Signs of aging cannot be totally prevented, but there are many ways to stay healthy and minimize some of the downsides of advancing age.

Eating a balanced diet, exercising, and managing stress are always a good start. According to research, diet has been shown to have the greatest potential in supporting aging.

This article will discuss these and other ways of healthy aging, and take a look at the possibilities the future may hold.

birthday celebrationShare on Pinterest
MaaHoo/Stocksy

According to research, a healthy diet is the most promising of all aging support treatments. Caloric restriction is especially effective, as long as care is taken to avoid malnourishment.

A recent study showed that eating an optimized diet similar to the Mediterranean diet can add a decade or more to a person’s life, depending on when a person adopts the diet. Even someone who started at the age of 80 can add more than 3 years to their lifespan.

Benefits

  • can reduce the risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and cancer in human studies

Challenges

  • requires self-discipline and nutritional education

Learn more about the importance of nutrition here.

Regular exercise can help stave off 40 chronic conditions and diseases and may help with healthy aging by keeping cells younger for longer, according to research published in 2018.

Exercise can vary, including:

  • stretching
  • endurance
  • strength building
  • interval training
  • brisk walking
  • a strenuous hobby such as gardening

On the other hand, research shows that not exercising gives a bigger chance of premature death than smoking, diabetes, or heart disease. The study showed that people 70 years and older were the ones who got the greatest survival benefit from exercise.

Benefits

  • protects against chronic disease and helps extend lifespan
  • easy to do
  • free

Challenges

  • potential for injury if overdone
  • some individuals may need help to find the right exercise and practice it safely

Learn more about the importance of exercise here.

Research indicates that chronic stress may speed up the cellular aging process, making a person age more quickly. The researchers found that psychological resilience could lessen the negative long-term effects of stress.

Stress management techniques that may help develop this resilience include meditation, taking time for yourself, socializing, and getting professional help if you need it.

Benefits

  • lessens the risk of many chronic diseases
  • can improve enjoyment and quality of life

Challenges

  • requires self-discipline and regular practice
  • can take some time to have an effect

Learn more about the importance of managing chronic stress here.

The skin is the largest organ in the human body and is extremely complex. The skin is also one of the first areas of the body to show signs of aging. It becomes thinner, veins and bones may become more visibly prominent, injuries take longer to heal, and wrinkles and age spots begin to appear.

Moderating sun exposure is the best thing you can do for your skin. Moisturizing creams, facials, massage, and stretching exercises may also help. Chemical peels, dermabrasion, botox injections, and surgery are further options, though they have more potential side effects.

Benefits

  • improves texture and tone of skin
  • boosts self-confidence

Challenges

  • can be expensive
  • difficult to maintain a routine for some
  • difficult to not feed into idealizations of beauty, such as needing smoother skin

When you sleep, the body repairs and regenerates itself. A study showed that insomnia in older adults links to greater cellular aging and may increase the risk of developing chronic diseases of aging.

Researchers found that even 1 night of insufficient sleep is enough to speed up the aging of an older adult’s cells.

Benefits

  • promotes mental health and positive mood
  • may help avoid chronic diseases of aging

Challenges

  • may take some time to change sleep habits and see the effects
  • may require professional help to treat sleep disorders

Learn more about the importance of sleep here.

Aging can lead to social and physical changes that make older adults more vulnerable to alcohol misuse and more sensitive to its effects.

Research showed that deaths from alcohol misuse took an average of 26 years off the lives of people who died prematurely each year from 2015–2019, resulting in 3.6 million years of lost life. The deaths link to excessive drinking over time and resulted mostly from cancer, liver disease, stroke, and heart disease.

Benefits

  • can lessen disease development and premature death
  • can promote happier and less problematic lives

Challenges

  • may require professional help or institutional programs to quit alcohol

Learn more about the effects of alcohol on the body here.

According to the , tobacco use is the most common preventable cause of death in the United States.

The average smoker in the U.S. lives 10 years less than a nonsmoker. Quitting before the age of 40 cuts the risk of dying from diseases related to smoking by 90%. Quitting at any age will benefit health and longevity.

Benefits

  • reduces the risk of developing age-related diseases
  • extends a person’s expected lifespan

Challenges

Learn more about what happens after you quit smoking here.

Modern aging research began in 1988 when Tom Johnson and David Friedman published research in the journal Genetics showing that mutating one gene in a worm’s life extended its average lifespan by 40% and its maximum lifespan by 110%.

Since then, science has introduced a variety of measures that may increase human longevity in the future. Some of the current research subjects of geroscience, or the study of the biology of aging, include:

Though aging is currently inescapable, there are many ways to live with good health and sustainable energy. A healthy lifestyle involving diet, exercise, and stress management is the best way to start.

Science is looking at other measures that may help in the future, including medications, gene therapy, and potential cell rejuvenation.