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Anti-aging is a hot topic these days as more and more of the baby boom generation approaches their retirement years.  While the desire to avoid or delay the effects of aging has probably always been common, the baby boomers are probably the first generation in which a large percentage of people have actively sought out ways to reduce the effects of aging.

This quest for effective anti-aging methods has resulted in both healthy and unhealthy trends.  While dramatic increases in the numbers of people exercising, improving their nutrition, staying socially and physically active, and finding ways to better manage stress no doubt lead to a healthier population, there have been some dangerous (and largely ineffective) attempts to try to artificially defeat the effects of aging through certain cosmetic procedures and even hormone manipulation. 

The following are my recommendations for healthy anti-aging measures to take, as well as popular anti-aging treatments that it would be best to avoid:

Anti-aging Tip #1:  Eat less and eat better.  Recent studies have shown that people who eat fewer calories overall tend to live longer and healthier.  If you’ve tended to eat until you are stuffed, or if you or other people consider you a “big eater”, it may take a little time to get used to eating less.  Decrease your food consumption a little at a time so you don’t have problems with feeling hungry.  In addition, it helps to shift to having the majority of what you eat be in the form of fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds (raw or dry-roasted), lean sources of protein (especially fish, poultry, eggs, and lean meats), and small to moderate amounts of whole grains.  Avoid fast food, fried foods, processed foods, and refined grains most of the time and reserve sweets and other less-than-healthy foods for the rare special occasion meal.  The better you eat, the less you’ll need nutritional supplements, but if your diet is not quite perfect (it’s the rare person whose diet is perfect these days), I recommend supplementing with at least a high-quality multivitamin and mineral and omega-3 fatty acids.  Depending on your diet and what health challenges you might be facing, additional supplements may be worth considering, but those two are a good starting point. 

Anti-aging Tip #2:  Stay hydrated.  While there is considerable debate over how much water one should drink each day, there  is not much question that hydration is important.  In fact, there is evidence that inadequate hydration is probably at least partially involved in several common conditions typically associated with aging, such as arthritis, skin wrinkling, declining vision, and muscular aches and pains.  How much water do you need to drink?  It varies considerably from one person to the next, which is probably why there’s so much controversy about this issue.  Some say you should drink eight 8 ounce glasses of water per day, some say that’s way too much, some say that’s way too little.  In actuality, your need for water will vary from one day to the next, depending on numerous factors such as your activities, the weather, what you eat, what else you drink, etc..  To get adequate hydration, I recommend you “listen” to your body.  If you aren’t needing to urinate at least once every 2 to 3 hours - you need more water.  If you can’t generate enough saliva to moisten the glue strip on an envelope enough to seal it in one try - you need more water.  If your muscles feel tight and sore all over - you need more water.  If your eyes are drying out because you aren’t producing enough tears - you need more water.  If you tend to be constipated on a regular basis - you need more water.  There are other signs of needing water too, but these basics are simple things you can look for and when you notice one or more of them - drink more water, preferably small amounts frequently, maybe 4 to 6 ounces at a time every hour or so. 

Anti-aging Tip #3:  Get some exercise at least 3 days per week.  Exercise benefits the body and mind in numerous ways - it improves circulation, it improves muscle strength and endurance, it increases nutrition to and waste removal from the tissues, it improves mood, and list goes on.  Exercise even helps the body compensate for other unhealthy behaviors, so if you’re not ready to give up eating fast food hamburgers, a good exercise program will at least reduce the harm.  There’s a lot of different ways to exercise, so just because you may not like going to a gym or going jogging, don’t give up on exercise!  Find something you like and do it on a regular basis. 

Anti-aging Tip #4:  Find a way to manage stress.  Stressful situations usually can’t be avoided altogether, but most people can manage stress through exercise, meditation, yoga, self-hypnosis, deep-breathing or any number of other techniques.  Good nutrition is also helpful.  For example, omega-3 fatty acids help elevate mood and prevent depression, and there are various products to provide nutrition to the adrenal glands, the body’s primary stress hormone producers. 

Anti-aging Tip #5:  Stay socially active.  You don’t necessarily need to always be around a lot of people or belong to a club or social organization, but human beings are social creatures, and positive interaction with at least one other person on a daily basis is very important.  Studies have shown that married people tend to live longer than single people overall.  We are programmed psychologically at a very deep level to need human interaction, so if you’ve been keeping to yourself, find at least one other person you like to “hang out” with and do things.  It will make a tremendous difference in your life.

Anti-aging Tip #6:  Get some sleep!  In a recent blog post, I discussed the health benefits of getting adequate sleep.  One of the main reasons that getting good sleep is an important ant-aging factor is that the body will usually not produce significant amounts of growth hormone without at least 7 hours of sleep.  Growth hormone is involved in the renewal of tissue, fat burning, and muscle growth, and so it is a big factor in retaining a youthful appearance and staying fit. 

Anti-aging Tip #7:  Avoid unnatural approaches to anti-aging!  Cosmetic “procedures” are the first of the unnatural approaches that I recommend you avoid.  While face lifts, Botox, etc. seem like an easy way to roll back the hands of time, the results rarely fool anyone.  How often have you heard people gossiping about how someone has had “work done”?   How often do you hear someone making fun of the expressionless face of someone who’s just had Botox injections? And have you seen Kenny Rogers lately?  Is this what you really want?  Now if the less-than-ideal effects aren’t bad enough to make you think twice, there are risks to these procedures - serious ones (although, I suppose that DEATH is the ultimate in anti-aging!).  The specifics of these risks go beyond the focus of this article, but before you go forward with any cosmetic procedure, do your homework and check out the risks thoroughly. 

