Your body transforms multiple times both inside and outside as you age. Since we all must grow old, this is something you can’t affect much.
Aging is a mysterious process. Naturally, many people are scared of aging because age is the number one factor for the risk of getting cancer, disease, Alzheimer’s, macular degeneration, and cataract.
Still, wrinkles on your forehead and significant energy level drop are among the first things you’ll notice as you age.
In general, the heart becomes less efficient, and you start to feel pain in your bones.
That’s why older people always break bones more often than mid-age people. They go through a lack of elasticity in tissues, blood vessels, and muscles.
Most people focus on their appearance primarily, using collagen for wrinkles, creams for dry skin, and trying to cover liver spots (dark spots on hands, arms, feet, face, etc.) with clothes.
As you can see, people focus on dermatological solutions without thinking about what’s happening inside their bodies when the aging process hits.
How aging works?
There are different biological aspects of aging called “The Hallmarks of Aging”. There are things that happen inside your body as you age.
Let’s talk about that!
- DNA damage
- Gene expression errors
- Proteins becoming less functional
- Cells don’t die when they’re supposed to
- The body’s energy production machinery malfunctions
- Inefficient cell communication
- Imbalanced metabolism
- Stem cell exhaustion
- Telomere shortening
What does this mean? Take a moment to read about each hallmark and how it works exactly:
DNA damage
When DNA is replicated, there’s always a big possibility that the code might not be copied correctly. But with aging, this is a more common thing.
What’s happening? Parts are misspelled, and sections are inserted or even deleted. These DNA errors are supposed to be caught naturally by mechanisms in our bodies (mechanisms that repair DNA automatically), but with aging, this process is harder to finish.
As errors build up in our genetic code, there’s a great possibility that our bodies will read this cell wrong. As a result, they’ll start fighting against it, which causes the cell to become cancerous.
Gene expression errors aka epigenetic moderation
Some parts of DNA are read and moved (translated) into physical traits, which is where errors appear. Epigenetic moderation (a group of proteins in cells that controls which genes get expressed) ensures skin cells are different from brain cells regardless of whether they use the same set of DNA or not.
With age, protein bound to DNA becomes loose and less accurate, causing genes to get expressed when they shouldn’t. This is a gene error.
Also, most of the time, you’re not making any protein as you age.
Proteins become less functional, stable and accurate in their roles
Proteins are continuously produced because they perform integral functions in the cells. In other words, they control 90% of functions inside the cells. Proteins have a job to:
- Move materials
- Carry signals
- Turn the process on and off
- Provide structural support for cells
They have to be regularly recycled because of various jobs they do to support cells.
Proteins need to have full power.
Over time, they lose effectiveness, and, over the years, they lose almost all of their effect, such as the ability to eliminate old proteins and replace them with new ones.
In the aging process, old and unusable proteins build up and become toxic, which leads to Alzheimer’s. Beta-amyloid proteins aggregate in the brain, causing the loss of nerve cells most of the time.
Cells don’t die when they’re supposed to, becoming cancer cells instead
When cells become damaged due to too much stress, they stop dividing and turn into “zombie cells” otherwise senescent cells.
Zombie cells infect other healthy cells in their vicinity. Their job is to spread inflammation through the whole body until they develop a “zombie” zone in it.
The senescent cells seem to reverse some effects of aging if you eliminate them naturally and slowly over time.
Scientists are trying to develop several drugs (senolytics) to reduce senescent cells in order to prevent or reverse the aging process.
The body’s energy production machinery malfunctions
Mitochondria (keeps the body’s light on in a sense) by converting oxygen and food into energy in cells. As cells age, these “powerplants” become more inefficient and dysfunctional.
What happens when they don’t work?
They can produce an altered form of oxygen that harms proteins and causes damage to the DNA.
Inefficient cell communication
Just as your car can’t work if all its parts don’t collaborate at the same time, your body can’t work if cells don’t communicate with each other.
How cells communicate? They send signals through blood and immune systems. However, when your body gets older, the cells forget how to communicate and become generally worse in communication.
If some cells become less responsive, they will switch into inflammation-causing cells, aka senescent cells.
Inflammation is always bad because it’s produced by these senescent cells that block further communication between healthy cells. In other words, this prevents further sharing of information and feedback.
If every group of cells starts working separately, the immune system can’t clear out pathogens or bad cells.
Aging changes the intercellular communication between the neuroendocrine and the endocrine systems. In other words, messages sent through hormones, such as insulin, get lost.
Imbalanced metabolism
Nutrition is important because cells need to adapt to the number of available nutrients. So, logically, it can be a problem when an imbalance with the ability to process or even sense nutrients occurs.
With age, cells don’t correctly count or detect the amount of nutrients, glucose, or fats in the body, which makes it difficult to process sugar and fat right.
Aging cells accumulate fats in excessive amounts only because cells don’t digest properly anymore. This directly affects the IGF-1 path and insulin, possibly causing diabetes.
