Getting older isn’t easy, as the world no longer caters to you, and your body deteriorates faster. Here are the hardest parts of becoming a senior citizen.
Being a senior citizen isn’t easy. The years of wear and tear on your body start to add up, making everyday living much more difficult. In addition, the world is for younger people: words are too small, steps are too high, there aren’t enough chairs everywhere, etc. Read on to learn more about the hardest parts of becoming a senior citizen.
Posture
Maintaining a good posture is essential and something everyone should do, but it gets tricky as you age. The discs between your vertebrae are rubbery, soft, and easily malleable, but as you get older, they dry out and make maintaining a good posture much more challenging. Another reason good posture is more complicated is that your muscle mass declines with age. Older people are victims of sarcopenia, the decline in skeletal muscle mass, affecting bone density and making joints stiffer. This decrease in muscle mass starts early, around the age of 30, so you should try to fight against this decrease as soon as possible.
Health Issues
One of the most well-known things about getting older is the health issues. Diseases come forward, your body starts to deteriorate, and it’s harder to stay physically healthy and active. Many little things begin to happen that you have never considered before. For example, getting up from your chair takes a lot of energy and can make you dizzy. Similarly, you may struggle with incontinence, and even if you prepare and use briefs, you may have leakages. You can prevent incontinence brief leakage by trying different brands and sizes, but you will still struggle with the health situation underlying these issues.
Time Passes Differently
Another hard part of being a senior citizen is that your perception of time changes. It makes sense when you consider that as you are younger, a year of your life may be around 10 percent of the life you’ve lived up to that point. As you get older, though, that percentage decreases significantly. In your 80s, a year is a little over 1 percent of your life. This perception makes time pass much more rapidly, and it weighs on you. All those years of thoughts and worries add up, and soon, you’ll close your eyes and wake up to another year passing by.
Becoming a senior citizen is hard, and it will get harder as you age. However, there are things that you can do to make that aging transition easier. Maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle earlier in life makes it easier when you’re older. It’s by no means easy, but it’s worth it.
