3 Health Tweaks You MUST Make Before Your 50th Birthday
As you prepare to turn 50, it’s important to reflect on how far you’ve come.
You’ve earned the right to enjoy a milestone birthday celebration, but it’s also important to realize that your 50s are just the beginning.
By taking preventive steps now, you can make the next five decades as wonderful as the first half of your life.
Our friends at The Healthy recommend 3 measures you can (and should!) take before turning 50:
Get a colonoscopy
For most people, your 50th birthday is the signal that it’s time for a first colonoscopy screening—and you should know the best time to schedule your colonoscopy. During the procedure, your doctor will use a long, lighted tube called a colonoscope to examine your colon for polyps, which can be early signs of colon cancer. The procedure, which is done while you’re under sedation, is painless and the benefits are great.
Visit the eye doctor
When it comes to caring for your eyes, the advice is similar to caring for the rest of our health—stop smoking, avoid second-hand smoke, and wear sunglasses that offer 100 percent protection from UV rays. ‘The bigger the sunglasses, the better,’ says Williams. ‘Protection from the sun helps prevent macular degeneration and cataracts, and wearing big sunglasses also protects the fine skin around the eyes, reducing your chance of getting wrinkles.’
Make exercise part of your retirement plan
Many of us sit down with a financial planner to ensure we’ll have enough money when we retire, but when it comes to our health we often neglect planning ahead. ‘Once you get to middle-age you are more prone to see the consequences of inactivity,’ says Wojtek J. Chodzko-Zajko, PhD, and dean of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and spokesperson for the American College of Sports Medicine. ‘Decades of being sedentary and poor nutrition will manifest as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes, but it’s never too late,’ he says. The first step is to add physical activity, but it has to be done in a way that creates balance in your life.”
