Smart tips for staying healthy in your golden years

Popular phrases like "anti-aging" and "long life" are deceptive. They imply that the goal of healthy living is to add more years to your life. And in fact, you can add even more years to your life by living a healthy, optimistic life. Here's what you need to know about the benefits of staying healthy and aging with confidence.

Some scientists hypothesize that the human body can comfortably last 120 years before naturally giving out.  Modern health care and lifestyles have already given you the opportunity to live to a ripe old age far beyond those of our ancestors. The goal today isn't merely extra years. It is long health.

• Long health means that you are vibrant, creative and energized at any age. It's understanding that although we all have to die one day, an infirm, sedentary life is not the inevitable final chapter of our lives. It means that you do not accept that the diseases of aging are your destiny.
• Long health is living an active happy, purposeful life right up until your very final days.
• Long health isn't achieved by swallowing pills or launching yet another formal exercise routine. Aging is neither a disease to be treated with medicine nor a process to be reversed through sacrifice or hard work. Instead, achieving long health is a process to be respected and enjoyed.

In other words: The best path to being happy, energized and healthy in the future is living happily, energetically, and healthily in the present. The first step to achieving long health is recalibrating how you think about aging.

• Throw out notions that aging is a slow, sad decline toward death.The truth is that how long you live isn't the issue; it's how well you live.

Nothing can break your heart more than seeing someone you love lying incontinent in a nursing home at age 72. Instead, wouldn't you rather see someone 72 still playing tennis? 75 and running for public office? 81 and completing a four-mile hike? These are not hypothetical examples; these are all activities that real people are still doing and enjoying. The thing is, these people didn't wait until their eighties to start golfing or hiking. Rather, at some point earlier on, they chose to live more actively and healthfully.

• You are part of a generation that is redefining aging. It's already happening; when approximately 3,500 people with an average age of 80 were asked their ideas about aging, more than 60 percent said their opinions had changed in the past 20 years. Nearly all had thought about how they could age successfully instead of viewing aging as a negative thing.
• To them, freedom from disease, being able to function independently, and remaining actively engaged with life were critical components in successful aging.
• In addition, more than 90 percent of this group listed "remaining in good health until close to death" as the most important component of successful aging. After that followed:
• Being able to take care of myself until close to the time of my death
• Remaining free of chronic disease
• Having friends and family who are there for me
• Being able to make choices about things that affect how I age, like my diet, exercise and smoking
• Being able to cope with the challenges of my later years
• Being able to meet all of my needs and some of my wants
• Feeling satisfied with my life the majority of the time
• Being able to act according to my own inner standards and values

Less than a third chose "Living a very long time" as a component of successful aging. In fact, that statement was last.

Long health is well within your grasp. Keep up with an active lifestyle and get the most out of your golden years.