5 Tips to Stay Active as You Age

With advances in medical technology, trends toward healthy eating, and personal responsibility for health care, staying active as you age is a key component to maximizing one’s health span.

Melissa Drake

Living a long and vibrant life seems to be top of mind these days. With advances in medical technology, trends toward healthy eating, and personal responsibility for health care, staying active as you age is a key component to maximizing one’s health span (the length of time one can sustain optimum health).

Following are 5 tips for staying active as you age:

1. Stay Connected—Maintain contacts with friends, family, and former business associates if you’re retired. Also, don’t forget to expand your circle and make new contacts. Getting out of the house to have lunch, dinner, and/or collaboration meetings are a fantastic way to maintain connections, break up what can seem like monotonous days, and get some steps in. Bonus points if you meet others for walks, hikes, or active dates, like discovering a local farmer’s market.
2. Move Your Body—Complete some form of exercise you enjoy each day. Exercise doesn’t have to be strenuous. It can be a walk with your dog, your children, your spouse, or your grandchildren, or a walk around the mall. You could also try dance, yoga, QiGong, Tai Chi, or simple stretching exercises to keep your body limber.
3. Challenge Yourself—Just as you exercise your body, your brain could use a good workout as well. Keep your brain active by reading or doing puzzles like crosswords, sudoku, word find, or even playing video games. There are games designed to keep your brain active and help with hand-eye coordination.
4. Explore—Literally. Explore the world, your state, and your town. Travel as much as you can and experience things in a new way. If you’re not able to travel far, check out the areas of your own town you haven’t experienced. Find out what free events are available and make a schedule to attend them.
5. Expand Your Interests—Remember all those things you wanted to do, like painting, writing, visiting family more often… or even something daring such as skydiving? You should do them. Staying active often means staying busy, but not just for the sake of being busy—this is being busy with a purpose. Make your bucket list and start doing the things you’ve listed. If not now, when?

If you’re exhausted just reading the list above, you’re not alone—especially if you’re over the age of 40. There’s a good reason for that. There’s a co-enzyme called NAD+ that is vitally important for proper cellular function and it naturally declines as we age. This decline in NAD+ levels helps explain why we succumb to aging-related issues and energy loss.

Supplementation of NIAGEN® (a.k.a. Nicotinamide riboside or “NR”) is a science-based, clinically-proven strategy to raise NAD+ levels and help reduce the effects of aging. This boost in NAD+ levels will allow your cells to convert the fats, proteins, and carbohydrates we eat into the energy we need for optimal health.