Forget anti-ageing, get the basics right

Growing older is often presented as a choice. Cosmetic treatments, so-called anti-ageing products and their close relations — “age defying”, “age perfect”, “slow age” formulas and so on — tend to frame evidence of the passing of time as problems to be fixed.

Not much has changed since Susan Sontag nailed women’s anxieties about ageing in her 1972 essay “The Double Standard of Aging”: “Growing older is mainly an ordeal of the imagination — a moral disease, a social pathology.” 

In my fifties, as the inevitable ravages continue, I have been highly susceptible to anti-ageing formulas but experience also tells me cosmetic wizardry may be limited. And I can’t shake the feeling that our framing is off. What if we paid less attention to superficial tweaks, and more to a few basic interventions that will have a greater effect in the long term?

As one friend pointed out, there is no point pumping your lips full of filler if your gums are receding. So what other easy, quick and preferably evidence-based changes might I make now to set me up for a better older life?

I sought out advice from three specialists on making small, long-term adjustments to improve how I age. It is not an exhaustive list; I already eat well and exercise. I want to find out how else I can deal with aspects that are starting to feel . . . well, older.

Posture is one. As a teenager I trained as a dancer and held myself upright instinctively. Now, after sedentary decades hunched over keyboards, my shoulders and spine often feel slumped and stiff, which could become a problem. Like me, posture expert Dr Steven Weiniger is ambivalent about the term “anti-ageing”. “There’s one guaranteed way to prevent it,” he says. “Die today. You won’t age any more. So for me, the quest is to age successfully.”

Many people know what’s good for their health but find it difficult to implement. So start out with achievable, not overly optimistic goals

Weiniger has written two books, trained clinicians and contributed to US ageing policy on the importance of good posture. He explains how correct body alignment is linked to optimum breathing, important for vital-organ function as well as strength and balance. In other words, better posture will keep me healthier, more mobile and upright for longer.

“The mechanics of your body structure and the physicality of what the body is doing cascades to many things that affect mental and physical health,” he says on a Zoom call, which he makes from a walking holiday in Florida. In his late sixties he is remarkably upright, with an enviable youthful energy and bags of enthusiasm.

The good news is that my posture “is eminently actionable”. Ideally, my head, torso, pelvis and feet should be stacked. To check, Weiniger advises me to stand sideways against a wall and have someone take my picture (I do this later and find my chin juts forward — a common problem in the smartphone age, says Weiniger).

“That means you’re dropping down a bit, losing some height and the upper part of the lungs becomes larger and the lower part smaller because the torso is scrunched,” he says. “So you are biased towards chest breathing rather than abdominal breathing.”

Weiniger suggests I improve alignment with a simple exercise: stand inside a door frame, exactly in the middle, bend my arms, swivel my palms so they face outwards and to the sides and press against the door jamb. The door (with luck) is perfectly aligned, so my body will be, too.

Then I must lift one leg to 90 degrees in front, keep the standing leg straight and hold it for five slow breaths, before doing the same on the other side. I should do this three times a day, says Weiniger. After a while, my brain will adjust instinctively to holding myself more effectively. “It’s not about being dynamic,” he says. “It’s about reprogramming your neuromuscular system.”

Better posture also helps brighten my mood. But what about the longer term? I don’t have a history of depression. But like many people in mid-life, I am recently bereaved and long winter months in the northern hemisphere can feel tough.

According to recent research by Dr Julian Mutz of King’s College, London, mental health may be just as important in the ageing process as physical wellbeing. Mutz’s research with professor Cathryn Lewis looked at data from half a million people with mental health diagnoses. Their findings suggested people with common mental health conditions such as depression or bipolar disorder have lower average life expectancy than people without. 

People with serious conditions should always seek treatment, Mutz tells me. But beyond that, “it’s almost never too late to benefit from behavioural change. The key, in my opinion, is a holistic approach to address as many risk factors as possible: good sleep hygiene, quit smoking, exercise properly.”

Mutz acknowledges that these are obvious tips. But he points out that applying them consistently is hard work. “Many people know what’s good for their health but find it difficult to implement. So start out with achievable, not overly optimistic goals.”

Just as important, says Mutz, may be good relations with friends and family, because loneliness is strongly associated with poor health. “The effect we observed in our analysis was similar to smoking or an unhealthy body mass index. I’m not saying it’s causal, but it’s striking how big the effect of loneliness can be.”

So far, so good in my anti-ageing quest: I have resolved to improve my strength, balance and say yes to every party invitation. But I can’t quite bring myself to opt out of anti-ageing routines entirely, despite knowing that it is ultimately a zero-sum game. Can I reframe how I think about my changing body so I care a little less?

Justine Bateman has done exactly that. As a teenage actress in the 1980s, she enjoyed fame as Mallory Keaton in the US TV series “Family Ties”. Now 58, Bateman is a successful film director, producer, writer and author. In 2021 she wrote Face: One Square Foot of Skin, a book exploring attitudes to women and ageing, after discovering in her forties that much online commentary about her related to her looks.

I called Bateman in Los Angeles to ask how she changed her thinking about all this. Anti-ageing culture, she says, “really comes down to trying to erase yourself”. “It’s nothing to do with the skin on your face. It’s what you are afraid that it will signify to others.

“Most people fear that ageing will signify exclusion — romantically, professionally — and I’m here to tell you that’s not true. When someone has an older face, people generally assume you know what you’re talking about . . . so why am I going to erase that? Why not indicate that to the world?” 

“I like the physical evidence of change. I want that,” Bateman continues. “There’s a reason you don’t still live in your childhood room in your parents’ house.” Bateman is persuasive, and I think she may be right. With my shoulders back, armed with her advice and a full social diary, I’m so busy I might just forget to apply retinol.

I wonder what she thinks about younger women’s desire for anti-ageing products. “People in their twenties? Isn’t that when you’re meant to be going out there and pushing the boundaries?” she splutters. “They think all this stuff will fix everything? There’s nothing to fix!”

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