People Who Stay Healthy Into Their 80s Usually Avoid The Thing Most Of Us Chase Today
Rido | Shutterstock Thinking about aging can feel really overwhelming and uncomfortable. Luckily, there are some simple habits you can develop now, like staying physically active and sleeping well, that will continue to benefit you for years to come.
There’s another thing that’s important to staying healthy as you age that isn’t quite so obvious. A geriatrician, or doctor who specifically treats older patients, named Dr. Steph shared the one thing she’s found to be most effective in helping her patients live long, healthy lives in a TikTok video.
The key to remaining healthy in old age is gently stepping out of your comfort zone.
Dr. Steph explained that all of her patients who are the healthiest now, despite being older, spent their entire lives avoiding something that most people are constantly trying to find more of. None of them got too comfortable, which made it easier for them to adjust to whatever life threw at them.
“So there’s this concept called hormesis, which is your body’s adaptive response to moderate stress,” she shared. “Meaning you want to challenge your body enough to push your body to adapt, but not so strongly that it causes some harm.”
Dr. Steph said that finding this balance between not making your life too easy and also not trying to accomplish the impossible “builds your biological capacity and increases your resilience.” It gives you the tools that you need to keep living a strong life, but also doesn’t mean that you’re taking on more than you can handle.
She thinks this idea can be applied to what you do both physically and cognitively.
Our bodies and minds are obviously very closely connected, and staying healthy is about so much more than just working out and eating well. Dr. Steph said that trying to not get comfortable is part of physical and mental health as well.
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“So if you want to age well in your body, you always want to try new movements, new exercises, new ways of moving your body and challenging your body,” she said. This is actually more simple than it sounds. It means changing up your exercise routine every now and then, even if you’ve gotten used to one thing. For example, someone who runs almost every day might want to give yoga a try.
As for keeping your brain healthy and strong, the options are a bit more diverse. “If you think about this in the cognitive realm, you can learn a new skill,” Dr. Steph said. “You can pick up a new craft. You can even hang around new people and have new conversations about ideas you’ve never talked about before.”
Everyone has heard about the importance of getting out of your comfort zone before, but this perspective is a little different.
We often tend to think about our comfort zone in terms of what we do socially. Leaving your comfort zone could mean talking to someone new or joining a new club. This gives people the opportunity to learn and grow.
Although we don’t often think of exercising as part of our comfort zone, it’s true when you’ve found a routine that works really well for you and you stick to it without any variation. No exercise is actually bad exercise, but it’s good to not do the same thing every time you go to the gym to work out different muscle groups and get a more holistic experience.
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Hobbies and the things we do in our free time are similar. Participating in activities you enjoy just to have fun keeps your brain functioning well and makes you happier. You experience these benefits even more when you’re involved in different kinds of hobbies because they’ll make your brain work in different ways.
We all value feeling as comfortable as possible for a reason. Change is hard, and it feels nice to just stick with the things we’re used to. That’s no way to build resiliency, though, and it could seriously hold you back when you get older even if it seems fine now.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
