Your Anti Aging Plan

When it comes down to anti aging, the single best thing your can do for your body is eat more fruits and vegetables (and less animal products). By switching to more fruits and vegetables, you provide your body with the raw ingredients of anti aging while eliminating the worst sources of unhealthy fats. Focus on fresh, delicious vegetables as your number one anti aging priority.

Thankfully, anti aging isn't just about depriving yourself of some of the pleasures of life. In fact, certain pleasures (like chocolate, red wine, coffee and sex) are quite good for you, as long as you partake in them in a reasonable manner. Chocolate, red wine and coffee all give your body some important nutrients (antioxidants) that it can use to repair the damage caused to your cells by aging. And sex, well, sex is just a good thing, and your body responds positively to it. These are just some of the fun ways to live longer.

Can something as simple as games be an essential part of an anti aging plan? The answer is "yes." Your brain needs exercise just like your muscles. The more projects and thinking you do, the more likely you are to slow your brain's aging. So learn a new language, try some "brain games" and just be engaged mentally in your world.

Nothing ages the body faster than disease and illness. If you can prevent the most common chronic illnesses (like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer), then your anti aging plan is fantastic. Learn some of the basic ways to prevent these illnesses and the screenings you need throughout your life to catch illnesses early when it is easier to do something about them.

Specific supplements advertise anti aging benefits, and then there are old-fashioned vitamins. Do any of these really work? Have we proven that taking vitamins and supplements can "trigger" anti aging in our bodies? Well, there is some good theory out there. But, unless you have a vitamin deficiency, it seems like there is no magic pill for anti aging.

Some people believe that our age is predestined. They believe that, despite any anti aging methods they use, their age is pre-determined in their genes. The truth is that genetics probably make up no more than 30% of the factors that determine how long you live -- the rest is up to you. If you have "bad genes" for diabetes, for example, you can reduce the chance of them mattering by eating a healthy diet and exercising. So don't blame you genes. Instead, create a strong anti aging plan.

Along with diet, exercise is one of your best tickets to anti aging. Even in older years, people who exercise just have fewer health problems, on average, than people who don't. Exercisers' bodies just work better. When you work exercise into your anti aging plan, be sure to combine strength, cardio, flexibility and balance. By focusing on these types of exercise, you will be giving your body its best shot at anti aging and longevity.

A not-so-secret anti aging secret is that being at a healthy weight is, well, healthy. If you can lose a few pounds, your life expectancy increases. This is partly because the extra weight is hard on your heart and the rest of your body, and partly because if you can maintain a healthy weight, you are probably exercising and eating well. So add weight loss into your anti aging plan using these simple tips.

Stress is a huge ager of your body. To create a good anti aging plan, you need to learn to relax and get stress out of your life. There are some solid, proven methods to do this, and the best of all of them is simply breathing. I know, it sounds cheesy and new agey, but breathing really, truly is one of the most effective relaxation techniques around. Create a solid relaxation habit through breathing and keep stress from harming your long-term health.

Wouldn't it be great if you could go to bed at night and just wake up younger? Sleep doesn't quite have that strong of an anti aging effect, but sleep is, indeed, essential to any anti aging plan. As you sleep, your body makes necessary repairs and does "maintenance." If you miss too much sleep, then health problems can arise (not to mention, you just feel tired). So make getting good sleep a priority in your anti aging plan.

There are people out there, some of them very smart, who believe that someday we will add hundreds of years to our life expectancy. These people are researching and talking about a field called "life extension." In "life extension," anti aging is taken to the max and the life span for a species is increased. There has been some success in worms, mice and monkeys. But nothing, to date, has come out indicating that it increases the human life span past the current mark of 122 years.