The benefit of not acting your age
Each of us has two ages, according to author Leigh Elder, the number of candles on our cake and the age of our cells. One of them you could slow down.
If you've ever scowled at being told to, ‘act your age’, then Leigh Elder's new book is for you.
Elder is an author and longtime health and wellness coach, based in the Auckland suburb of Devonport.
Don't Act your Age - Living Younger Can Be Age-Defying, is all about how small lifestyle changes can make a big difference.
Leigh Elder's new book aims to improve health span by making better choices in middle age.
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The book is it aimed at people who haven’t yet entered their older years, 81-year-old Elder told RNZ’s Afternoons.
“Well, I reckon it's aimed at 40-plus, people entering middle age. A lot of people's lives are busy, Mums are bringing up kids, and sometimes they forget some of the basics.
“It's aimed at motivating, inspiring people to pay attention. And remember, they've only got this one chance on planet Earth, with one incredible body, of course. That's the only one they're going to get. So, they'd better look after it.”
Don't act your age - how to thrive in your later years
We have two ages, he says.
“It's simple, your two ages, your chronological age, number of candles on your birthday cake, and then you have your biological age. It's the overall health of your cells.”
He’s a fan of James Clear’s book Atomic Habits, he says, and wove some of Clear’s thinking into his own book.
“It's a simple concept, really. It's quite hard to incorporate new habits into your lifestyle if you're busy. This is you attach a tiny habit to an everyday habit,” he says.
That could be standing on one leg while you're cleaning your teeth to improve balance, he says.
“If want to improve agility while you're out on your daily walk, you can walk along lines and you can walk along curbs to improve your balance, or you can do a bit of skipping and hopping along.
“I do a little skip and hop along when I'm out walking, I make sure no one's looking.”
He gathers this together in his book under the acronym BAFFS (balance, agility, fitness, flexibility, and strength).
“If I can say to people that if you become reasonably proficient in each of the five, then you're going to do really well physically in old age.”
Adopting these strategies, he says, will help people improve their health span.
“A shocking statistic is that most people have got one or more chronic conditions or illnesses by the time they're 60.
“And so that's just way too early. And a lot of those have been because people, look, unwittingly have made the wrong lifestyle choices.
“If you do some simple stuff, celebrate movement, so you move more, you hydrate better, use the stairs - a lot of it's very simple and doable stuff and you do improve your overall biological health, then, wouldn't it be gold to have five to 10 more years of good health?”
