Have you ever met someone in their 60s or 70s who radiates energy, vitality and happiness, while others the same age struggle with mobility, fatigue and health problems? The difference often lies in their daily habits.
It is tempting to put it down to luck, or to good genes. The numbers say otherwise. Two people born in the same year can be ageing at different speeds long before either of them turns 40, and genes explain far less of the gap than the usual story assumes.
That makes the question practical. If the speed is not fixed, what moves it? Five habits do much of the work of ageing gracefully, and it's never too late to start.
Same birthday, different ages
In Dunedin, New Zealand, researchers have followed 1,037 people born in the same year since they were babies. Key Factors That Speed Up Aging (And How to Slow Them Down) has what they found by the late thirties: the same birthday, bodies ageing at different speeds, and the fast agers already less fit, slower on thinking tests and older-looking.
The team looked again at 45. By then they had measured 19 signs of how the body was holding up, four times over, covering the heart, the metabolism, the kidneys, the immune system, the teeth and gums, and the lungs. The fast agers had more trouble with thinking and memory, brains that looked older on the scanner, weaker senses and movement, and older faces. They also felt gloomier about growing old, and that turns out to matter, as you will see below. The calendar counts years. The body counts something else.
At 38, when the gap was first measured, none of them had yet developed the diseases of old age. That is the point. The speed of ageing is set long before those diseases arrive, which means there is a long time in which to change it. , written by researchers behind the study, tells how childhood shapes later life.
How much is in the genes
Less than you have been told.
The Harsh Truth About Aging, linked below, has the Danish twins: among 2,872 pairs, genes explained about a quarter of the difference in how long they lived. That was already a modest share. A later study suggests even that is too much.
Researchers used family trees from the genealogy site Ancestry, covering hundreds of millions of people born in the 1800s and early 1900s. Blood relatives' lifespans matched, as expected. But much of that match turned up between in-laws too, and in-laws share no genes. What they share is a household, a table and a way of life, and people tend to marry someone who lives the way they do. Once the researchers allowed for that, genes explained well under 10% of how long people lived.
Long life runs in families. Mostly, it seems, it runs in the household: the kitchen, the habits, the way of life.
How old you feel
How old do you feel? Across more than 17,000 Americans in three large studies, followed for up to 20 years, people felt on average 15% to 16% younger than their real age. Ask people their age and you get a number. Ask how old they feel and you get a negotiation.
The ones who felt older were the ones to watch. Feeling about 8 to 13 years older than their age went with an 18% to 29% higher risk of dying over the years that followed. Most of that link was explained by illness, inactivity and physical limits. So feeling old is partly the body saying what it already knows. Feeling old is not vanity. It is a report.
The arrow points the other way too. Key Factors That Speed Up Aging, linked above, has the people whose brighter view of their own ageing, recorded up to 23 years earlier, went with seven and a half more years of life.
Which brings us to the habits, because they move both the body and the feeling.
1. Move
Regular exercise strengthens your muscles and bones and improves balance, flexibility and the heart. You don't need intense workouts to reap the benefits. Brisk walking, swimming or yoga can do wonders, and strength training even a couple of times a week helps you keep the muscle that age takes first.
Defy Aging with Movement, linked below, has what exercise does to the engine, the brain and the cells, and how much is enough. The Harsh Truth About Aging has the simple tests that show how you are doing: grip, walking pace, standing on one leg, and getting down to the floor and up again.
If you are starting from nothing, start small. A 20-minute walk after dinner is a good beginning, and Defy Aging with Movement has what a walk after meals does for blood sugar as well.
It is never too late to start, and that has been measured. When 3,454 English adults with no major disease, aged 64 on average, were followed for eight years, only about one in five aged healthily: still alive, and free of major disease, depression and physical or mental decline. Those who became active during those years were about 3.4 times as likely to be in that group as those who stayed inactive. Those who had been active all along were about 7.7 times as likely. Late beats never by a factor of three.
Strong legs may even protect the brain. When 324 healthy female twins, aged 55 on average, were tested ten years apart, those with more leg power at the start lost less of their thinking ability over the decade, and had more grey matter, the brain's working tissue, twelve years on. The link held between identical twins too, so shared genes and upbringing do not explain it.