The other popular unnatural approach to anti-aging is through hormone manipulation, particularly injecting growth hormone (hgh for short).  But wait a minute!  Didn’t I say in Tip #6 that growth hormone was good?  Yes, NORMAL production of growth hormone by the body is good.  Injecting large amounts of growth hormone is not.  The body is designed to have different levels of hormones at different stages of life.  Through childhood, your teen years, and early adulthood, you need relatively high levels of growth hormone to help your body develop.  Growth hormone production is supposed to decrease as you age.  It’s not normal nor healthy to have the growth hormone level of a 20 year old when you’re 60 and the health consequences of injecting growth hormone to create this situation can be severe (at least I consider things like cancer severe, how about you?).  Now there are things you can do to maximize your body’s production of growth hormone, such as getting enough sleep (as was discussed earlier), getting some relatively intense exercise on a regular basis, and supplementing with nutrients your body needs for normal hormone production.  These steps will allow you to produce good levels of growth hormone appropriate to your age and will help you resist aging.  But I strongly recommend you stay away from injectable growth hormone unless due to some medical condition you happen to be far below normal for your age.  One last note on this topic - there are a variety of supplements on the market being sold as a means of increasing growth hormone levels.  Some of the promotion of these products is a bit misleading and imply that they are growth hormone (or hgh) - they are not, they are simply nutrients that the body can use to make growth hormone.  These products are usually safe and do not have the problems that injectable growth hormone does, although they can be quite expensive and for best results it is still important to get adequate sleep and exercise.

 So there you have my top tips for anti-aging.  Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more information.  Go forth and be youthful!

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Many people these days fail to get adequate sleep due to being busy and trying to squeeze too much into their schedules.  Oftentimes people don’t realize the importance of sleep in health other than of course, not feeling sleepy.  But adequate sleep is important in several aspects of health, incuding mental function, weight control, muscle building, resistance to the effects of aging, and joint and soft tissue repair. 

Some of these important aspects of sleep you may be aware of.  Most people realize that without adequate sleep, their mental functioning and memory is impaired.  This is not just a short-term issue either.  While the research is just beginning, there is some speculation that chronic sleep deprivation may be involved in various neurodegenerative disorders and severe loss of brain function in later life. 

Few people are aware that sleep is an important factor in weight loss and muscle building.  Without adequate sleep, the body does not produce significant amounts of growth hormone, which is an important fat-burning hormone.  In addition, sleep deprivation leads to alterations in hormones that control hunger, typically resulting in increased hunger and subsequent increased eating and weight gain.

Growth hormone is also important in the stimulation of muscle growth from exercise, so inadequate sleep can dramatically interfere with getting maximum results from an exercise program.  For those who perform heavy exercise, the decreased growth hormone from lack of sleep results in delays in muscle recovery and may actually lead to a situation in which the heavy exercise breaks down muscle faster than the body can re-build it.  This results in a net loss of muscle mass and conditioning and may lead to overuse injuries. 

As with muscles,other soft tissues may begin to break down faster due to diminished growth hormone caused by sleep deprivation.  This includes connective tissues in joints and even the skin.  Over time, sleep deprivation leads to premature aging of the tissues and increases the appearance of aging in the skin and may predispose the joints to arthritis. 

In my experience with treating pain syndromes, most patients who are chronically sleep deprived are far more pain sensitive and more prone to developing trigger points and tightness in their muscles.  One gentleman I have been treating over the years shows dramatic differences in the state of his muscles when he is getting only  3 to 4 hours of sleep per night versus getting 6 or 7.  With greater amounts of sleep, his muscles are much looser and he has far less tenderness.  These differences appear to be primarily sleep-related as his stress levels and other lifestyle factors stay relatively constant. 

By now you probably are beginning to appreciate how important it is to get adequate sleep.  So, what is “adequate”? It varies to some extent, but for most individuals about 7 hours of (mostly) undisturbed sleep per night is necessary for normal production of growth hormone.  Some people need a little more than that, and some can get by with a little less, but a minimum of 7 hours is usually a good target to shoot for. 

If you’ve been getting by on much less than that, you may be surprised at how much better you feel once you change your habits to get more sleep.  Not only will you feel more rested and mentally alert, but chances are you will find it much easier to get results from your weight loss or exercise regimen and you’ll probably also be pleasantly surprised at how much better you look and feel overall.

Stay tuned to my blog for more natural remedies to keep you healthy!

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What does sleep have to do with weight control?  Well, obviously if you sleep all day and lie in bed most of the time and eat, you’ll probably gain weight, but sleep affects some important hormones that play a big role in weight control.

The first sleep-mediated hormone involved in weight control to discuss is growth hormone.  Growth hormone stimulates the development of metabolically active muscle and lean tissue and stimulates fat burning.  Two things cause the body to naturally produce more growth hormone:  intense exercise and sleep.   In fact, even if you are getting frequent intense exercise, without adequate sleep - at least 7 hours per night for most adults, the growth hormone release you get through exercise is greatly reduced.  This results in decreased muscle building, decreased direct fat burning, and reduced metabolic rate as an indirect effect of the diminished muscle growth.

The second major weight control hormone that is effected by sleep is the adrenal hormone cortisol.  Cortisol production is increased by stress.  Most people become more highly stressed without adequate sleep, and this leads to extra cortisol production.  Cortisol stimulates abdominal fat deposition, which you may know as the stomach “pooch”, or that roll of fat around the middle.  Getting good sleep helps reduce cortisol levels and the storage of belly fat.

 So for those of you who have been dieting and exercising but running on little sleep on a consistent basis, your lack of sleep is probably sabotaging your weight loss efforts.  You may want to sleep on that and make some changes in your daily routine.

Stay tuned to this blog for more weight control tips.

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