It’s not very easy to say at what age one stops growing and the aging process actually starts. The human body is a very complex system. To understand the whole, you need to dissect the rest of the parts. It’s like saying you cannot have a book without the chapters, or a puzzle without the pieces. The point is, the aging process has different angles, too. You cannot simply say that the aging process begins at a certain time, unless, perhaps, there is something specific you are referring to. Some people, women especially, say that the hallmark of aging is when you start to be on menopause, or when your bones start to weaken, or you cannot anymore remember things. And these can happen at different ages.
When you refer to the aging process, what exactly do you have in mind? Are you referring to the skin in particular, the bones, or the brain? You will come up with different answers, for sure. If you think of aging as it relates to the skin, then the aging process begins as early as 22 for you, that is of course assuming that you have not taken means to protect your skin when you were younger. Anyhow, as early as this time, age spots may already start to show up. Skin discoloration and uneven skin tone are the usual concerns around this time. This, time, too, you may notice lines forming behind your eyes. Wrinkles and sagging skin may come later in life, and when they do, it becomes undeniable that the aging process has not only kicked in but is already deep on its way.
On the other hand, when you think of the aging process as it relates to bone health and development, the aging process in this case begins at 35. At 35, the bone stops growing and so if you think there are still some chances of you experiencing growth spurts, think again. That is not going to happen anymore when you are over 30. Actually, it is not just the bone stops growing at 35 but it actually starts to lose its density.
Other people relate aging to brain development. If you think this way, too, you will be surprised that the aging process begins as early as in your 20s. From hundreds of billions of nerve cells in the brain, you lose about 10,000 of it every day by the time you get to your 40s. The number may seem just like a fraction but it can add up pretty fast. In two months time you will have already lost a little more than half a million neurons. When you lose quite a lot of them already, you may experience memory loss, coordination problems, as well as other problems that have something to do with the brain.
If you measure the aging process by the health of your gut, that would start much later in life, around 55-60 years old. Around this time, there aren’t sufficient good bacteria in the digestive system that would promote a healthy digestion, and so would start to arise a number of digestive problems.
These are but glimpses of how complex the human body is, proving that it is a bit tricky to determine exactly when the aging process begins. And so if you are looking to defy your age, you should not just focus on your looks alone. Anti-wrinkle creams and botox injections can make you look many years younger, yes, but your real age is still going to show when you develop osteoporosis, arthritis, memory loss, and indigestion problems, among others. Don’t just aim to look young, then, but work out the other parts of your body, as well.