2. Eat
"You are what you eat" is never truer than when it comes to ageing well. The food that matters most as the years go by is protein, because muscle is what keeps you upright, and older muscle is harder to keep. Muscle is a pension you pay into early and draw on late.
Older muscle responds less to each meal than young muscle does. Why Animal Foods Deliver What Plant-Based Diets Promise — and Can't has why older adults need more protein at each meal to get the same response, and why meat, fish and eggs reach it far more easily than plants do.
What to cut matters as much. Key Factors That Speed Up Aging, linked above, has why sugar ages the face as well as the body: people with higher blood sugar were judged older from their photographs, diabetes or not.
Fish adds the omega-3 fats. Salmon, mackerel and sardines help protect your heart and brain, and they bring vitamin D with them.
Drink, too, even when you do not feel like it. Thirst fades as we get older. 7 Fun and Tasty Ways to Stay Hydrated Without the Boredom has the older men who, after a full day without water, felt less thirsty than younger men, although their blood showed they needed it more.
And if you smoke or drink, Key Factors That Speed Up Aging has what each does to the pace of ageing, from the cells to the face in the mirror.
3. Sleep
Sleep changes with age, and it helps to know which changes are normal. How to Fix Your Sleep and Wake Up Rested has the measurements pooled from 3,577 healthy people aged 5 to 102: lighter sleep, less of the deep kind and more waking through the adult years, then, after 60, only one measure still falling. In other words, broken sleep at 70 is not a fault in itself. At 70 you sleep like a 70-year-old. That is allowed.
What you can change is everything around it. Establish a bedtime routine that calms your mind and body: a warm bath, slow breathing, a cup of . Keep your bedroom cool, quiet and dark. And treat caffeine as more than an evening problem: it lingers for hours, and it is hard to give up once the body depends on it. Water is the better drink, day and night.
4. Stay connected
Loneliness takes a toll on the body as well as the mind, and it often creeps in with age, after a move, a retirement or a loss. Retirement ends the job, not the need for people.
Redefining Aging: What We Can Learn from the World's Longest-Lived People has what close relationships are worth to survival, and the Okinawan circles of close friends. What a Sense of Purpose Does to Your Brain and Body has the older men in Baltimore whose brains grew while they volunteered in primary schools.
If you can't meet in person, commit to regular calls with the people you love. If you have recently moved or retired, join something: a club, a class, a group that needs a volunteer.
And if you live alone, consider a dog. Why Petting an Animal Calms You and Looking Doesn't has the 3.4 million Swedes among whom people living alone with a dog were a third less likely to die over the years that followed.
5. Keep your mind engaged
Your brain needs regular workouts just like your body, and the best ones are hard. Pick up something completely new, like playing a musical instrument or learning to paint. A crossword is a stroll. A violin is a climb.
What the Sharpest 80-Year-Olds Have That Others Don't has the SuperAgers, people over 80 whose memories match those of people decades younger, and what they have in common. Dementia Risk: What It's Linked To, and What You Can Change has the older adults whose memory improved after three months of learning something difficult. It also has the quieter threat: hearing that fades so slowly you are the last to notice. Have it tested before you think you need to, and if you get hearing aids, wear them every day.
Purpose and curiosity
Ageing gracefully isn't about trying to turn back the clock. It's about meeting each stage of life with a sense of purpose, curiosity and care for your well-being.
The Dunedin study's lesson is that the clock runs at different speeds, and the pace shows early and answers to what you do every day. Genes hold a small share of the controls. The rest sits in the kitchen, on the walk after dinner, in the bedroom and around the table with other people.
This week, take the 20-minute walk after dinner every evening, and notice how old you feel at the end of it.
Worried about the slide after 60? The Harsh Truth About Aging: Decline or Longevity? — grip, walking pace, balance, getting down to the floor and up again, protein, and why it is never too late to start.
Not sure how much exercise is enough? Defy Aging with Movement: How Exercise Keeps You Strong, Sharp, and Independent for Life — what exercise does for the engine, the brain and the cells, whether it is too late to start, and how much is enough.
Know someone who says they are too old to start? Send them this, and take the walk with them.
Disclaimer: This article is general information. For advice about your own health, talk to a qualified health professional.
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