Age Well and Age Healthy: Here are Your Indicators

Let's learn more on healthy aging tips

1. Good quality of life

Not to be confused with standard of living, which primarily is evaluated by the income of a person, good quality of life is a measure of health and happiness. It’s about how optimistic your attitude towards life is and how you are able to live your life to the fullest every day. You feel a sense of productivity and progress even at the end of a stressful day.

2. Survival to a specific age in good health

Living a long life is important, but surviving till a certain age in good health is more important. A state of frailty or increased vulnerability to various life-threatening ailments prevents you from living a life free of perennial pain. In terms of healthy ageing, you grow old without losing your strength or walking speed. Live long, but you must make lifestyle changes pretty early in life to ensure that your later years of life are also pleasant.

3. Autonomy in daily living activities

In the later stages of our lives, we become dependent on others even for insignificant chores like getting a glass of water. Healthy ageing requires you to believe in a sense of autonomy in what you do every day. It means you find yourself capable of taking care of yourself. You don’t need to summon anyone for little tasks and you can also take calls about what you wish to do.

4. Few or no chronic diseases

Ailments are part of life. We get sick when seasons change or a bug bites us. Sometimes, it’s our fault and sometimes, it’s not. But something like harming your lungs with smoking or liver with alcohol is a choice and with age, the body may lose its ability to fight them. In healthy ageing, you train your body and mind for a life where you have stronger immunity and a life free of any chronic disease.

5. Little or no disability

Taking action to prevent any kind of disability is important. Early diagnosis and adequate treatment can stop the problem from escalating, thereinpreventing disability. Consumption of tobacco or alcohol or drugs can increase the risk of disability and so does exposure to any kind of radiation and sexual contact with a person with venereal disease.

6. No/mild cognitive or functional impairment

Impairment in body or mind’s structure and functioning like partial loss of vision or memory loss can derail a person’s life. You can age well if you keep a check on your physical and mental health and follow the healthy aging tips.

7. High social participation

No man is an island. Especially, when a person is growing old and has a lot of free time, he/she wants to spend more time with other people. However, family members may not always have time and the person can feel a sense of alienation. In healthy ageing, the elderly people enjoy a high level of social interaction. Now, it can come from family or it can come from being part of a club or community. It requires planning in your 40s and 50s about how you wish to spend your 60s, 70s, and 80s and in the process, play a bigger role in society than being just someone’s grandpa or grandma.

8. Behaviour

Lastly, behavior here means your choices - what you eat, how dependent are you on medicines, how much physical activity do you engage in. While it may sound difficult to achieve, it actually requires you to take small steps like making new and healthier choices every day.