Aging is a normal part of life, and as women get older, they often turn their backs on certain habits and behaviors that no longer do them any good. This can mean letting go of self-doubt or being too preoccupied with their physical appearance. If you’re curious about these things, read on and find the top 18 habits women quit as they age!
Being Held Down by What Others Think of Them
Your life is yours to live, and you should never allow anyone to dictate it! This advice is particularly relevant for women navigating middle age, who may have felt constrained by societal norms in their youth. Disregard others’ opinions about your appearance, style, and choices—as long as you’re content and comfortable, that’s the path to follow!
Putting Their Noses in Someone Else’s Business
As you mature, you must be mindful of how your words and actions impact others. This includes refraining from gossip and respecting personal boundaries. At this stage of life, your focus should be on your own journey—not your neighbor’s, not a friend of a friend’s, and certainly not someone you barely know!
Being Too Preoccupied With How They Look
Society has demonized physical manifestations of aging, such as wrinkles, fine lines, and white hair, when, in reality, they are all beautiful parts of the cycle of life. Realizing this fact as you age is important because having a positive self-image can help you make better choices that align with who you truly are and what you want.
Making More Friends
Contrary to popular belief, outgrowing friends is perfectly normal. As you age, you change as a person, and so do your values, beliefs, and priorities. New U Therapy Center & Family Services shares, “Our interests and values change constantly, but sometimes our friendships don’t reflect these changes.”
Wearing Anything Uncomfortable
Wearing something uncomfortable—shoes, clothes, or even accessories—is a big pain. However, it can also harm your body, especially as you age. For example, wearing uncomfortable footwear, such as one-size-smaller stilettos, can significantly affect your mobility as you walk. This worsens the longer you use these uncomfortable items, later leading to more permanent damage.
Being In Noisy, Crowded Spaces
In your 20s, going out every night, going to clubs and concerts, and just dancing the night away was normal. However, as you age, you’ll notice you’re becoming more and more of a homebody who prefers peace, calm, and quiet. According to The Hearing Health Center of Houston, “While younger people can acclimate to the amplitude or volume of sound relatively quickly, older people do not acclimate to that sound; instead, they remain sensitive to the loud volumes.” For this reason, women in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and older would usually probably avoid noise and crowded spaces.
Drinking and Partying With Friends
We’d believe you if you said that in your 20s, you could go partying all night and then get up bright and early the next day for school or work. However, it’s just not the same when you’re older; alcohol will undoubtedly hit you a lot harder! As you age, your body metabolizes alcohol more slowly, and because you lose a lot of muscle when you get older, there are fewer muscle tissues to absorb the alcohol you consume.
Smoking
Smoking is something that doesn’t do anybody any good. However, it’s even more harmful to middle-aged people. Healthline explains, “Cognitive decline typically happens naturally as you get older. You may become more forgetful or not be able to think as quickly as you did when you were younger, but if you smoke, you may experience faster cognitive decline than nonsmokers.”
Eating Too Much “Bad Stuff”
A woman’s gut health is one of the main things that suffer when they reach the age of perimenopause and menopause. They’d usually find themselves with a lot of gas, bloating, stomach cramps, and more. Dairy, carbohydrates, sugars, and the like become much more challenging for middle-aged women to digest, contributing to more problems related to menopause and perimenopause.
Foregoing the Workout
Staying active is one of the most important things to remember when it comes to physical health. However, aging doesn’t give you the license to skip out on your regular, much-needed workouts. In fact, regular physical activity is a lot more critical for middle-aged women, as it’s proven to manage, prevent, or delay many chronic diseases and also reduce the risk of early death.
Staying up Way Too Late at Night
Women generally bear the weight of household chores, and while they might not have felt it when they were younger, they will undoubtedly reap the circumstances when they’re older. People are much more susceptible to insomnia when they reach their 50s. In women who care for the household and stay up late doing so, this is much worse, as their circadian rhythms get disrupted, making it harder and harder for them to sleep and get adequate rest.
Wearing Too Much Makeup
Wearing makeup is no doubt a personal preference, and women shouldn’t listen to anyone who tries to dictate what they do with their faces. However, more and more women over 50 are losing interest in wearing too much makeup and are instead more inclined to show off their natural skin—wrinkles, fine lines, and all! After all, constantly worrying about your appearance can stress you out and make you appear less confident.
Being Surrounded by Clutter
People usually keep stuff around because they’re sentimental or too expensive to let go of. However, if we don’t regularly check out which items we can donate or throw out, we can be left with a cluttered, messy home—a home that’s detrimental to a middle-aged woman’s mental health. An article from The New York Times suggests, “Clutter can negatively impact mental well-being, particularly among women. Clutter can also induce a physiological response, including increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone.”
Putting on or Collecting Jewelry
Though wearing or collecting jewelry is still a personal choice, more and more women over the age of 50 are foregoing this habit. They’re doing this partly because they might find it uncomfortable or impractical to wear jewelry in their daily lives. Aside from this, as people get older, their lifestyles, priorities, and routines change, and these things can possibly influence their attitude toward jewelry.
Being Too Caught up in the Hustle and Bustle
At this point in their lives, women over 50 are no longer inclined to immerse themselves in the grind. They are more open to prioritizing a relaxed pace and want to use their time differently. After all, at this stage in one’s life, doing more meaningful things or things that make them happy should be the top priority!
Listening to Their Inner Critic Too Much
It’s common for middle-aged women to lose their self-esteem and self-confidence as they age. After all, their bodies change, and they might even feel they’re not as important to society as before since they’re on the brink of retirement. However, at age 50, it’s time to stop being too critical of yourself! Live life to the fullest, focus on personal growth and contentment, and stop trying to be the perfect woman society wants you to be.
Settling for Less Than They Deserve
When someone reaches their 50s, it can feel like life is even more fleeting than before. After all, they don’t have as much time to live life as they did in their 20s. However, instead of being held down by this belief, middle-aged women should be even more inspired to fight for what they want and deserve! People should never settle for less than they deserve, which is even more true for older women.
Hesitating About Living Life Just Because of Age
Similar to how women shouldn’t settle for less, they also shouldn’t hesitate to live life just because they’re a certain age. If you want to dance, dance; if you want to travel, travel! Do what you want to do because you deserve it!