Live long and prosper

Exercise your heart and mind
Active people have 50 per cent less chance of developing coronary heart disease than those who aren’t. Regular physical activity is known to reduce some of the common risk factors for developing coronary heart disease, such as high blood pressure, obesity and high cholesterol. It can significantly maintain and improve the strength and flexibility of your muscles, helping to prevent injury and allowing you to participate in everyday life to the full. It can also help to control conditions such as diabetes and possibly reduce the risk of some cancers.

Exercise can also lift your mood, help you to deal with negative emotions and bring you a general sense of mental well-being. There is also a link between regular physical activity and warding off some of the effects of age on the brain. Aerobically fit people have steeper peaks and valleys in brain waves associated with alertness. Exercise also keeps the blood vessels open, which in turn ensures that brain cells get all the nutrients they need for peak performance.

The effects of age on the brain have been much overrated. As long as you don’t develop a degenerative brain disease such as Alzheimer’s or suffer a major stroke, there is no reason why your memory cannot remain excellent well into old age. The secret to retaining an efficient memory is to continue to use it.

Look on the bright side
In the Old Testament it says ‘A merry heart doeth good like medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.’ Clearly the link between laughter and health is not a recent discovery. The ability to laugh at life is one of the greatest survival tools at our disposal and there is a lot of evidence that tittering, chortling and giggling can protect us from avariety of ills.

Some research suggests that laughter causes a reduction in stress hormones such as cortisol and lowers blood pressure, which in turn may reduce heart disease risk. Increased cortisol levels tend to suppress the immune system, so decreasing this hormone is believed to be beneficial.

Indulging in that most comic of all pastimes – sex – is also said to improve quality of life. In a long-term study published in book form as Secrets of the Superyoung, Dr David Weeks, head of Old Age Psychology at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Scotland, found that the key ingredients for looking younger are staying active and maintaining a good sex life. Weeks attributed this to significant reductions in stress, greater contentment and bettersleep.