Aging and stress

• Physical;
• Cognitive - when memory and other abilities decline;
• Psycho-social:  includes things like well-being, happiness, quality of life, control of emotions, socialization.

Successful aging mainly refers to better well-being, greater happiness, and not just arriving at old age, but thriving and even flourishing.

• Calorie restriction. 
• Physical activity. 
• Keeping your brain active: do something that is somewhat challenging. Not too stressful, but somewhat challenging. 
• An appropriate degree of socializing. 
• Attitude and behavior: resilience, optimism, compassion, doing things for others, volunteering activities.
• Other strategies like meditation for reducing stress.  

Researchers disagree in their hypotheses about how our minds tend to get worse with age. What can be observed is the following:

• Older individuals do struggle more with Stroop tasks, where an automatic habit needs to be overridden by instructions.
• Older individuals have a harder time with multitasking.
• Older people find it difficult to bind information that occurs in a combined context. It impacts their ability to remember life events.

However, older people seem to be better at emotional regulation.

Some people seem to age mostly with minds intact and others notice dramatic slowdowns. The brain appears to have a lot of redundancy built-in - known as cognitive reserve.

Education seems to have a protective effect on aging, possibly because education contributes to cognitive reserve.

Studies show that older adults who are lonely see a decline in their thinking abilities, which is rapid if paired with other factors like physical inactivity, anxiety, poor sleep and high blood pressure.

Prolonged social isolation is a kind of mental stress leading to various mental and physical health issues like faster ageing, dementia and cognitive decline. It has also been linked to the factors that lead to Alzheimer’s disease, like a build-up of certain toxic proteins in the brain.

• The negative impact of prolonged loneliness can be curbed with maintaining high-quality relationships and social activity.
• How we manage our feelings and relationships is important for our brain’s health.
• Self-care is an essential component of our mental and physical health, and we have to focus our attention towards better sleep and exercise routines, healthy eating and engaging in enjoyable activities.

As time passes, there is a build-up of toxins in the brain that correlate to the aging process of cognitive decline. Although this is a natural part of growing older, many factors can exacerbate it. Stress, neurotoxins such as alcohol and lack of (quality and quantity) sleep can speed up the process.

The key to resilient aging is improving neurogenesis, the birth of new neurons. 

This activity occurs in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that lays down memories. And we respond to and store new experiences every day, and cement them during sleep. The more we can experience new activities, people, places, and emotions, the more likely we are to encourage neurogenesis.

The brain's electric impulses change, and the Beta waves increase during and after exercise, putting it in a better, more alert state.

Exercise makes our senses sharper and clearer, and we are more perceptive and have better sensitivity to our surroundings.

Deep engagement with learning makes the experience more valuable and easier to remember.

You can take notes about the material to ask questions later or even send questions by email or ask for an appointment.

Continuing education is vital to maintain your career growth. Lifelong learners view their education as a portfolio with several components.

If you want to earn more, consider learning sales and marketing skills. Those skills are useful even for non-sales jobs.

Living longer creates more complexity in our relationships. What should we be doing for the next few decades?

Accept the complexity of an increased life span as a wonderful challenge.

Even though our bodies deteriorate and impede our abilities with age, our brains continue to function well. The brain continues to form new connections and create new cells. It is our self-imposed limits that hold us back, not the capacity of our brain.

A study revealed that a positive attitude had a greater impact on survival. Positive people outlived negative people by an average of seven and a half years.

• Jogging;
• Walking;
• Tai chi;
• Swimming;
• Walking;
• Cycling;
• Squats and planks.

The Chinese martial art combines a series of flowing movements, performed slowly and gently, with a high degree of focus and attention paid to breathing deeply.

It is particularly good for older people because balance is an important component of fitness, and balance is something we lose as we get older.

There's no age at which humans are performing at peak on all cognitive tasks - our various cognitive functions peak at different times and past a certain age it might make more sense to view adult intelligence not through the lens of youthful general processing speed and reasoning, but through the lens of expertise, wisdom, and purpose.

For the coffee industry to survive, it needed a new marketing strategy. The consumer was changing and coffee-players needed to pay attention.

Crucial questions the 'me' generation will ask: "What's in it for me? Is the product 'me'? Is it consistent with my lifestyle? Do I like how it tastes? What will it cost me? Is it convenient to prepare?"