Aging as we know is inevitable, but there is a common factor among people who move into old age healthy, that is those that can truly call their senior years their "golden years", and those that don't.
People who have been able to eliminate the negative stereotypes about aging have a higher quality of life.
Those negative stereotypes it seems truly do prevent people from living their lives to full capacity as they age.
It may seem logical that those that are healthy are going to have a better outlook on life.
But surprisingly health status does not seem to matter that much.
In other words there really is something to the old phrase "mind over matter".
People who go into their older years with positive points of view concerning aging do better on memory tests, have better handwriting, generally walk faster and recover faster from injury.
Even without adding exercise people with better attitudes are stronger physically.
And they tend to live over seven years longer.
But rather than examine a lot of tests that have been done on the subject, and there have been a lot of tests, let's look at a few tips from centenarians that may shed some light on how they have lived so long: 1.
Keep a positive attitude.
Ask most any person who is under stress and always seems to be against the world, and they will undoubtedly tell you that these are because of factors out of their control.
Take people with a positive attitude and they choose to be happy.
Everyone in life has their setbacks, but positive people overcome them or, better yet, use them as a learning experience.
Negative people use them as a reason for their unhappiness.
2.
Staying mentally active.
Simply doing things like reading might help, but actually keeping the mind active will keep us mentally alert as we age.
This means offering our mind new challenges like learning something totally new, which involves problem-solving.
It is thought that learning a new language invigorates the mind as much as nearly anything.
Those are the stimulating things that keep us living with a passion.
3.
Diet and exercise.
Eating well and keeping the body active are important during any part of our lives, but often they go missing as we get older.
People cut corner when they get older because they are the easy way out.
Buying processed food is easier to prepare than cooking meals from scratch using fresh, organic ingredients.
As we get older we should always resist the urge to do things just because they are easy.
4.
Do everything in moderation.
This means drinking, exercising and social activity should be done at moderate levels.
Know your body and what its limits are and never exceed them, which of course mean that you can't do everything you could do when you were younger.
5.
Having family and good friends.
Human beings have always been social creatures, and keeping that social interaction is an important part of life, but as we age it becomes even more important.
Fortunately for most of us when we get into our senior years relationships are mostly positive, as they have gotten past the awkward social situations that we had to cope with in our youth.
These senior years are really the best times of our life, if we choose to make them so.