Are you looking for ways to keep your youthful spirit alive? Aging is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean we have to lose our sense of wonder and enthusiasm. Whether you’re in your 20s or your 80s, staying young at heart is all about embracing a positive mindset and engaging in activities that bring joy and vitality to your life.
Let’s look at seven ways to help you stay forever young at heart:
Get Out of the House
If you’re trying to keep yourself young at heart, the worst possible thing you can do is stay at home all the time. Too many seniors make this mistake when they retire. It ages them prematurely and leads to mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and loneliness.
This is not to say you should be out and about all the time like you were when you still worked. Far from it! It’s okay to slow down but there’s a huge difference between being gone most of the time and sitting in front of the TV all day.
How often should you aim to get out of the house? The best answers depend on your living situation – do you live alone? With a significant other? With extended family?
Regardless of how many people you live with, the most common recommendation is to leave your house at least three days a week, and more if you live alone. This doesn’t mean you should be gone all day on those days – just leaving for an hour or more can be enough to help you physically and psychologically.
What you do when you leave your house also matters a good deal. Running errands, paying bills, seeing the doctor, and so on are necessary parts of life, but they can’t be the only reasons you go somewhere!
You need to go places just for social interaction at least once or twice a week. It doesn’t matter what kind of social interaction you’re participating in; a book club meeting, a choir rehearsal, and a lunch with a friend will give you similar benefits. But you need to have regular social interactions and spend time with other people.
If you don’t have many social connections right now, it’s imperative that you make some. Your local community is bound to have groups or regular meetings for something that interests you. Look around, ask questions, call the senior centre and/or the library, and make some connections.
Join a club, a church, or a gaming community. Start working with a nonprofit. You will find something that you like if you look hard enough.
Is it easy to keep up social connections and attend events as you get older? No, not necessarily, but it’s imperative that you try.
Try Something New
When was the last time you did something new? Something you’ve never tried before? Was it recently or so long ago you can hardly remember? Or maybe it was somewhere in between.
People who stay young at heart try new things regularly, or at least semi-regularly. Trying new things benefits you both physically and psychologically as it makes you feel good, expands your horizons, and lets you know that you’re alive. Plus, the endorphins make you happy.
Now, don’t think this article is suggesting you should run out and try skydiving or bungee jumping! If you want to do those things and are healthy enough for them, good for you! Absolutely go for it.
Most people who are getting right up there in years, prefer more sedate (and safer) past times, and they also count for keeping you young at heart. Something as mundane as trying a new restaurant every couple of months can go a long way towards keeping you young at heart. Trying a new type of food is another step up on the scale.
The types of new things you can try for this exercise are endless. Are there still things you want to learn? Look into taking classes at your local library or senior centre. They offer a variety of low-cost and even free classes for older adults.
What about hobbies and artistic pursuits? Have you always wanted to learn to paint? Make jewellery? Build a dolls house? Go out and try something. They all count. Want to write a novel? That counts as well.
Travelling counts too. So does learning to play a musical instrument. Hiking, taking a cruise, starting a garden, tutoring children, learning to bake – anything you have never done before counts as trying something new and will keep you young at heart.
What if you can’t decide? That’s a great problem to have! Take out a sheet of paper and make a list of all the things you’re interested in trying. Think back a few years to ideas of things you really wanted to try and never got round to it. Mark off any that aren’t realistic or are out of reach right now for various reasons, such as your schedule or budget.
Then prioritise what’s left and start trying everything on your list. Mark things off as you try them. If you make it through the whole list, make another one and do it again. You’ll be trying new things – and staying young at heart for a long time to come.
Learn Something New
When was the last time you learned something new? This question encompasses reading books on a topic as much as it does taking a class in a traditional classroom. One thing people who stay young at heart tend to share is that they are lifetime learners. They are always learning something new.
Learning has a lot of psychological and cognitive benefits. It keeps your mind active and engaged. Your memory and processing skills stay sharp when you use them regularly. Mental muscles need exercise just like physical ones do. Studies have proven that lifetime learning staves off dementia and other forms of mental decline in older adults.
Before you run out to go back to school (or dismiss the idea because school was never your thing), stop to consider that there is more than one type of learning. Academic learning is one, yes, and you have plenty of options for that, but have you ever considered learning new practical skills? They count too. Refinishing furniture, gourmet cooking, and preparing taxes are all things you can learn.
Other things you can learn that might not seem so obvious at first glance, range from fishing to gardening to sewing. If it’s something new and takes effort and practise to learn, it counts as learning.
So, how do you go about learning these things? You can go the solitary, do-it-yourself route with books and instructional videos and the internet, particularly YouTube, is great for finding instructions for doing just about anything.
You can also join local groups or clubs dedicated to whatever it is you want to learn. Most sewing circles and pottery clubs, as just a couple of examples, will be happy to teach you when you join.
Finally, you can also take formal classes in almost any subject. Professional organisations offer classes on many topics and are taught by experienced instructors. They’re usually inexpensive, sometimes even free.
The most important thing is not what you learn or how you learn. It’s that you learn, period! This is what will keep you young. Pick something you need or want to learn and set about learning it. When you finish with that topic, move on to something else.
No matter how long you live, you’ll never run out of topics. Learning isn’t just for the young!
Move Your Body
Sitting around all the time won’t do you any favours if you’re trying to stay young at heart! If you don’t move your body enough, you’re going to age faster and end up with more health problems than you would otherwise.
Yes, that means you need to engage in that (sometimes) dreaded topic known as exercise. It doesn’t mean you need to join a gym and start doing daily cardio. It means you just need to get up and do any purposeful activity that makes you move your body. Yoga and tai chi are two low-impact forms of exercise that are popular with seniors.
