Mental Attitude
Part of keeping a healthy functional brain and body can be traced to attitude. Keeping a young attitude can helps to keep your brain and body younger. Plus it also has a big impact on how people view you.
One of the things that marks you out as getting older is a changed mental attitude.
What contributes to how you view the relative mental age of somebody? Flexibilty vs rigidity is one criterion. I have a bunch of acquaintances who are always trying the latest anti-aging skin care treatments and dye their hair to hide grey hairs, but when you talk to them have started to develop an “elderly” mental attitude.
What constitutes a non-elderly mental attitude?
It means being open to new ideas, being mentally vibrant and not stuck on doing things in a pattern. One of the characteristics of getting older is following the same pattern. Of course, going to work and other fixed necessities make us follow the clock. However, if we start to have to have dinner at exactly the same time, need to do more and more things in the same order, etc., we either have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) or are starting to get an aging mental attitude.
If you keep deciding you can’t do things, eventually you won’t be able to do them.
One of the most obvious characteristics of many elderly is how restricted their horizons become, and how they become able to do less and less of everyday chores and tasks.
One way to minimize having a shrinking world and being able cope with day to day tasks is the keep a can-do mental attitude.
There are going to be some things that as you age become harder to do. Of course. However, it is common to stop doing lots of other mental, physical things that you can do. Don't become tentative or tell yourself you can’t do them. As a good friend of mine says GFI - go for it. You have something to gain and a lot to lose.
Get the can-do attitude in place well before you really need it.
Keep a young lively attitude
Don’t start to become a grumpy old person before you absolutely have too. Who do you like to interact with? Somebody who complains and wants to talk about the same bad things all the time? I doubt it.
By keeping a good mental attitude and by having enthusiasm for lot of things you are a more interesting person. When you are a more interesting person, then people like to interact with you. If more people are interacting with you and giving you information and feedback, then you can be more interesting. It is a self-reinforcing positive cycle.
Try not to be ruled by negative thoughts
Negative thoughts happen all the time to all of us. I can’t do that. I am going to quit now because there is no point in going further. I look stupid.
When you have negative thoughts try and catch yourself. Don’t let them consume you and send you into a downward spiral. Try to think of something else that is positive or at least something different that is not negative.
Even if a negative thought is true, is dwelling on it and dragging yourself down going to be productive? Give it some time and then fix it and/or just let it go. I often think that pretty much everybody is frequently useless, and quite stupid a lot of the time. It is just a matter of confidence and selective memory as to who lets go and gets on with life, and who lets it shape their life
Have a good mental attitude also affects your body in a number of ways
If you are out and about and doing things you are more mobile which helps with maintaining fitness and strength.
Thinking you can do something means that often you can. This even applies to the body. Research has found that just thinking about exercising a muscle can make it stronger!
There is probably a strong placebo effect with regards to attitude. If you feel good then your both your brain and body will be better, than if you don’t have a great mental attitude. We all know how in drug studies just taking a “sugar” pill can make you feel better. Having a positive mental attitude can do the same thing. Get the anti-aging placebo effect!
Life is more fun if you have a good mental attitude
Isn’t having fun and having an interesting life what we all want? What is the point of slapping anti-aging creams on your face and taking other anti-aging measures, if your life is miserable?
