How Can You Stay Looking And Feeling Young After 40?
*Collaborative post Image via Pexels – CC0 Licence
They say life begins at 40. And while it may be the prime of your life and the time that you really hit your stride through finally understanding who you are and what makes you happy, it can also be quite a stressful time of life. You may be juggling a career, a demanding family life with children, parents who are beginning to need more support, still studying for new qualifications and many other factors, all at the same time. This can leave you feeling as if you have very low energy levels.
You may start to look and feel more mature, and although you might be a fan of the wisdom you’ve gained, without the right mindset it can be harder to view physical symptoms of aging in quite the same light. Ageing well is not about trying to stop the inevitable march of time or recapture your youth – it’s about being the best version of yourself, at any time in your life. So if you have a little of that ‘stuck in a rut’ feeling, what can you do to make yourself look and feel fresher at 40 and beyond?
Define Your Exercise Routine
Perhaps life has been getting in the way of your sporting activities lately, or maybe you’ve just never been that into keeping fit – but as you get a bit older, it’s definitely more important to look after your body and mind by scheduling in regular workouts. The key is to find an activity that you love and a setting that is reasonable and practical for your lifestyle. For example you could find a Zumba class that you love and which becomes a way to socialise with friends as well as keeping fit. Or you might decide to set yourself a challenge and complete the Couch to 5k podcast so that you can enter a running event to raise money for a charity close to your heart. It could be rediscovering your love for yoga by making time for a morning session before your breakfast. Or you might prefer to follow some online HIIT workouts to shed some pounds. Exercise has so many benefits for keeping our health, our immune system and our bodies strong, and giving us mental clarity and focus too. Set a goal or try something new – either way making exercise a part of your everyday life is hugely important and will keep you youthful in mind and body.
Sort Out Your Smile
It’s often an overlooked detail, and yet it’s the one thing people tend to notice about us almost straight away – your smile says a lot about you. When we are proud of our teeth and know they are in great condition, we want to smile more often, which can have a real impact on the way others perceive us and also how we ourselves feel. Even if you’ve had a few dental issues over the years, it’s never too late for a smile makeover. There are really advanced, painless treatments available for almost any issue. Got a gap that you’ve always meant to sort out? Invisalign braces can help to give you a straighter smile and are almost completely indetectable. If you need more intensive work, you can look at dentures that replace your missing teeth to fill in any gaps that are holding your smile back. Or professional laser teeth whitening can work wonders to lift your appearance and give you back some confidence. Vallance Dental Centre also have many ways to help sort your smile!
Design Your Diet
Nutrition is an area that you can’t afford to overlook. Nourishing your body with the right foods is crucial to help your skin, hair and nails to glow and to keep you looking and feeling youthful. Pack your diet with superfoods that have incredible anti-aging and body boosting benefits – things like raw nuts, salmon, goji berries, quinoa and green tea. Make it your aim to eat a rainbow of different coloured fruits and vegetables with each meal – this ensures that your body is benefitting from the biggest range of nutrients and vitamins in a single day. You could even get some powdered supergreens to add to your smoothies and soups for an extra daily boost. Finding some simple healthy slow cooker recipes is an easy step – no matter how busy you are, it’s really easy to pop some ingredients in before bed and have a filling meal ready prepared by the evening. Life is all about balance – especially when it comes to your diet, but you should try to limit the amounts of processed food you eat in an average week in favour of more fresh produce. And it also pays to think about the health of your natural gut flora. Scientific research is now identifying more and more correlations between the state of our microbiome – our intestinal ecosystem – and our body’s health, inflammatory responses and even our mood. So it makes sense to add a daily probiotic to your routine. You can achieve this with probiotic supplements, yoghurt drinks or even by eating fermented foods that naturally have this effect, such as kombucha, sauerkraut or kefir. A little attention to the right nutrients will really do wonders for you and can literally turn back the clock.
Learn How To Manage Stress
With so much on your plate at once, your forties can be quite a stressful time. But there’s a very good reason to learn some stress management techniques – being stressed out ages your body and brain. When you feel anxious, your heart rate is abnormal and puts physical stress on your body’s system. Your brain gets less oxygen, so cells die off faster. And if your stress is ongoing, then your body releases cortisol. This hormone causes visceral fat to be retained around your vital organs, which is dangerous, and it also breaks down the skin’s reserves of collagen. It’s a sure fire recipe for looking and feeling older than your years. Of course, no one can avoid stressful events in their life – it’s all about how you manage them when they do come along. Taking the time to use a mindfulness app, learn some deep breathing or find a therapeutic way to process stressful situations – through art, music or sport – can be deeply beneficial on so many levels and is a valuable life skill.
