Living well is a balance of art and science, and just as with cooking, feeling younger requires just the right mix of tried-and-true tricks and freshly thought-up tweaks. Here's a short list of some of our favorite easy but deeply effective changes to help spice up your daily habits and keep you looking fresh.
1 – Plan time for the emotional "dough" to rest
Like a good dough or marinade, we all undeniably need downtime simply to unwind, and also like a good dough you cannot replicate that "rising time" with some instant solution. Beyond just getting enough sleep, try to offset your exercise times with 15 to 20 minutes of carefully planned, no-pressure relaxation at least twice a week.
Do this: Recognize rest as growth time and plan your schedule around it. You will be surprised at how just shifting gears for a few minutes helps energize your body and mind.
2 – Get in tune with your own tastes
Good chefs avoid "instant" foods partly because these dull the palate and make them insensitive to the complex balance of tastes that makes for delightful cooking. The same principle also holds for healthy living; regardless of your age, when you limit yourself to "packaged" experiences that don't require risk or experimentation, that lack of play and challenge robs you of some of the delight of living and makes you feel old.
Do this: Take the time to pursue a new hobby or re-explore your love for an old one; rekindling joy in one area of life helps make you feel fresher and more flexible to meet challenges in another.
3 – Balance sweet and tart
Exercise is one of the most important factors to feeling emotionally young, and obviously it also has important youth-preserving physical effects, but unfortunately plenty of people fail to strike the right balance between pleasure and pressure, and lose both. Like a good sauce, a healthy exercise regimen should offset purely for-fun activities that help you recharge with higher-pressure pursuits that drive and motivate you to meet goals.
Do this: Balance out intense activities like marathon training with no-pressure activities like nature walks. If you can't find the time to work in a more low-key activity, try cross training with two very different types of exercise.
4 – Sweeten your speech
Some studies suggest that it takes as many as 14 kindnesses to offset the anxiety and negativity that just one harsh comment create. Changing statements like "I didn't like that" to "that could have been better in such-and-such a way" doesn't just force you to think through the why and how of what you feel – it equips you to move yourself and others past bad feelings so that you can avoid trapping yourself and those around you in a rut of bitterness or complaint.
Do this: Try to cut every "no," "won't," and "can't" from your vocabulary; even more importantly, try to transform that too-final negative into something worth focusing on. Being a person other people are happy to be around is one of the subtlest, simplest, but deepest-impacting ways to help you feel young.
1 – Plan time for the emotional "dough" to rest
Like a good dough or marinade, we all undeniably need downtime simply to unwind, and also like a good dough you cannot replicate that "rising time" with some instant solution. Beyond just getting enough sleep, try to offset your exercise times with 15 to 20 minutes of carefully planned, no-pressure relaxation at least twice a week.
Do this: Recognize rest as growth time and plan your schedule around it. You will be surprised at how just shifting gears for a few minutes helps energize your body and mind.
2 – Get in tune with your own tastes
Good chefs avoid "instant" foods partly because these dull the palate and make them insensitive to the complex balance of tastes that makes for delightful cooking. The same principle also holds for healthy living; regardless of your age, when you limit yourself to "packaged" experiences that don't require risk or experimentation, that lack of play and challenge robs you of some of the delight of living and makes you feel old.
Do this: Take the time to pursue a new hobby or re-explore your love for an old one; rekindling joy in one area of life helps make you feel fresher and more flexible to meet challenges in another.
3 – Balance sweet and tart
Exercise is one of the most important factors to feeling emotionally young, and obviously it also has important youth-preserving physical effects, but unfortunately plenty of people fail to strike the right balance between pleasure and pressure, and lose both. Like a good sauce, a healthy exercise regimen should offset purely for-fun activities that help you recharge with higher-pressure pursuits that drive and motivate you to meet goals.
Do this: Balance out intense activities like marathon training with no-pressure activities like nature walks. If you can't find the time to work in a more low-key activity, try cross training with two very different types of exercise.
4 – Sweeten your speech
Some studies suggest that it takes as many as 14 kindnesses to offset the anxiety and negativity that just one harsh comment create. Changing statements like "I didn't like that" to "that could have been better in such-and-such a way" doesn't just force you to think through the why and how of what you feel – it equips you to move yourself and others past bad feelings so that you can avoid trapping yourself and those around you in a rut of bitterness or complaint.
Do this: Try to cut every "no," "won't," and "can't" from your vocabulary; even more importantly, try to transform that too-final negative into something worth focusing on. Being a person other people are happy to be around is one of the subtlest, simplest, but deepest-impacting ways to help you feel young.