Diabetes is common for the elderly because older adults can’t metabolize all the food they intake.
Stem cell exhaustion – tissue stops renewing and recovering automatically
With aging, the rate of tissue renewal becomes slower, which is the reason why tissue damage tends to accumulate with age.
Stem cells have the ability to become different types of cells in our bodies. They transform into deficit ones in our bodies, providing constant balance.
Stem cells act as an internal repair system in tissues, continually replacing damaged cells or dead ones.
These cells become exhausted as you age, becoming less active. They can’t quickly divide or complete their purpose, making it difficult to renew and recover tissue.
Telomere shortening
Telomeres are white structures at the tip of chromosomes. They act as protective caps at the end of each strand of DNA.
So, the tip of the chromosome gets shorter every time cells divide, and when telomeres are lost chromosome becomes unstable, which causes several problems.
The goal in the aging process is to find a connection between these nine processes. However, scientists don’t understand the hallmark of aging yet.
All that we can do to this day is to manipulate how we age and treat the age-related diseases that have a cure.
7 Everyday Things That Age You
Inflammatory foods
The first thing you should think about if you want to stop wrinkles is about what’s on your plate. Most people eat at least three times a day, including foods like red meat, processed foods, sugar, white bread margarine, and other similar ingredients.
Many don’t include as many fruits and vegetables. What you maybe don’t know is that this kind of diet is bad for your skin.
Consider changing your diet and stocking up on omega-3 fatty acid-rich food and ALA (alpha-linolenic acid).
This includes flaxseeds, flaxseed oils, olive oil, salmon, avocado, etc.
Fruits and veggies can help, providing additional nutrients that are good for the anti-aging process inside our bodies. You can eat any fruit and vegetables, although red pepper and carrots are the best.
Protein is another thing you shouldn’t forget. It plays a significant part in inflammation, which is why you should always keep meals balanced and rich with proteins.
The best anti-aging food is:
- Pomegranates: for softening skin
- Blueberries and Concord grapes: for smoothing fine lines
- Kale, Spinach and Swiss Chard: for firming
- Cold-Water fish: for reducing redness
- Green tea: for diminishing brown spots
- Watermelons and Tomatoes: for a dewy complexion
- Olive oil: for a healthy glow
Alcohol
The more you drink, the more dehydrated you get because alcohol is a well-known natural diuretic.
When drinking, your liver needs to work more to produce acid that kills cells important for anti-aging.
It needs to work harder to flush the toxins. And while an occasional drink probably won’t harm you, constant drinking in the amounts that your body and liver can’t process is quite dangerous.
Excessive drinking makes it hard for the liver to get rid of those toxins. As a result, they’ll stay inside your pores, causing your skin to look old. This may also cause acne and wrinkles.
Not exercising
Di you know that excessive running can cause a “running face”? It happens when oxygen leads to a breakdown in collagen. However, this shouldn’t prevent you from exercising at all.
Moderate exercise is great for your lungs, heart, and weight and overall wellbeing. It also helps with rejuvenating your skin.
Opt for short and sweaty workouts. You don’t have to work out every day, but at least three times a week. If you don’t have the time, try to be as active as possible in several other ways.
Collagen is bound to crash when your body is inactive. If you can’t exercise as often, you should also:
- Use antioxidants and sunscreen
- Build collagen through food
- Take collagen supplements
- Undergo professional procedures and medical treatments
Makeup
Makeup is fun and ideal for covering different flaws on your skin. We use it to enhance our features and hide our faults, but too much of it can be quite harmful.
Using too much makeup every day can soon make you look older than you are. Also, using expired and low-quality products is equally as dangerous.
Smog
Chemicals in the air can cause reactive oxygen species and shake the balance in your body cells.
To protect your skin from air pollution, you should:
- Cleanse at night
- Fortify the skin with antioxidant
- Add barrier repair cream
Smoking
This is a well-known bad habit. Nicotine in cigarettes leads to narrowing of blood vessels in the outermost layers of the skin – impaired circulation. Fewer nutrients mean weaker body supply. Nicotine has collagen-destroying chemicals, affecting your lungs, brain, and heart.
Stress
Stress, anxiety, and constant worrying increase your blood pressure, disturb your sleeping habits and lower your energy level.
Work-related stress is the most common, actively pressuring your brain. Here’s what you should do if you’re feeling stressed:
- Avoid processed foods
- Limit caffeine intake
- Exercise, run, walk, do yoga
- Mediate
- Boost your energy with dancing (at home or a dance class)
- Do breathing exercises
- Sleep at least eight hours
How to Reverse Aging?
Although cosmetic solutions are the most popular when preventing or hiding the process of aging, there’s more that you can do.
However, keep in mind that aging gracefully takes a lot of work and effort. It’s up to you to make the conscious effort and make the changes.
Take a moment to read about the best age-reversing solutions. These are effective and heavily researched by scientists. Here’s what you can do:
Use retinoid
Retinoid performs a large number of miracles, such as reducing skin age, lightening age spots, firming the skin, etc.