But, do you want to know one of the best forms of exercise you can engage in outside of a gym? Gardening! Growing a vegetable or flower garden is a great way to get in shape or stay in shape.
Walking is a great form of exercise too. You can walk on a treadmill if you want, but there’s no reason to. You can walk around the mall, at the park, on the beach, or on walking trails.
Hiking, swimming, and Stand Up Paddleboarding are also great forms of exercise if you’re fit enough for them. Bicycling is also favoured by many seniors and an electric bike will help with those undulating hills or when you’re feeling puffed.
A type of exercise often overlooked is dancing. Most towns have somewhere offering different types and genres of dance classes – hiphop, ballroom, Latin American.
As always, the most important thing is not what kind of exercise you choose, but that you choose to exercise at all and that you do so regularly. That’s what will keep you young and fit.
Get A Part-Time Job
Your first thought upon hearing this suggestion might be “no way,” especially if you’re happily retired. However, wait just a moment before dismissing the idea. You need something to do, something to get you out of the house and get some social interaction. Why not choose something that will pay you for doing it?
Noone’s saying you should run out and take any job that presents itself or that you should look for a part-time job in your old profession. The latter might be a good idea if you miss your work, but if not, why not look for something else?
Many industries hire part-time workers, not just fast food outlets and retail companies (who are crying out for help at the moment). One of the largest employers of part-time workers is the non-profit sector. This is because they often don’t have the resources to hire full-time people but they also need help.
Is there a cause you are passionate about? The odds are good that your community has a non-profit dedicated to it. You can find part-time jobs with organisations as different as your local cancer education group, a walking tour guide for your city, or consider the local society that’s looking for new homes for abandoned pets.
If non-profits aren’t your thing, what about antique shops or thrift stores? Are you an artist or musician? There are always groups locally that need part-time help. Schools, libraries, and health centres would all be glad to hire an experienced part-time employee or volunteer for a variety of tasks.
None of these sound like you? Well, guess what? Pretty much every industry and every company has some form of part-time job you could potentially fill. This applies equally to everything from truck driving to bookkeeping, from education to landscaping.
If you want to get a part-time job, spread the word around your family and friends. Let people on local Facebook Groups know that you’re looking for part-time employment. Be sure to give them specific details about what you’d like to find so you only get good matches.
Getting a part-time job certainly isn’t for everyone. You’ve earned your golden years. Going back into the labour force is optional but doing something to get you out of the home and keep you engaged with life is something that will keep you young at heart.
Teach Something
This is another suggestion that might surprise you if you aren’t a retired educator. If you’ve never taught before, you might think you aren’t qualified to teach anything but that simply isn’t true because everyone can teach something!
What skills do you have? What kind of things do you know how to do? They can be academic or practical skills. Do you speak another language? You can probably teach the basics to someone else. Are you a retired accountant? You might be able to teach tax preparation.
Are you good at food prepping, sewing, quilting, knitting, or crocheting? You can teach just about any hobby that requires skill if you know how to do it.
What about art? If you’re good at any form of art, even if you’re not at a professional level, you can teach it. The same goes for music and creative writing. A hundred other things could be added to this list, including everything from graphic design to dog training to software programming.
If you know how to do something well, you can teach it.
The next question you probably have is how you’d go about doing so. Well, your local lifestyle villages often need instructors in all of these areas. Most of these positions are voluntary but what you get out of them more than makes up for the pay.
You could also teach private lessons or sign up to teach adult education classes to disadvantaged minorities or new immigrants.
Teaching gives you all the benefits you need to stay young at heart. It gets you out of the house, engages your mind, and gives you social interaction. Look at your skill set and see if there’s anything that you might be able to teach. Teaching could be just what you’re looking for!
Volunteer With Young People
Volunteering in any capacity is good for you and volunteering with young people is especially good for keeping you young at heart.
Researchers haven’t identified exactly why, but there is something about being around young people (defined as 25 and under) regularly that seems to slow down the aging process and make older adults feel younger.
Maybe all of that extra energy is transferred from younger people to older ones! Regardless of the reason, consider volunteering with young people.
What kind of volunteer work is available? To start with the obvious one, educational help is always needed. This would mean tutoring kids and college students who are behind in their studies or at risk of failing.
Every community needs volunteer tutors at schools, community centres, and other places. You have to fill out an application and pass a background check, but you don’t have to be a retired teacher.
Mentoring young people is another great option. Not every kid or young adult has someone to help them grow into adulthood – you could be the perfect person for this.
If you were in business, you could also mentor people who are keen to start their own businesses.
Another option is to volunteer to help out with sports. Most kids, teen, and college-age sporting leagues depend on a legion of volunteers for coaching, refereeing, setting up and taking down equipment, and a host of other activities. No matter what sport is your favourite, you will more than likely find a group that needs your help.
Do you have grandchildren? Why not volunteer at their school? All schools need adults to volunteer somewhere – from the cafeteria to the library to the school production. They usually welcome all ages who are willing to help.
You could also volunteer at local arts or music organization that caters to a lot of young people. These groups always need volunteers. You could be a tour guide, lecturer, or even work in the gift shop.
Children’s hospitals always need volunteers. Libraries often do too. Local festivals and fairs are usually run by volunteers and are often directed at young people. Don’t forget about volunteering when there’s a local call out to help collect rubbish in the forests or beaches.
Naturally, these are just a few of the many opportunities for volunteering with young people. Helping young people is a great way for you to stay young at heart while also doing good in the world.