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Five "Musts" For Living Your Best Life By Ageist's David Harry Stewart

By David Harry Stewart | June 1, 2020

For Pause Well-Aging, a brand dedicated to rewriting the skincare script for women in mid-life, it's hardly a surprise that we're big fans of the pro-aging media platform Ageist. We're so aligned with its mission to celebrate people in their post-50 prime that we recently reached out to Founder and CEO David Harry Stewart and asked if he'd pull together a list of what he and his engaged community considers absolutely necessary for living our best lives now.

Below, in his own words, is his plan:

Ageist's ongoing study of people our age who are living their best life now finds commonalities among them. They all seem to share a a common group of values and behaviors, all of which are easily adopted by almost all of us.

1. Purpose

This is the key that underpins everything - having a purpose, being useful and helping others. If one has this, then many of the other parts of living well naturally fall into place. Purpose is the basic tether that keeps everything together. Once we lose purpose, we humans can really get off track. One's purpose can be one's family, one's work, one's community, and is usually a combination of many of these. If we look at some of the biggest health problems today - diseases of despair and loneliness - these often stem from a lack of purpose.

How does one find purpose? It all starts with action. Ask yourself: How can I be helpful today? What small contribution can I make? Small successes will expand one's imagination of what one can do, and with it a newfound purpose to do more.

2. Sleep

Most of the people we speak to take sleep very seriously. They understand that the quality of the day they have is dependent on the quality of their sleep. Everyone is different, but most of them have a ritual of what they do before bed and a list of things they avoid doing so they get the best sleep possible.

3. Food

Food is both fuel and medicine. We are what we eat. There is a huge range of what people feel is best for them. They are open to a range of sources of information, the most important of which is themselves. How does something you eat make you feel? If there is one rule around the many confusing things we read about food, it is this: Eat a diet with a low glycemic load.

4. Movement

Exercise in all its form is a priority. Strength building, cardio fitness, mobility, flexibility and just having fun dancing are all incredibly important. "Use it or lose it" is the maxim around here.

5. Connection

The Ageist community tends to feel that staying reasonably up to date on what is happening in culture, music film, and fashion is part of living a well-balanced life. If one loses touch with what's happening in the world, it is very difficult to jump back in.

AGEIST is a publication and community of people who are living their best life now. They are connected, they are cool and they are very much not done yet. Please join us at www.weareageist.com and on Instagram @weareageist.