Avoid Doing These Things to Prevent Aging (and Live up to 7 Years Longer)

San Francisco-based author, firefighter, and paraglider Caroline Paul has always filled her life with adventure. Now in her late fifties, she’s released Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking—How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age, a book that explores how to optimize our physical, mental, and emotional health at all stages of life. Combining scientific research, cultural studies, psychology, and personal stories, the book is a call to embrace the outdoors in our 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond. We had a chance to speak with Paul to get further insights, and here’s what she had to say.

What is the one through-line you found throughout your interviews featured in your book?

Engaging in an outdoor activity, whatever it was—scuba diving, going on a daily walk, birdwatching, cycling—uplifted and enhanced their view of their aging journey. The science is clear: How we look at our own aging predicts how well we age. This means that a negative view of our own aging leads to cardiac arrest and cognitive issues earlier. And the opposite is true: If we see our aging journey as exhilarating and full of possibility and joy, then we are happier, healthier, and we live seven years longer. When you embrace an outdoor activity, you aren’t just picking up a hobby, you are transforming your mind and body in powerful ways.

There’s plenty of science behind how nature relaxes frenetic brain waves, leading to improved memory and cognitive function. Can you talk more about that?

Studies show that volunteers who took a walk in green space tested much better afterward on cognitive tests. This is because the brain feels rested, less jangled, and can function smoothly. Conversely, in urban settings—with its hard linear architecture, constantly moving objects, and loud noises—our brains are working very hard to filter for the important information we need in that moment. It’s a tiring process that easily leads to low-level anxiety, as well as memory difficulties.

Studies have repeatedly shown that birdsong, flowing water, and wind through trees all effectively coax our brains away from the frazzle of overstimulation, leading to feelings of calm and wellbeing as well as lower blood pressure and decreased cortisol. Nature’s soft rounded shapes—horizon lines and hills, say—as well as the fractal elements of trees and leaves, matches well with our retinal structure, leading to an ease in neural processing. This means our brain isn’t working as hard to monitor for threats. Going outside is vital for everyone, but as we worry more about brain health in our later years, it becomes especially important.

Thomas J. Story

In this day and age, we are obsessed with the idea of aging gracefully as it relates to aesthetics. Can you talk a bit about what the true markers are for healthy aging for you?

The five pillars are community, purpose, novelty, health, and the positive view aging I mentioned above. These are important at any age, obviously, but they tend to fall away later in life. The cool thing is that when you pick up an outdoor activity, you can harness all those things at once, and I know of no other arena where that happens. It’s great to join a book club where you can find community and novelty, but you won’t find health, for instance.

I went scuba diving with 80-year-old Louise Wholey, who told me that she is constantly learning new things about the ocean, about the equipment, about diving itself (novelty). She also volunteers for many underwater endeavors, from counting kelp stipe to logging fish species, to picking up trash underneath Lake Tahoe (purpose). She has a robust group of divers around her, and often dons her mask and fins with her own daughter (community). Diving entails a lot of physical movement in invigorating environments like cold water and sun (health) and perhaps most notably, Louise continually gains the admiration of those around her with her scuba prowess, an admiration that deepens into surprise and delight when they find out she is actually 80 years old (positive view of her own aging).

Courtesy of SCP Mendocino Inn and Farm

In the book you talk about how the activities are less about the adrenaline rush or novelty, and more about seeking awe. Can you elaborate?

Awe is the emotion you feel in the presence of something mysterious, bigger than you, a mixture of wonder, fear, expansiveness, veneration, and perhaps some dread. Turns out nature is a surefire awe trigger—the vastness of the night sky, the immensity of the Grand Canyon, the tiny intricacies of a flower. And awe is really good for us. It lowers inflammation in the body. It decreases depression and anxiety. It increases feelings of gratitude, compassion, and connection. Awe is considered a reset button for the brain because it scrambles our well grooved neural pattern and, as Annie Murphy Paul writes in The Extended Mind, makes us “more curious and openminded… more willing to update the templates we use to understand ourselves and the world.”

We live in a world of anti-awe devices—our phone and our computer all narrow our perspective to a screen, training us to think small while elevating our sense of control and importance. The best thing is that as we age we are better at being present, marveling, appreciating. Now that I am 61, I am easily awestruck.

A lot of these women are lifelong outdoor enthusiasts. How can someone get into exploring the outdoors in their later years if it’s something they’ve never done before?

Say yes to an opportunity when it presents itself. I spoke to Loraine Vaught, 62, who had never had an outdoor interest before. She was going through a difficult time when she saw a group of women boogie boarding in the waves and thought it looked like fun. At a moment in her life where she was willing to upend some stuck notions of herself, she took that small step of saying yes, why not, it can’t hurt. She didn’t expect to keep doing it. And then she shocked herself by loving it! I am not exaggerating when I say it changed her life. Through getting into the ocean and playing with her peers, she really upended her own expectations about her aging journey.

My second piece of advice is to take small steps toward the outdoors. Don’t feel you need to do a 15-mile hike up a steep mountain. I spoke to Eric Clow, who began to watch birds from his wheelchair through his kitchen window. Soon he moved to his porch, then his backyard. So say yes, and take small steps, and see where it leads.