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DIY guide, checking how well you get venerable
May
A few years ago Trend in social media They challenged people to see if they could get up from the floor without using their hands. Now it’s about how long you can balance on one leg when brushing teeth. These bizarre “tests” promise that they will tell us how well we are aging – but are they really?
When we talk about “good aging”, we usually refer to good and psychological well -being of both physical and mental. This includes well -being (Hedonic well -being) and finding the meaning and purpose (Eudaimonic Wellbeing). Engaging in activities and self -monitoring plays a role in both.
But aging Not only How forceful your handle is or how quickly you can walk. His complex mixture Physical, cognitive, emotional and social changes – and no single test captured the whole picture.
Physically, one plain measure that attracts a lot of attention is the speed of walking. According to One famous studyPeople who walk faster than 1.32 meters per second, less often died in the next three years – jokingly as part of “too rapid, so that the grim reaper could catch”.
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On the other hand, a slower walking speed – below 0.8 meters per second – can be a sign of sarcopenia, a condition including reduced muscle mass, muscle strength and physical function. These are all crucial indicators of age -related decline.
But although these markers are useful, they are not effortless to measure at home. Most tests are based on specialized equipment, and your local general doctor probably does not have a dynamometer in the drawer. But they could have time How long does he take you up and sit down five times from the chair.
How to do DIY
So what can you do realistically to track your own aging?
To really understand how you get venerable, it helps to think beyond physical health. Mental sharpness, emotional resistance and social relationship have the same. One of the useful ideas is the assessment of cognitive efficiency, which includes skills such as attention, memory and flexibility.
Here are some cognitive tests that you can try at home:
Trail creation test: Combine the numbers and letters of the sequence (1, A, 2, B etc.) and time as long as it lasts. This measures the ability to switch between tasks.
Stroop task: questions your ability to ignore competitive information. Try to say the color of the word, not the word – like saying “red” when you see the word “blue” printed with red ink. It’s more arduous than it seems!
Double task challenge: Go at normal speed, counting back from 100 out of three. If the walking speed changes significantly, this may indicate cognitive deformation.
These types of tasks test how well your brain copes with competitive requirements – a key skill that becomes even more crucial as aging. This skill is known as Cognitive flexibilityAnd it helps to adapt to changing situations, switching between tasks and management dispersion management.
Testing these tests is great, but how do you know if you will improve? Finally, when you spent time at trying to improve the speed of walking or Stroop’s ability – or even rub your head, patting your stomach, while loudly saying a Finnish alphabet – it is crucial to know if you see the benefits.
Some funds, such as a one -off attitude, may differ Wild from day to day – and even an hour by hour. Maybe it’s better to just repeat yourself, which does not necessarily mean that you get venerable better, you just practiced.
Others, like the grip force, change very slowly even with regular strength training. And some improvements are specific for the task: improving the test of creating trails does not necessarily make you sharper in word.
Therefore, it helps to finish the test several times at the beginning, and then test again once a month – again, doing it several times – tracking any improvements. Cognitive changes can be slower than in the case of physical, so regular inspections can aid reveal progress in time.
More puzzle than the test
There is no one test or a result that can capture how you get venerable. Think about it more like a puzzle. Physical health, mental agility, emotional balance, social relationship – They all matterAnd everyone interacts. And of course, even if you are doing well now, some changes in the future may be beyond your control. No test can fully predict what awaits us.
At the end of the day, maybe the best sign of aging is not how quickly you walk or how long you can stand on one leg – you feel like your life. Do you feel involved, content, connected?
Tools such as The scale of positive and negative experience It can aid you sum up your emotional well -being. This tiny, 12-bread test Asks about your daily feelings – from joy and peace to sadness and frustration – offering insight into both Pleasant (hedonic) and significant (eudaimonic) sides of well -being.
Aging is not about overcoming the alloy or moving the memory test. It’s about getting to know yourself – your body, mind and your values - and making compact, significant changes that aid you feel.
So go ahead, stand on one leg if you want. But don’t forget to check with the brain, body, emotions and a sense of goal.
