Very complex question, I stress I am no expert. I am simply disseminating and sharing what I learned and observed so far.
Our body accumulates damage and makes mistakes
If you think of a computer, or any machine really, why do they slowly lose their capabilities such as speed? Over time, everything in life accumulates damage and begins to slow down and breakdown. There really isn’t much in our world that doesn’t. This relates to the Second law of Thermodynamics which is partially a law of decay.
Over time everything breaks down and trends towards entropy. This is the natural order of the world, a world in which we are a part of. We are the same, our bodies accumulate damage over time and begin to make mistakes in our functioning, so this will be a key focus for this blog.
Your mental state is important and will impact your aging
I don’t mean to trend towards an existential conversation so early, but it is actually very important in aging well to also release control and understand that we are not forever. And that is good, even beautiful.
This is something I see often from my Grandma and even my Great-Grandparents in Peru who I was fortunate to know. There was a dramatic difference in their old age vs the old age I often see in the US. What was interesting was that, although they took care of their health, they also spoke about death and aging very easily and with no pain connected to it.
My Grandparents and even my mom speak about their own death very casually while many others fear death and are stressed from it. I will discuss this later in more depth, but stress is known to age you.
This is why I stress coming to terms with the fact that you do not have forever. We only have a moment and then the moments gone.
Appreciate and take care of your body now, and find beauty in small moments as often as possible. This is the first step and a critical foundational element to aging well.