Fear of Aging

[Thought Art]

I am 25 now, and I have been noticing this nagging fear of getting older. How do you deal with the reality of aging? Does life change once I am in my 30s? my 40s or 50s? Am I at my peak? I have read my brain can actually continue to develop all throughout life and I am investing in myself to begin taking care of my body.

Is anyone else dealing with this? Has anyone successfully dealt with this?

Edited February 7, 2021 by Thought Art

[Villager Albert]

@Thought Art Just do what you can to slow down aging. You will age anyway but it's not a bad thing, from what I've seen older people actually are less depressed about aging and death. Psychedelics also help a lot with this.

[Michael569]

@Thought Art you may want to look into telomere shortening and relation to diet & lifestyle. Second thing are antioxidants such as glutathione that protect your cells from damage. Do your best to prevent unnecessary abuse of antioxidants. Certain foods accelerate ageing while others don't. 

Any way I look at this, eating only low to moderate protein (1g per kg of bodyweight is more than enough for most ppl) diet with as little animal products, sugar and alcohol while staying as active as possible but not excessively. 

 

[flume]

Matt Kahn has an interesting perspective on this. Maybe helpful, maybe not:

He says if attention is not with the breath your body gets the sign subconsciously that death is near. It starts fast tracking you towards that in an experience called deterioration, or what we know as “ageing”. So to reverse the ageing process, we return to our breath, which is also the fountain of youth.

I notice "timelessness" in the bodies of people that meditate a lot (and presumably work with their breath a lot). Their body may age, but they’re radiant and alive.

Fear = excitement without breath.

[StarStruck]

As somebody who is involved with spirituality you should know that you aren't the body and shouldn't be identified with it.

At the same time, you want to keep your host healthy. Try cutting out wheat, sugar and salt as much as possible. Study Ph balance and keep a good Ph balance.

As for aging. Being old is relative. When you are 40 and you look back, you will say you were crazy that you thought you were old at your age. You can't avoid death so the best option is to accept it. Look what is underneath the fear.

[Inliytened1]

@Thought Art a lot of how you look as you get older is going to be genetic.  But you can do things we always talk about - diet, exercise, minimize alcohol, etc to keep the body oiled and greased which will keep you feeling good for a very long time barring any major health issue.   You can look super young but still feel like total crap if you neglect the body and fill it with toxins all the time.

[Roy]

Why worry about something that is inevitable? Worry is reserved for things which have not yet happened but we fear might happen. You will get old, so what is there to worry about ?

You are only as young as you feel. How many laps you've done around the sun is irrelevant unless you need to be a certain age to buy alcohol. I've met people who are 70 and look 50, and 40 who look 60.

I've found it's best to ignore all that stuff about cognitive decline and what your "peak" is. Yea there may be science behind it, but isn't it more positive and exciting to just pretend you're going to beat the odds?

Fuck science, be exceptional.