aging Archives - Personal Power to Heal, Lead, Grow, and Live Your Best Life

Holistic Approach to Anti-Aging

As people live longer, many of us search for a way to slow down the effects of aging. Many people use different creams and gels, or use plastic surgery to keep their youthful appearance. But there is a holistic approach that we can use to combat aging.

Holistic healing, unlike the topical creams and gels, treats the underlying cause for the problem and not just the symptoms of the problem. While we may never be able to stop the aging process, we can use holistic practices to slow down the aging effects.

Your Skin

The skin is the largest organ in the human body and is easily impacted by day to day factors. You cannot have good skin if you are not eating right, getting enough sleep, or if you live your life in a state of constant stress.

Inflammation and Free Radicals

Understanding that free radicals cause inflammation in the body is very important because, according to Dr. Michael Klentze, international medical director of the Vitalife Corporation at Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, inflammation is what causes us to age. Free radicals occur naturally and, if your body does not get enough antioxidants to fight them, they are free to go about the body and do their damage.

Damage caused by free radicals can be stopped by eating antioxidant-rich foods or taking supplements such as vitamin C, coenzyme Q10, zinc, and magnesium. Water is also an important factor in slowing the signs of aging. Your body is made mostly of water and if you allow it to dehydrate you will see more wrinkles. Ensuring that you get enough water will also allow your skin to retain its elasticity over time.

Proper Circulation

Using holistic healing to maintain proper circulation is important when it comes to slowing down the aging process. Your entire body relies on proper circulation, and without it you will quickly see your body start to age and “fall apart”.

How Holistic Healing Works

There are reasons one person ages faster than another, and it is those reasons that can be treated with holistic healing. You cannot separate the health of your skin, your mind, and your body. You must be treated as a whole person. The chances of you reducing the signs of aging by simply focusing on your skin are slim, but if you focus on your entire body ensuring that you are physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy you will see that you can significantly reduce the signs of aging.

Reversing the Signs of Aging

It is also possible to reverse the signs of aging with holistic healing. One way to do this is to ensure that your body is getting enough essential fatty acids. Each cell must have essential fatty acids in order to function properly, help to nourish the skin, and provide tone. You can find essential fatty acids in foods such as leafy greens, walnuts, fish oils, and flax seed oils.

Exercise

Physical activity is an important factor when it comes to reversing or slowing down the aging process. Our bodies are made to move, and physical exercise can help to raise your metabolism as well as reduce your weight. Ensuring that you are not over-stressing your body by causing it to carry around extra weight is an important part of slowing down the aging process.

Through adding exercise and supplements to your daily routine, ensuring you are getting enough water and sleep, and keeping stress levels at a minimum, you can help to reduce the signs of aging. The best way to slow down the signs of aging is to focus on your body as a whole ensuring that you are in the best health possible instead of focusing on your specific physical aging symptoms. This way you will be likely to keep your youthful appearance for years to come.

Balance

Keeping your body in its optimal state of balance will keep your stress levels low, your cells oxygen-rich, and your emotional and physical health at their peak. Knocking down the walls of resistance to exercise, healthy eating, and emotional stability are key to your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Schedule your next healing session now to explore your possibilities. You may even find your own personal Fountain of Youth!

Exercise After 50: What You Should Be Doing

Many people get exercise wrong as they age. Why? Because they often stop altogether. This is one of the worst things you can do to your body, especially at a time when exercise is needed more than ever.

The aging process speeds up breakdown of muscle and connective tissue, and can leave you immobile – especially if you sit there and do nothing about it!

Already over 50? No problem, you can still take action to help prevent an unfortunate outcome. Read on to discover what exercises you should consider incorporating into your fitness plan.

Aerobics

Aerobics, also known as cardio or cardiovascular exercise, is important at any point of life, but more so as we get older. Aerobic exercise plays an important part in maintaining the health of various organs, including the heart, lungs, and brain.

Though there are many different types of aerobic exercise, you should probably start with low-impact to protect your joints until you get ready to handle more.

Some to consider:

Walking
Swimming
Cycling (including stationary bikes)
Jogging
Dancing

Strength Training

Many people associate strength training with becoming a bodybuilder, but your body actually needs resistance to stay functional. People that weight train regularly have a greatly decreased risk of fractures, pain, and immobility typically caused by muscle atrophy.

You should consider basic strength training until you feel ready to add resistance. Added resistance is good, but do it only when you feel you are capable. Injury is a risk you don’t need to take to strengthen your body.

Some exercises to consider:

Squats
Bench presses
Push ups
Pull up/ assisted pull ups
Lat pull downs shoulder presses
Deadlifts / hyperextensions
Triceps presses
Dumbbell curls
Yoga
Pilates
Tai Chi

Flexibility Training

The single most underrated aspect of any training program is the flexibility component. It’s easy to overlook because you don’t see immediate physical changes, but in the long run it can greatly improve your ease of movement. Think of it as insurance – the insurance that safeguards you from possible immobility or injury. Flexibility training has numerous benefits on a body aged over 50, such as:

Decreased pain after training – One reason muscles and joints ache after a workout is because of an inability of muscles to elongate or stretch back out without placing undue stress on connective tissue.
It promotes balance – Loss of balance occurs frequently as we age due in large part to loss of muscle mass, but also because of stiff connective tissue. Flexibility training can significantly help you maintain balance as you age.

Include these in your flexibility training to reap the benefits:

Dynamic Stretches – These are stretches performed prior to your workout to get the muscle and connective tissue loose and ready for activity. This significantly helps to reduce the risk of injury during an active workout.
Static Stretches – These are stretches performed after working out a muscle group, to relieve muscle tension. Static stretches help stretch the muscle fibers and reduce pain after your workout.

Conclusion

A complete plan should include aspects from each of the exercise types mentioned above to maintain the integrity of joints, heart, and muscles. Staying mobile will help extend your high level of health and quality of life as you age. If you have physical pain that prevents you from beginning an exercise routine, talk to your doctor for suggestions. You can also set up an exploration session – maybe we can figure out why your body is sending you the pain signal and restore balance to that area so the pain signal can go away. Then you can exercise and enjoy it without pain!