How does it work?
- Retinoids increase skin’s production of collagen
- Stimulate the growth of new blood vessels
- Speed the turnover of surface skin cells, allowing new to replace the old
- Fix few skin problems
Use sunscreen
This is a popular anti-aging tool that prevents premature aging, protecting your skin from UVA (aging) and UVB (burning) rays. It also guards against skin cancer.
Make it your habit to use sunscreen every day, even if it’s not sunny outside. It’s among the best things you can do for your health and the anti-aging process.
Reverse the decline in muscle strength
You can reverse the deterioration of muscle strength by following a simple program. Aging causes sarcopenia, which is a decline in skeletal muscle strength.
Loss of muscle strength makes it more challenging to perform daily tasks, which can lead to falling and losing your independence.
Weight lifting and strength training can help you in this battle. Push yourself according to your limits, opting for yoga, pilates, gym training, walking, biking, etc.
Trigger autophagy
Autophagy is spring cleaning for your cells. As your cells shift through various parts, they get rid of all the old and unusable ones, making space for new ones.
Autophagy keeps your cells young, allowing you to run faster, and produce less cellular waste. This makes your entire system more efficient.
How to trigger autophagy? You can do it by working out and intermittent fasting that’s great for brain stimulation as well.
Upgrade your mitochondria
Mitochondria are power plants for your cells – they run every time your body does anything from breathing to thinking and moving.
Mitochondria slows down as you age, producing less energy and leading to:
- Fatigue
- A decrease in muscle mass
- Decreased brain functions
- A decline in cardiovascular health
Ways to upgrade your mitochondria are:
–Do HIIT (for young people) – high-intensity interval training is the best booster for your mitochondrial function because it hits straight to energy production. It allows the maximum capacity of mitochondrial function every time.
–Keto diet – the keto diet is made up of lots of fats and very few carbs. It helps to grow new mitochondrial cells in the liver, preventing stress-related damage in your body.
Have sex
Women who have sex with their long-term partners have more enzymes that stimulate the growth of telomeres.
Also, many studies showed that people who are having regular sex with their long-term partners have more new cells. Their bodies are better at replacing cells faster.
When you practice sex with your long-term partner, the level of activity and energy boosts your neuro cells to transform and replace halfway dead and unsafe cells from your body.
Don’t forget that this activity allows serotonin to spread through your body, raising your brain function and allowing the muscles to rest naturally after it.
Take advantage of ED meditations
While we’re speaking of sex, you might want to consider meditation for erectile dysfunction
Couples who have problems with ED should go to couple therapy because, believe it or not, some 80% of ED comes from your mind. However, some people don’t like talking about this issue. If that’s the case with you, you should opt from group meditations.
Meditating in a group can balance and sharpen your focus. It can have a more significant effect on solving deeper problems that often can’t even come to the surface.
Don’t be ashamed because meditation is just an exercise for the brain. Eight weeks of meditation can tickle the hippocampus and reduce stress in long terms.
Look into cataract surgery
This is a low-risk solution usually covered by one or another insurance solution. Cataract surgery is replacing cloudy, aging lenses of the eye with lenses that restore youthful sight.
Make good relationships
Good social relationships affect and promote:
- Physical health
- Mental health
- Happiness
Social relationships that are safe and supportive can even help calm our stress-response system.
Why is this important?
Lower stress hormone level, such as cortisol, means less wear on the brain and body.
A Few Things to Keep in Mind
Your DNA won’t change with better posture when sitting, standing, or moving, but that’s still an easy way to upgrade your youth and vitality. It can help you to breathe better and protect your neck, shoulders, and spine.
Don’t try to change your DNA to the core. Instead, focus on choices that can actually have greater meaning once you embrace them. We’re talking about choices that help your mental health, promote your physical health and vitality, longevity, and, last but not least, connection with others.
Aging happens to all of us, but a few changes in your routine and lifestyle can have great long-term results. Still, the action is equally as important as attitude.
Don’t forget that it’s important to accept things that we can’t change.
Is Plastic Surgery the Answer?
Plastic surgery and face lifting is always an option. Technology and medicine have improved so much that these things are no longer risky.
Correcting viewable flaws and aging spots is fine, especially if you think that they harm your mental health and confidence.
However, keep in mind that surgery does nothing to reverse aging. It hides some flaws you may think you have due to the natural process of aging, but it doesn’t stop it.
Final Thoughts
Everybody wants to be young forever. Now, although that’s impossible, you can still do a lot to be as youthful for as long as possible.
The most important thing to note is that some researches say that old people who have a purpose in life tend to live longer, feel happier. They have more daily activities and are in better mental and brain health.
Diet and stress levels still have the most significant effect on how we age. Most health specialists claim that a Mediterranean diet is the best for brain health. The base of this diet is in the nuts, beans, fruits, veggies, herbs, and whole grains.