Don’t Let Your Body Become a Barrier to Your Dreams

It’s the last leg of your holiday and it’s not the best time for an injury. You find yourself lying flat on the rocky island terrain while your significant other rushes over in concern.

You stare at the clear skies as you lay there in pain, throbbing all over. You try to lift your body off the ground but it’s just too difficult. You push away every helping hand that reaches out.

At his office, a tall bespectacled doctor tells you to take good care of your muscles because they’re everything you have. You hang your head low, frustrated about your ailments. ‘What happens when I can’t do things the same way anymore?’ you ask yourself.

It’s been months that you’ve spent recovering at home. You’ve ignored every dinner invitation. When you finally decide to go, you end up laughing, eating, dancing. The truth is, you needed to see what you were missing out on.

What Are the Best Things About Life During Old Age?

After years and years of hard work, we look forward to the days where we can lie in the grass and look up at the clouds. The greatest thing about growing old is the freedom to choose how you’ll live the rest of your life. Sometimes, all we need is a reminder of what it is that we’re living for.

What happens when we retire and we have all this free time on our hands? Defining our sense of purpose is important in order for us to answer this question. You still have plenty to accomplish. It’s about keeping your mind and body active by doing things you already love, and supplementing this with new experiences.

Spend time with family and loved ones first and foremost

Now’s the best time to be with the ones who matter most to you. An 80-year long study at Harvard discovered that how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health. Close relationships were a better predictor of happiness and longevity compared to financial status or genes, the study revealed¹.When you have strong family relationships in place, it provides a safety net for social contact and possible help in case day-to-day difficulties arise. Maintaining your everyday strength will allow you to be there with your family whenever you choose, such as playing with your grandchild and strolling by the beach with your family.

Involve yourself in activities with friends and other like-minded people

Loneliness could be a much greater threat to our health than we realise. According to Dr Stokes-Lampard, the chief of Britain’s General Practitioners, loneliness is as harmful as a long-term disease like diabetes or hypertension.² When we’re tied up with life’s commitments, it’s easy to forget to pay attention to our relationships, whether it’s an old friend or the neighbour you catch up with on Sundays. Friendships contribute to a large part of our long-term wellbeing and health.³ Investing in friendships has been linked to better physical and mental functioning whereas strain from friendships predicted chronic illnesses.⁴ Start by finding just one other person with mutual interests and set some time aside every week to bond.

Discover, explore, and indulge in your interests

Once you find your passions, it’s important to invest time in the things that you look forward to each day. Look for things that get your brain running. It could be picnics, painting portraits, trivia board games or a good old-fashioned swim. It’s one way to silence that lingering fear we have of losing our brain power as we age. Creative hobbies have been said to help preserve memory and could keep an aging brain sharp⁵.

Get out there and see the parts of the world you haven’t seen

Very few of us have the opportunity to circumnavigate the whole world, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to try visiting as many points of interests as possible. The best thing you can do for yourself now is to start ticking places and experiences off your to-do wish list (if you don’t have one, make one!).

Just think of the vast number of picturesque landscapes and inspiring architecture that await you. You won’t want to miss seeing the Northern Lights, trekking to Machu Picchu or the paradise of the French Polynesian islands.⁶ Travelling, in itself, is more valuable than you’d expect. Studies have shown that people who do not go on vacations annually have greater risk of chronic disease.⁷

Whether it’s about maintaining rich relationships or navigating new places, people who put these into practice tend to suffer from lower rates of cognitive decline, namely dementia⁸.

“Don't be afraid your life will end. Be afraid that it will never begin.”

— Henry David Thoreau, famous writer, philosopher and historian

All Those Things You Can Do When Your Strength Returns...

Close your eyes and picture a window right in front of you. What do you see when you open that window? A cascading range of mountains and trees from your cabin or a cluster of identical skyscrapers and highways from your hospital room?

Will you one day wake up, realising you lived a life that didn’t reach its full potential?

No, you will not.

It’s never too late to take control of your health. Almost 75% of men and women over 50 have stated that maintaining their independence is the main reason why they make health their priority⁹. Without your independence, how are you going to what you love without a worry in the world? The first step is complete nutrition.

Ensure Gold is here to help you live a quality life. Scientifically formulated with a unique combination of HMB and Triple Protein Blend, along with 28 essential vitamins and minerals, Ensure Gold supports your strength, vitality and activity.

HMB is a natural ingredient in our bodies that helps us regain strength. It does this by rebuilding new muscle tissues. Along with the other essential nutrients, Ensure Gold helps you regain strength faster so you can do everything you love¹⁰.

Would you like to know more about our brand new Ensure^® Gold^™? Learn how you can achieve #StrengthForLife with scientifically proven complete nutrition.
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Gain greater muscle strength as you age. Find out how to achieve #StrengthForLife!

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REFERENCES:

¹ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/
² https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/12/loneliness-as-bad-for-health-as-long-term-illness-says-gps-chief
³ https://www.aarp.org/home-family/friends-family/info-2017/friendships-improve-health-older-adults-fd.html
⁴ Chopik, W.J., 2017. Associations among relational values, support, health, and well‐being across the adult lifespan. Personal relationships, 24(2), pp.408-422
⁵ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/which-hobbies-help-an-aging-brain/
⁶ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/ultimate-travel-bucket-list-things-to-do-before-you-die/french-polynesia/
⁷ https://www.globalcoalitiononaging.com/v2/data/uploads/documents/destination-healthy-aging-white-paper_final-web.pdf (2047kb)
⁸ http://time.com/4682031/how-to-prevent-dementia/
⁹ References: 1. Berton, et al. 2015. PLoS ONE 10(11):e01417757. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0141757; 2. Cramer JT et al. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2016 Nov 1;17(11):1044-1055.

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