It’s easy to ask what you can do to look and feel younger. It’s harder to look at what you’re already doing to accelerate aging.
Chronological aging is a fact of life. Years climb as they pass, and there is nothing you can do about it. The years will lead to some natural decline, but how much impact they have has a lot to do with how you live.
On the other side of chronological age, there is biological age. This is how your cells and organs age. In some cases, they are well behind your chronological age. In other cases, they are far ahead.
You could have a series of habits that accelerate your biological age. The signs might be showing up on your face and how you feel. But if you don’t know how these factors are affecting you, how can you do anything about them?
Some of the factors that could be leading you to look and feel older include:
Poor Sleep: Inadequate sleep can affect how your skin looks and body feels. It also promotes higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol that can break down collagen, promote inflammation, and suck the energy from your day.
Unhealthy Diet: A healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and protein can help keep you strong, prevent heart disease, slow cell oxidation, prevent Type 2 diabetes, and combat chronic inflammation that taxes your system.
Inactivity: The more you get out and move, the healthier your body is. Activity helps keep muscles strong, blood moving, and keeps you energized and enthused.
Isolation: Maintaining meaningful emotional relationships with friends and family can also help you fight back against biological aging. Connections to others help keep your mood up, ease stress, and may slow down cognitive decline.
These are just a few factors that can influence aging. Depending on your lifestyle, you could be accelerating aging or slowing the aging process down. Take a look at what you’re doing and how it could be affecting the aging process.
Mohan Garikiparithi holds a degree in medicine from Osmania University (University of Health Sciences). He practiced clinical medicine for over a decade. During a three-year communications program in Germany, he developed an interest in German medicine (homeopathy) and other alternative systems of medicine. This article was originally published on Bel Marra Health. 
