Path for longer & fruitful life

Other day i was talking to my mother and she said, "Govt rightly retires people at the age of 58 as they doesn't remain fit to after age of 58". For most of the government employees retirement age was 58 years and has become de-facto standard for private employees too. I thought for a while and i replied to her that it is other way round, since people doesn't work after retirement they become unfit for work very soon. 

This problem happens with the salaried people who followed some routine of getting up early in the morning, getting ready and commute to work, spend whole day working to earn and in the evening come back home, spend some time with the family and go to sleep. This happens day in and day out till one get retired. Post retirement one doesn't know what to do with all the free time that is available and in the absence of meaningful activities the neurons in brain start to lose their connections with other neurons leading to the death of neuron and brain doesn't remain agile and slowly and steadily it starts to die. Historically working population in India is majorly males and looking at the demography of India, Structure of the population,  one can see that male to female ratio turns favorable towards female in age bracket of 55-59 and remain so. This problem doesn't affect business owners or small shop owners much who continue to work till their physical body allows and many continues even with restricted movement. 

My grandfather was owning shop and he continued to work till he was 75 years and lived close to 90 years but my father was not that fortunate, he retired at 58 and couldn't complete even 70 years. I am working in corporate and if i need to live for long, either i need to find a way to delay my retirement as much as possible or i need to find a way to keep myself occupied mentally along with physically after retirement for e.g. our Indian judges or IAS officers who after retirement become members of some government committees and remain occupied mentally and usually live longer.

Now the question arise how can a person keep self occupied. One has to find his "Ikigai, Japanese way to live long and happy life". It is just a reason for which you want to get up next morning and obviously you must love to do that activity. There could be numerous activities one can involve in like

• Involve in kitchen gardening of getting organic farm fresh vegetables for family.
• Get fresh cow's milk from village or go for fishing and get fresh fish for family.
• Engage  in social service
• If you like to travel then search for places, travel and make more memories for brain to make more neuron connections.
• Most of the Indians go to temple or do puja at home in morning & evening. Religiously follow that.

It is not that one has to keep his mind busy all the time, it also needs a break and from full day's  activities, we need to unwind the mind in the evening. One can do following to unwind

• Heartful conversations with friends or spouse or family members. 
• Doing meditation to calm the mind and remove the toxins accumulated during the day or prepare it for full day ahead.
• Have a gave of football or cricket with your children or go for cycling with them
• Have time for self, in which one can just relax and listen or play music, read book, which are one of the best ways to soothe and calm the mind along with meditation.

 

Having a stable & healthy mind is the single most factor to live longer and one need to do anything to keep it healthy and the healthy mind lives in healthy body. One need to focus on one's health during young age. Engage in physical activities, be it any sports or other activities like gardening which requires physical efforts. Also if one is healthy and fit in young age that will only help to do the activities one would love to do during late years.

Apart from physical activities, diet is key. One should take healthy food, remember that grains are produced to provide required calories cheaply to masses and might not be very healthy. Diet is vast and specialized field where i should restrict myself but would like to say to be away from white stuff(Sugar, salt, maida etc) and refined stuff. Naturals are always healthier, Organic is better, eating fruit is better than its juice, jaggery is better than sugar etc.

For most of the activities that one does during lifetime, money is required and one should earn enough that one live comfortably during earning years as well as late years.

And finally the mantra is to have a balance of everything be it personal, professional, social or spiritual life. Have balanced diet, balanced attitude towards life.

Indian Population(2011 census) by age group. For years in green & yellow males & females respectively are more than other gender.

Age group	Male	Female	Total	Percentage (%)
0–4	58,632,074	54,174,704	112,806,778	9.32
5–9	66,300,466	60,627,660	126,928,126	10.48
10–14	69,418,835	63,290,377	132,709,212	10.96
15–19	63,982,396	56,544,053	120,526,449	9.95
20–24	57,584,693	53,839,529	111,424,222	9.20
25–29	51,344,208	50,069,757	101,413,965	8.38
30–34	44,660,674	43,934,277	88,594,951	7.32
35–39	42,919,381	42,221,303	85,140,684	7.03
40–44	37,545,386	34,892,726	72,438,112	5.98
45–49	32,138,114	30,180,213	62,318,327	5.15
50–54	25,843,266	23,225,988	49,069,254	4.05
55–59	19,456,012	19,690,043	39,146,055	3.23
60–64	18,701,749	18,961,958	37,663,707	3.11
65–69	12,944,326	13,510,657	26,454,983	2.18
70–74	9,651,499	9,557,343	19,208,842	1.59
75–79	4,490,603	4,741,900	9,232,503	0.76
80–84	2,927,040	3,293,189	6,220,229	0.51
85–89	1,120,106	1,263,061	2,383,167	0.20
90–94	652,465	794,069	1,446,534	0.12
95–99	294,759	338,538	633,297	0.05
100+	289,325	316,453	605,778	0.05
Unknown	2,372,881	2,116,921	4,489,802	0.37
Total	623,270,258	587,584,719