When aging is just out of control

When aging is just out of control -- your control

As boomers, we have a choice of chasing youth by merely looking younger with magical serums and plastic surgery or by staying healthy and relevant by understanding the importance of the relationship between ourselves, mind and body, with our environment.

Recently I have begun a series of Micronized Current (Micro Current) facial treatments. I had been too busy through the winter to do my annual Intense Pulse Light (IPL) treatments to buy myself enough time to accept the “old lady” in the photographs.

While Micro Current is less invasive than the medical procedures, I recognize that it still is merely a means to looking younger.

As I age and learn to respect the limits of my body, I am more observant of the physical changes created by the external environment, the nourishment I devour and the fluctuations of my relationships and interactions with others.

I started my Micro Current treatments in March. The treatments’ success in lifting my sagging skin is evident in the disappearance of the deep wrinkle in my nasal labia fold (those aging brackets on each side of our mouth) and the wider look of my eyes. Compare my photo of a year ago with the one here.

While I have more dramatic “before” photos due to weight loss and the addition of one more year, the change is still noticeable. More anti-aging advice—don’t lose weigh after forty as skin is not so resilient. But no worries – you just need to work harder.

This weekend, I have suffered dehydration due to hotel living and a lack of sleep due to the strange bed. I have also been eating all my meals in restaurants or the Whole Foods buffet table. Therefore I ended up with edema which was my already weak kidneys’ way of saying the food was way too salty and fatty.

When the edema was gone I was left with a tired look, making me feel depressed and that my efforts to find time to get in for my Micro Current Facials and my extra moisturizing skincare were futile.

On Sunday morning I am awaken by a fluttering of the drapery in my hotel room. It was the turbulence caused by the tail end of a tornado in the American Midwest.

Did I tell you that I was also in the middle of a stressful personal life as I had grown impatient with a life partner that doesn’t know the existence of planning and “ was in the middle of helping” him see the light?

And I was commuting to one of our locations due to unexpected staff absentism to cover client appointments. I who always lived near work because I find commuting stressful.

While all this was happening, a client’s photographer husband asks to photograph me as he thought I would make an interesting subject. He proudly shows the photographs he coached me to pose in. But alas!--I only saw a middle-aged woman.

The Micro Current has helped me looked better, and yes even younger. And that definitely made me feel better to know that I could have some control over the speed of aging in my appearance. But the photograph told me that it was not the whole answer!

Therefore the anti aging choices we make ---whether they are safe and natural like Micro Current or more invasive like injecting Bovine toxins into our foreheads or a snipping skin around our eyes or faces – need to expand to include our lifestyle and environment.

To successfully perform and look younger, we need to balance the drying effects of a windy or cold environment, a stressful event and hard to digest dehydrating foods. If we have weak organs like kidneys or flawed circulatory system we need to follow habits that strengthen them.

But again no short cut to a fix -- medication by the way like recreational drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and coffee will negatively affect your day to day appearance along with your long-term health.

So start you anti aging by designing some healthy routine for yourself with the help of the appropriate health professionals.