Aging And Lifestyle Essay Research Paper Aging — страница 4

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and never give up. What most distinguishes long-livers from the rest of us is their indestructible capacity to rebound from misfortune and adversity. ? Make important goals. As soon as you achieve any goal, replace it with another immediately. Choose only goals that you can succeed in achieving. Otherwise, you are defining dreams, not goals. ? Be a success. Success is an essential component in creating a powerful will to live. We can readily experience the exuberance of success by making a list of small successes, each of which can be attained within 15 minutes, like cleaning your bicycle or the interior of your car. Achieving several small successes can fortify your will to live and make it easier to attain more important goals that can leave you flushed with the inspiration of

success. ? Create a newer and stronger self-image. Think about your strengths and let yourself be forgiven for your weaknesses. Walk tall and erect with a quick step. Let yourself feel confident and optimistic about the future. Adopt a positive mental attitude; feel good about yourself and you will feel good about other people and life. ? Minimize stress in your life. Most stress is due to change, so it pays to subject ourselves to as few changes as possible. Live a systematic life in harmony with the rhythms of nature. People who live long usually rise and retire at the same time and have an orderly, somewhat routine, life. However, whenever physical changes are necessary, greet them with a flexible, accepting attitude. ? Eliminate harmful mental attitudes; turn to the good

thoughts of life and forget the bad. Fear, anxiety, and worry are deadly killers that make it easier to get all kinds of disease and effectively destroy the quality of life we might have. The opposite of fear and worry is faith and trust. Take time to develop a belief in yourself, in life, and in the fellow travelers that come your way. People with an honest faith are not cheated anywhere near as often as those who are afraid. An ancient homily says: “The things we fear are sure to come to pass.” Anger, bitterness, hostility, and resentment will drive happiness from our life and leave us with a profound depression. The opposite of anger and resentment is love and forgiveness. Start by forgiving, now and forevermore, anyone you believe may have caused you harm of any kind.

Refuse to have any part of being unforgiving. People who are hostile have cardiovascular disease five times more often than those who are loving. So treat yourself to happiness and adopt a loving attitude. Don’t try to compete with other people. Keeping up with the Joneses is a continual drain on our emotions and energy. Compete only with your own excellence. Learn to excel at something, then attempt to beat your own best perfor-mance. And be willing to share your expertise with others. Nobody can win unless we all win. ? Lead a fun life; laugh a lot. Investigations by Norman Cousins and others have demonstrated the therapeutic benefits of fun and laughter in promoting health and long life. Few long-livers take themselves too seriously. They laugh often at themselves and their

mistakes. They maintain a youthful enthusiasm for anything new and different. And they possess an almost childlike enthusiasm for spontaneous fun and play. ? Be a loving, generous person. Researchers who have observed groups of longevous people report that virtually every long-liver is generous, kind, loving, and unselfish. Dr. Solomonovich, a Russian gerontologist who spent long periods living in close proximity with the long-lived Abkhasian people in the Caucuses, reported that he had never heard any long-lived person use a harsh word. To be a loving person means that we accept other people the way they are without criticizing or judging them or trying to manipulate or change them. To achieve this level of unconditional love we must first let go of any artificiality or

pretension, which so often separates us from others. This liberates us to tell the exact truth at all times and to reveal our deepest inner feelings. Through revealing our innermost feelings we immediately become closer to others. Loving people are emotionally transparent, with nothing to hide. ? Avoid living alone. People live healthier and longer lives in the presence of close and loving relationships. Studies from around the world show that loneliness is a major threat to health and long life. Virtually every gerontologist agrees that we can extend life significantly by creating a compatible and stable marriage with accompanying family life, and by cultivating many friends and being active in a number of social organizations. ? Maintain monogamous sexual activity regularly