Five Powerful Anti-Aging Hacks

Five Powerful Anti-Aging Hacks

When people ask me if I plan to age gracefully, I say, “Heck, no—I don’t plan to age at all!” Okay, fine… maybe I’ll accept a few gray hairs when I reach the grandma years. (Or maybe not.) But I don’t ever plan to become tired, washed-out, stooped, overweight, and old. Why? Because I have a big bag of tricks for staying young. The first is to eat a diet that’s high in quality proteins, vegetables, and fats, and free of inflammatory grains and sugar. Here are some other strategies I recommend.

Lift weights.

When you do resistance training with weights, you raise your levels of human growth hormone—a hormone that creates lean muscle, sculpting your body. I call it “rearranging the furniture.” Weightlifting is one of the biggest secrets for looking years younger than you are. And guess what: Resistance exercise actually makes you younger at the molecular level! Research shows that just six months of resistance training dramatically reverses molecular biomarkers of aging.

Drink bone broth.

Bone broth is loaded with the building blocks of collagen, so it smooths and strengthens your skin. I’m delighted by the number of people doing my Bone Broth Diet who report, “My friends all think I had work done!” In addition, the soothing gelatin in bone broth heals your gut, reducing chronic inflammation—the number-one cause of obesity, diabetes, and other diseases of aging. The glucosamine and chondroitin in bone broth also ease joint pain, so you can move like you did years ago.

Keep your spine young.

If you spend hours each day texting on devices or hunched over a computer, you’re aging your spine. Your back muscles will get progressively weaker, your posture will become slumped, and you’ll start to look older (and heavier) than you are. What’s the solution? In addition to doing the resistance exercises I talked about earlier, do yoga and Pilates to keep your spine strong, flexible, and beautifully aligned.

Also, do core exercises like these, because a strong core protects your back. In addition, stand up and stretch every few hours when you’re at work. Finally, give your spine the nutrients it needs to stay strong. Get plenty of vitamin D from sunshine and from foods like salmon and eggs, and eat calcium-rich foods including salmon, sardines, kale, broccoli, and almonds.

De-stress your life.

Stress shortens your telomeres—the caps on the ends of your DNA. Translation: your genes age faster. Stress also gives you a “cortisol tire” around your waist, causes your hair to get thinner, and makes you miserable. (It’s that “fat, bitchy, and bald” pattern I talk about.) So take control over your stress. If possible, reduce your commitments. Ask yourself which obligations are the least meaningful to you, and free yourself from them. (Be ruthless about this.) To ease your stress still more, make mindful meditation, Tai Chi, or relaxing breathing exercises a part of your life.

Get outside!

More and more, we’re discovering that spending all day in an office or a house isn’t good for us. In addition to boosting our vitamin D and encouraging us to exercise, outdoor time can speed healing and reduce depression and anxiety (and a happier brain is a younger brain!). We’re genetically wired to spend part of our lives outdoors—and following our genetic template is the best way to fight aging. — Combine these tricks with that healthy diet I talked about earlier, and I predict that you’ll start seeing a difference right away. Within weeks, you’ll look and feel younger. You’ll have more energy than you’ve had in years. Your skin will look better. Your eyes will be clearer. Even your hair will look better. So give it a try—and instead of aging gracefully, refuse to age at all!

Keep Thinking Big & Living Bold!

Dr. Kellyann