How can we stop becoming 'old' as we age?

I'm too young to be this old!

Would the car be a Nissan Micra. I have one. It's a joke with the family!
In my defence, it was such a good buy and has never let me down.

My 23 year old GS who is living with me keeps me young.

Well for what its worth I am 64, now live alone, am far too busy to consider getting old, have been a pensioner since the age of 40, am told by my eldest (daughter) to act my age and not my shoe size but still remain reasonably fit. I am building overseas (which helps with the fitness) but do have a sweet tooth and cannot resist the local cuisine either. That's the down side.
At home in UK I confess I no longer go out but used to spend most of my time outdoors but now busy myself with either housework, gardening or building / decorating / mending or erecting things for the children. I have two, one of each. If anyone could find time to get old amongst that lot I would love to know.

how does one become a pensioner at the age of 40 ????

I became one at 49. I took ill health retirement from the civil service which meant my pension started immediately.

granjura I was in the underwater business and Inland Revenue (as Revenue and Customs were) permitted us to draw a pension at 40. I guess at 40 we were considered generally past our best, physically at least, hopefully not mentally. Fortunately I have not suffered ill health with the exception of Arthritis as a consequence of too many years compressing and decompressing my body but it is controlled - most of the time. Nothing unusual I'm afraid.

Did you get the bends?

Galen over some 25 Years never got a full blown bend but lots of niggles left untreated. Including I am told a gas bubble in the left hand side of my brain which I presume eventually cleared itself. The three and a half to five days decompressions were slow but sometimes not slow enough. It was after all in the experimental days of decompression Schedules and therapeutic recompression. I was a lucky one. Friends were confined to wheelchairs whilst others died. I decided I wanted to live long enough to be a nuisance to the kids something I am told I achieved some time ago.
Sorry I have taken my night time pills and sleeping pill with hot chocolate and I can feel my body shutting down so its bed for me. Good night!

Gosh ps I'm glad my husband never continued with diving after he trained in the Navy. Mind you, it wasn't fun stuff - mainly working in murky waters. He did parachute jumps instead.

As for staying young - it is all in the mind and my mind is still 19 (the most dangerous age of my youth - great memories!)

I'm not a fan of his but will always remember Bruce Forsyth's comment that getting old is all about the walk and posture. He said if you shuffle along you'll look and feel old but if you stand straight and walk confidently it makes all the difference. He has a point...

I've just come to this thread so have read through all seven pages (and was a bit taken aback to see 'Happy New Year' mentioned!! Lol) and now feel I need to change my attitude! At 56 I'm already catching myself saying 'at my age' and thinking of myself as old! How did that happen?

petra I've recently acquired a Nissan Micra after my VW Polo packed up. I'm delighted with it.Its only done 18,000 miles- one lady owner for last 14 years.I rarely drive more than 40 mph and no longer on motorways.
Why even if speed limit is 60 mph should I feel pressured to drive at that speed.

Granny23 what a wonderful father, good for him.

I think we all know people who were old in their 20s I certainly did, people who never did anything non conformist.

There are many restraints on carrying on doing all the things you did in your earlier years especially if you have medical conditions but you can still take an interest in the world.
If you choose to just sit back and let the world go by in my opinion it's like giving up on life.
However if that is what a person wants to do in their winter years then who is to argue with this.

I personnaly intend going out with a bang, there is nothing I don't do that I want to do.
I went backpacking round the world for 12 months on retirement when I was 62 years old.
I bought my first pr of roller boots in my 50s and would skate regulary if I could find a local rink, I ice skate in the winter with the kids and don't give a jot.
I learned to sail in my late 60s life is good and I intend enjoying it as long as I can.

At 80, and beginning to find her busy social life a bit tiring, my mother's solution was to refit the kitcen and install a dishwasher. She then continued to party and entertain until she died suddenly in her sleep at 85 while on holiday to recover from a rather hectic social period.

Like a good daughter I intend to follow my mother's example.

I agree about the walk [I think it's one of the first things an actor does when taking on a new role is to perfect the walk; I was very aware of that watching Helen Mirren in The Queen..the film not the stage play] but, alas, my knees won't let me swing along the way I used to .

What a wonderful role model your mother was, *FlicketyB!

I think many of us will find fantastic examples from our own parents. My Mum had to give up her rambler's club at 78 because the bloke who ran it was coming on to her all the time. So she took up swimming with her friend Mia instead, and only gave it up in her late 80s when she had a stroke and couldn't balance any more. She died at 94.

She travelled here to Australia to see us at 74 and 78, and often went to France to see my sister. She lived in a council retirement flat, and spent a lot of time helping 'the old folks' as she called them, many much younger than her. She would cash their pensions for them, do their shopping, help them filling forms out - stuff like that.

She ignored her age, and never bothered with doctors. I wish she had, because they'd have discovered her high blood pressure and she wouldn't have had a stroke.

But apart from ignoring her health, she is a fantastic role model for refusing to act old.

Have I said this already? I believe what we all have to guard against as we grow older is known as hardening of the attitudes

My father survived my mother by just over 10 years. When he died at the age of 92, after a short illness he was till active on the committees of three local organisations, still capable of driving the 100 miles to both his daughters houses and in his late single life, having honed his cooking skills, no buffet event was complete without at least one of his Victoria sponges or trifles. DD still sighs for his meatloaf. I have the recipe but my version (and hers) doesn't quite taste like the original.

Being 'old' is a state of mind not a state of body.

Some wonderful role model on this thread.
Love the 'hardening if the attitudes' idea Gracesmum. Need to guard against this.

I'm 'old' when it suits me eg on a train when there are no seats, with the grandchildren if they want me down on the floor yet again etc etc. I don't feel 'old' [I'm almost 65 which reads 'old'], I don't dress 'old' - I like bright colours, leggings, jeans and Boden, but I often wonder what people's perception of me is when they see me

I agree to some extent that being old is a state of mind, but if a person becomes physically frail and/or less mobile, this can affect their self confidence and ability to participate in the world around them.

I think it's important to, as much as possible, get out and about and meet new people and find new interests, as well as keeping up with old and new friends.

It's easy to get into cosy routines (I'm guilty of this sometimes), but if life becomes too humdrum the danger is of operating on "auto pilot" and becoming boring.

I have met people who are quite severely physically disabled, one lived in a care home, but whose minds flew free. They were delightful company with active curious minds and we had long interesting conversations.

'Old' is a state of mind not a state of body

I'm decorating our hall and stairs and ave taken down the hand rail to paint it. I didn't realise I used it so much, both coming down and going up stairs. It's been off now for four days and I'm just beginning to get used to simply using leg power. As I'm fit and well this is a bad habit I've developed over the years.
This is the kind of cosy habit which it's easy to slip into.