How to age gracefully

Say bed should be devoted to sleep, sexual intercourse only

Chief Consultant Orthopedic Surgeon at the National Orthopedic Hospital Enugu, Dr. Kene Madu, has posited that people should rather than worrying about old age and ageing, should see it as a natural biological process of growing older till death comes.

Speaking while delivering a lecture on “Ageing and Good Health” at the 2016 annual lecture/end of year family dinner /couples’ night of the Brothers Across Nigeria (BAN), a non governmental, non religious and non political association, held at Hotel Royal Damgrete, Umuahia, Abia State capital, the medical expert stated that “the trick to ageing gracefully is to enjoy it”.

Chairman of BAN Umuahia Chapter that hosted the event, Mr. Hope Uwaga, said that BAN was established in 1972 with over ten thousand membership of professional men spread across tongues and tribes in Nigeria with the philosophy for love, orderliness, honesty, transparency, togetherness, championing and sharing one another’s challenges and positively seeking to solve them including promoting their welfare and thus creating a sample society for the world to copy from, promoting objectivity, fairness and social justice generally.

Madu urged ageing persons to embrace a healthy lifestyle through out life saying that by so doing, one will have a greater ability to engineer a positive approach to the ageing process adding that establishing healthy lifestyle behaviors throughout one’s life influences optimal ageing.

Stressing the importance of relaxation and sleep which he called ‘Sleep Hygiene,’ he warned that bed should be used for sleep and sexual intercourse only and further prescribed going to bed at regular time every day and waking up at the same regular time every morning while keeping in mind that daytime naps also affect night time sleep.

According to the orthopedic medical expert, ageing persons should set aside relaxation time, connect with others, do something they enjoy everyday, keep to their sense of humor, be social, do regular exercise, eat their enjoyable variety of nutritious foods (which should include plenty of fruits and vegetables, fibre), avoid skipping breakfast, do everything in moderation especially alcohol, drink more water, consult their doctors regularly and take prescribed medications and where applicable, consider sexual stimulants.

On the signs and effects of ageing, he listed them as skin wrinkling, sagging of some body parts, protuberant belly, bent frame, loss of self esteem among others adding however that as the body ages, there would be gradual changes that occur at the body pace depending on the genetic pattern with lifestyle choices having more powerful effect.

Continuing, he said that aging which affects all systems in the body and leads to continuous decline and death, has a variable rate influenced by genetic, behavioral, environmental and other factors adding that while physical growth continues till around 24 or 25 age beyond which the body cells cease to replace themselves at the same rate till death.