I've entered my 50's and I have lots of friends in their 60's and 70's. As in all things, there is penny wise, pound foolish. For me, here are the "pound" issues:
- Saving enough money
- Lack of stress
- Avoidance of injury
- Regular exercise
The rest seems to be tweaking. If you get the above right, then you will probably be fine. I would especially like to warn about taking on too much stress in order to get the money. There is a balance there and it's important to find out where it is for you. Don't go into stress debt! (Note: different people react to stress differently -- listen to your body)
Avoidance of injury is massive. If you get a chronic issue (like pain from joint or bad back or whatever), it can cause you to abandon exercise and when you get older it's a particularly rapid downhill journey from there. When you are younger, it seems like everything will heal. It won't. Be careful. Things come back to haunt you in the end.
Finally, no matter how unpleasant you find exercise, or how difficult it seems to be to do it -- it will be 10x or even 100x worse when you are older. Start as young as possible (i.e. today). If you have quit, then today is the day to start again. You can start again as many times as you want. If you start again every day, then you can never quit ;-) If you maintain regular exercise through your whole life, then when you get older it won't be so hard to continue. If you don't, that rapid slide into decline is almost inevitable. Especially, once you have trouble walking, it's pretty close to the end of the story as far as I can tell.
Not far behind you. An uncle had a major bypass heart operation in his 60s, after which he started daily 4-mile walks and he's still doing pretty well 15 years later. Inspired me to start daily walks earlier in life (usually about a mile) and a few sessions of exercycle and karate every week.
The other ingredient which I have only been recently aware of (thanks in large part to reading "Why we sleep") is getting a full night's sleep. That's hard for me, because I am naturally a "night owl" and light sleeper with kids who need to get up early, but I am aware of the need and try to get 7 or 8 hours as best I can.
- Saving enough money - Lack of stress - Avoidance of injury - Regular exercise
The rest seems to be tweaking. If you get the above right, then you will probably be fine. I would especially like to warn about taking on too much stress in order to get the money. There is a balance there and it's important to find out where it is for you. Don't go into stress debt! (Note: different people react to stress differently -- listen to your body)
Avoidance of injury is massive. If you get a chronic issue (like pain from joint or bad back or whatever), it can cause you to abandon exercise and when you get older it's a particularly rapid downhill journey from there. When you are younger, it seems like everything will heal. It won't. Be careful. Things come back to haunt you in the end.
Finally, no matter how unpleasant you find exercise, or how difficult it seems to be to do it -- it will be 10x or even 100x worse when you are older. Start as young as possible (i.e. today). If you have quit, then today is the day to start again. You can start again as many times as you want. If you start again every day, then you can never quit ;-) If you maintain regular exercise through your whole life, then when you get older it won't be so hard to continue. If you don't, that rapid slide into decline is almost inevitable. Especially, once you have trouble walking, it's pretty close to the end of the story as far as I can tell.