Kay Sexton
Advertising is full of suggestions that getting older is a bad thing, and that it must be fought with every weapon at our disposal: chemical, physical and surgical.
The truth is that most women in their forties, fifties and sixties experience a greater sense of self-esteem and self-fulfilment than those in their twenties and thirties. Age is something to be celebrated, wherever we are on its path. But there are things you can do to ensure that you age with beauty, confidence and power, and they don’t require you to go under the knife, or surrender your weekends to colonic irrigation or sadistic gym routines. Here are five ways to lose years and gain beauty:
Reduce stress levels for you and those you live with
Reducing stress is essential in fighting the aging process – you don’t just look older when you’re living under continuous stress, your body becomes older too, as the adrenaline surges that promote stress reactions actually shut down many of the body’s healing systems, leaving you prone to more injuries and illnesses, which, of course, make you more stressed! If you suffer from stress so do the people around you, and it becomes a vicious circle. Breaking out of it into relaxation, peace and calm may seem difficult but it can add years to your life and happiness to your day. Try meditation, gentle exercise, or going to a lovely place and just breathing deeply and slowly. Enjoy life, smile more and find your way to a happier and younger-looking you.
Ensure you sleep
People who lose sleep on a regular basis are more likely to show signs of aging because skin cells rest and rejuvenate overnight – if you don’t sleep, you don’t give your skin a chance to relax. Set a regular night time routine and bedtime and stick to it, it could take years off you at no cost.
Eat a low GI diet
A low glycemic index diet allows you to feel young and act young because low glycemic foods balance your blood sugar through the day, preventing you feeling hungry and binging on unhealthy food and allowing you to get through the mid morning and mid afternoon slumps that most people experience in their energy levels if they don’t eat properly. A low GI diet also allows you to lose weight slowly and being overweight is one of the most aging things you can do to your body because it adds stress to the joints, weakens the immune system and suppresses the lungs, making you old before your time.
Stay away from SLS containing toiletries
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, or Sodium Laureth Sulfate known respectively as SLS and SLES, is found in many products that foam or have detergent properties – cosmetic and toiletry companies like the way it thickens a liquid and creates a lather when mixed with water. However it is also used as in industrial degreasing agent in its pure form! Some studies have found SLS may cause dermatitis, and its harshness will age the skin prematurely – why use something that can harm you, when you can do without it and look younger into the bargain?
Change your role models
The women we admired in our twenties may not be the best heroes for us as we age and our priorities, and theirs, change. Oprah is somebody that most of us can still look up to, but when we see the excesses of lifestyle that other stars indulge in, or wonder about the effects of their public love affairs and often chaotic lifestyles on their families, we may feel they’ve lost the plot. Finding women you can admire and seeing how they manage their lives can be instructive – beauty and health activists like the late Anita Roddick, and women who defy conventional wisdom or society like Ang San Suu Kyi in Burma or deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie, may be more suitable and appealing as women to look up to and emulate. Our role models can help us chart a happy, healthy, beautiful future.
Older beauty courtesy of Jenny Downing at Flickr under a Creative Commons Licence
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