Silver Chats has made it through the first year of its blog page, sharing and defining holistic aging practices. We have given tips, advice, and thoughts on how to be our best while navigating the aging process. We have looked at mental well-being, physical wellness, love, spirituality, and lifestyle as categories for holistic aging practices and the keys to the endless possibilities of aging. We are setting our goals for 2025, and as a reader, we hope to give you a glimpse into the coming year and what it holds for you.
This year, we want to tackle more in-depth subjects of concern or importance as we age. Subjects like intimacy, death, illness, and loneliness are a few mental health issues. Subjects like recipes and food, hydration, medications, and diet and exercise programs for physical well-being. Subjects like divorce, long-term marriage, companionship, friendships isolation, and sex for love. Subjects like prayer, meditation, mindful thinking, forgiveness, gratitude, organized religions, and different paths for spirituality. We will look in depth at specific lifestyles in retirement, social security, finances, downsizing, retirement communities, RV living, and more.
Silver Chats touched on many of these subjects during our first year but combined them into broader blog content. This year, we will concentrate more on some subjects to ensure relevance and exactness. We have spent the year talking, observing, and listening to learn areas of significant concern. We’ve seen long-term marriages that have weathered a lifetime, bodies that are old before their time, weight issues with most of us, chronic conditions due to poor lifestyle choices, and worry about finances in the future. We’ve observed the love and joy of family and friends, sedentary lifestyle conditions, isolation issues, and hobbies and volunteering that bring purpose. We’ve primarily heard a desire to change but a lack of motivation or courage to do so.
We are living longer than our parents and grandparents. We experience longer lives but not necessarily healthier. The years we live healthier are not increasing with longevity. Silver Chats focused several of our blogs in 2024 on chronic diseases and ways to increase our health through diet supplements and lifestyle changes. We discussed longevity, science, and bio-hacking as solutions to them. We will continue to do this in 2025.
Along with increased physical challenges, there are mental changes associated with aging. One in five of us over 60 will suffer mental and psychiatric disorders. Depression, anxiety, personality disorders, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease are a few. Along with these conditions, we find an increase in cognitive decline, substance abuse, disability, and diminishing functions. Silver Chats touched on all these subjects and will continue in 2025.
Love is a subject of great importance as we age. Having love in our lives affects our mental well-being and physical wellness. It is connected to our happiness, purpose, and sense of belonging. Silver Chats included this single topic as part of holistic aging because of its importance as we age. Defining love in aging is not restricted to a marriage or relationship; there are many ways to express and experience love, and Silver Chats discussed some of them in 2024. We will continue to address this topic and its relevance to aging in 2025.
Many of us are affiliated with an organized religion. Spirituality is another aspect of holistic aging practices. Both religion and spirituality play positive, important roles in aging. Research evidence suggests that both increase with age, and we tend to lean into them more than when we were young. We touched on this in 2024, but we want to look closer at the reason why this happens and what motivates us to do so. In 2025, the subject of religion and spirituality will be a topic for further discussion.
Lifestyle choices remain a crucial part of holistic aging practices. It affects our overall health, effectively preventing and managing chronic illness, maintaining cognitive function, preserving mobility, and affecting our quality of life. How we choose to spend our time, where we put our energy and focus, and the decisions we make in our daily routines and habits define our aging processes. Taking stock of our lives, changing when necessary, maintaining flexibility in thinking, and adopting healthier, more positive ways to live are the cornerstones of holistic aging practices and the answer to the endless possibilities of aging.
Silver Chats is committed to educating and providing tips and accurate information on topics related to aging. But we also want to go beyond that; we want to offer motivation, encouragement, and solutions that promote overall health and happiness in our lives. We are in the last one-third of our lives and have the unique opportunity to design what we want, where we want to go, and how we want to achieve it. Aging brings freedom; how we choose to use it is all up to us. Thank you for supporting the first year of our blog page. Join Silver Chats for our second year of exciting chats and discover the endless possibilities of aging in positive, healthy, holistic aging practices.
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