Turning 50 is a pretty big deal–you’re slowly creeping into old age, so it’s time to be more serious about your physical, mental, financial, and social well-being. If you want to maximize your comfort for the latter parts of your life, it’s best to stop doing the following 18 things today.
Being Pessimistic
A study published by the NLM reveals that optimism increases one’s likelihood of managing diseases, improves one’s quality of life, and makes positive decisions less difficult. It also avoids the cognitive dissonance that comes from being pessimistic, so keep thinking positively!
Ignoring Social Relationships
Loneliness is a common issue that many older adults find themselves dealing with. It causes mental health problems that reduce your overall quality of life as you get older, so you should start nurturing social connections now to avoid social isolation during your senior years.
Living in the Past
One surefire way to put yourself in mental distress is to think about mistakes of the past and what could’ve been. This is a habit you want to replace with mindfulness, such as through meditation, allowing you to focus on your feelings and the things happening around you at the moment.
Ignoring Exercise
If you’ve avoided working out for the last 50 years, it’s not too late. Start now, and you’ll build muscles, stay in shape, and feel healthier. Best of all, the CDC reminds us that exercise prevents or delays many health problems that come with old age, so think of it as a long-term investment.
Intensive Physical Activities
Yes, exercise is great, but you don’t want to engage in dangerous or rigorous activities that put you at risk of injuries. Wounds and fractures take longer to heal as we grow older, so rock climbing, snowboarding, and heavy lifting should be replaced with low-intensity aerobic activities like swimming.
Taking Unhealthy Food
Diets containing fried foods, added sugar, high-salted foods, and processed meat are the most unhealthy for older adults. It’s best to rid yourself of them, as they put you at higher risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, bone disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers.
Drinking Alcohol
If you’re turning 50, it might be time to ditch the alcohol or at least cut down. Alcohol doesn’t just expose you to greater risks of diabetes and high blood pressure; as an older adult, alcohol also makes you lose coordination and risk dangerous, injury-prone falls. It’s just not worth the buzz.
Sleeping Poorly
Sleep is important for maintaining proper health in old age. By 50, you should stop sacrificing hours to get more done in your day, and you should even consider moving away from sleeping in a noisy environment. If you still feel tired after waking up, it’s time to change your sleeping habits!
Procrastinating
As you age, you need to eliminate as many stressors as possible, and eliminating procrastination is a great place to start. Procrastination doesn’t just stop things from being achieved; it also causes anxiety, which obviously doesn’t fit into the proactive needs of senior health management.
Neglecting Retirement Planning
At age 50, you only have an average of 12 to 15 years of work left in you. Stop living one day at a time, forgetting about what the future holds, as it’s time to start retirement planning. Trust us, you’ll thank yourself later down the line when you’re comfortably enjoying your retirement.
Ignoring Your Eyes
Do you still take your eyes for granted at 50? You better stop that, as Cleveland Clinic reveals that cataracts are just one of the many vision-related complications that develop in old age. To protect your sensitive eyes, stay away from smoke, avoid fluorescent lights, and start going for regular eye examinations!
Buying Luxury Items
Considering you’ve started thinking about your retirement, it might be time to stop buying luxury items. This is a time to reevaluate your finances and figure out how best to approach retirement and healthcare, and if you’re spending on unnecessary luxury items, you won’t be saving enough for a retirement account.
Holding Grudges
When you refuse to forgive others for their misdeeds, you keep yourself occupied by the past and ignore your own peace of mind. You also become too sensitive to the actions of others around you, which could harm your relationships. You don’t need any of those challenges when you’re 50!
Skipping Checkups
Checkups and preventative screening have always been a good idea, right from when you were a toddler. However, the increased risk of health complications in old age means you need them more than ever. You could find health problems earlier, preventing them from becoming serious later on, so don’t skip your checkups!
Caring What Others Say
If you’ve always been concerned about the opinions of others, the age of 50 is the time to let this go. You only have one life to live, so dye your hair, explore an expressive hobby, or do whatever else you feel like without thinking of what others will say.
Staying in Noisy Environments
The older you get, the lower your coping mechanisms are against environmental stressors such as noise. An NLM study stressed that staying close to loud sounds, especially for extended periods, exposes you to complications like hearing loss and tinnitus—a ringing sound that may continue for life.
Avoiding Difficult Conversations
Many people try to avoid difficult conversations because of the discomfort that comes with them, but doing so only postpones solutions and suppresses feelings of anxiety. It’s even worse to do this in your older age, as you’ll end up regretting these lost conversations, so tackle your anxieties head-on!
Maintaining Bad Posture
Last but perhaps most important, you need to stop ignoring your posture after 50. Do you want to deal with increasingly worse back, neck, and shoulder pain? No, so start maintaining a good posture! This is particularly important if you’ve spent your adulthood slumped in an office chair!
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