your favorite foods balance out with some healthy options.
Sleep
Sleep is essential for both better physical and mental health. When we don’t sleep our bodies don’t function properly. It can help our minds stay sharp, and more importantly, it can make us feel relaxed and calm. For retried seniors, sleep may seem like an easy thing to achieve, but we tend to allow our stressors get the better of us no matter what. Avoid thinks that can add to your anxiety and be sure to get a full night’s rest.
Social Interaction
Finally, this last factor might not seem like an obvious one, but it’s just as important as the others. Humans are social creatures. Retirement can feel lonely sometimes when we aren’t surrounded by a million coworkers every day. Positive social interaction can help us feel connected to others and to ourselves. That kind of connection can do wonders for our mental health, ensuring stronger cognitive performance as we age.
For more ways to be healthy in retirement make sure to follow the Council for Retirement Security. Protect Social Security the same way you protect your health, by fighting for it.