Mom

Anxiety over getting older can affect your physical and mental health, and even keep you from living longer, experts say. These "rules of aging" can help.

My mom's rules of aging were initially a projection of where she hoped she'd be later in life, she says. The study identified a "negative relationship" between aging anxiety and physical signs of aging. If aging anxiety decreases your sense of self-worth, it stands to reason that comfort with aging can bolster your self-confidence every day. In other words, if you feel anxious about getting older, you might be unintentionally hastening the process. In that decade, you can implement the lessons you've learned from those positive and negative experiences. To hear some of my friends joke, you could even start to fear the existential specter of death drawing ever closer. I credit that to my mom's "rules of aging," which have been ingrained in my head ever since I can remember: "I was in my 30s when I came up with this," she says. In retrospect, that's a slight overstatement, she adds: Your 20s can absolutely carry impact and consequence. "It started because I was working with someone who was in their 20s, and was freaking out about turning 25. "Even now, at age 59, I have never felt bad about a birthday," she says. Last month, I spent a long weekend at the beach for another friend's 30th wherein the "over the hill" jokes flew thick and fast.