It’s never too late to have a truly fabulous haircut. Yes, hair changes as we age, and you may not have the same thick and healthy tresses you sported when you were 18. But that’s no reason to resort to what some stylists call a “granny haircut.”

In the old days, it meant a tight perm and a blue rinse. Now, it refers to any wash-and-wear, low-maintenance cut.

But there are endless options to keep things fresh and lively, so there’s no need to resort to a full-on granny style (unless you absolutely want to). Hairstylists point to older style icons as inspiration.

“I always think of the women of Advanced Style on Instagram and how cool their hair always looks with their outfits,” said hair designer Luisa Popović. (If you haven’t followed it yet, it’s a project of photographer Ari Seth Cohen that’s dedicated “to capturing the sartorial savvy of the senior set.”)

Other stellar examples, she said, include Vivenne Westwood, who died in 2022, and who was famed for her signature bright orange hair. She also cited the “powerful looks” of Michèle Lamy, the raven-haired 79-year-old French fashion designer. “It all just emanates fearlessness,” Popović said.

If you’re ready for a refresh, redo or bold new direction, stylists have lots of fresh ideas that can make you feel at the top of your style game, no concessions to age required. “A big haircut can really change up the energy in your life,” said stylist Nikki Providence. “If things feel stagnant, sometimes a haircut can shake everything loose.”

“When we’re changing our hairstyle, our age doesn’t have to decide whether we go for long or short hair,” said stylist Mahogany Grace. “The health of hair matters a lot in choosing a new style. Try chatting with a couple of professionals to get ideas on how to style it based on its current condition.”

“I think personal preference should guide a client’s choices,” she said. “If a client is 20 or 80 and they love a bob, long hair or a pixie, they should wear one. As a stylist, my job is to make each cut unique by bringing a client’s individual features and beauty.’

How to decide which cut to choose? “There’s such a wide range of styles, cuts, colors available, now more than ever,” Popović said. “Spend some time looking online, or at magazines and books, to get inspired, and experiment in baby steps if you’re a little nervous to branch out from your usual.” In terms of those “baby steps,” Grace suggested that it might be a good idea to “reshape your current cut, maybe by adding softer layers around the face” as a good beginning.

Stylist Sonna Brado said, “One of the main questions I get from consumers on my Instagram feed is, ‘How do I find someone to look at my face shape and design something for me? I’m 50-something and feeling frumpy.’ Her advice for clients is to follow their own gut feelings, and to find a stylist who can interpret those feelings into a terrific haircut.

Stylist Akihisa Yamaguchi believes there’s a great cut out there, just waiting for you. “I definitely think that it’s possible to get your desired volume, texture and have fuller looks, while avoiding something that feels like an ‘old lady style,’‘’ she said. “I love medium-length bobs that instantly give you full volume hair and a nice saddle face frame layer that works nicely for the face.”

If you want to cut things short, there are smart ways to go about it, the stylists said. “If your hair has lost ‘presence,’ meaning it’s thin or wispy, a shorter or blunter cut will likely help it to look stronger and more solid,” Providence advised. “A bob can be sleek or soft, but the idea is for it to look intentional.”

Popović agreed, and suggested that pleasing yourself is most important: “The bob seems to be getting a lot of slack these days, but I’ll always love a good, sharp bob. It can be so chic. I ultimately think clients should go with styles that make them feel good, makes their hair look as healthy as possible and are maintainable with their daily routines. There’s no cookie-cutter style that works across the board for older clients.”

If your hair has been thinning, you might want to boost the volume of your existing cut with some artificial options. “I’m a huge user of hair extensions and hairpieces,” said stylist and creative director Paul Labrecque, who noted that Halo Couture is a favorite brand. Ditto from Popović: “I absolutely love wigs for switching up a look and having tons of versatility without a big commitment,” she said.

Labrecque uses tape-ins to fill in where hair has thinned. “It’s great for an A-line bob, to get that sharp point in the front,” he said. “If a woman has crown thinning, I use top pieces, which can be very small and made custom to cover crown splits and recessions.” There are some things to watch out for with extensions, however. “I shy away from poor-quality hair, or hair that’s overly short or long. The most flattering styles to me on older, duller hair sit under the chin and extend no longer than two inches from the collarbone.”

While thinning can be a problem for everyone, those who rely on relaxers may experience it more. “If you’ve relaxed your hair for a lifetime, you’re much more prone to hair recession,” Labrecque said. “Plus, weaves and extensions, over time, can hinder hair thickness.” He suggested “a fall, like Halo’s Hybrid Fall, can help. Halo’s version is attached with a thin fishing string, and it can reduce hair stress.”

How you take care of your hair after that great cut can also be secretly aging you. “When it’s overstyled, especially with too much hair spray or teased hair, that can be very ‘old lady’ style,” Yamaguchi said.

Providence agreed, saying that it’s OK to be a little low-key: “Let go of high-maintenance styles, and feel free to cut it short or pull it back. Pixie cuts were so cool in the ’90s, work on almost any texture, and can be fun and youthful all over again. I like when there’s a little softness to the edges. Let go of perfectionism, because it’s just holding you back.”

And whatever you do, remember that you’re allowed to have fun. “In this time, in this culture, it can be scary to age publicly, or even to evolve,” Providence said. “But I see openly aging as the ultimate show of confidence and independence. The world is more open than ever to all textures and types of hair. It’s a golden age for individualism, if you can see through the standard bland, ultra-polished styles on Instagram. Out there in real life, people are embracing wigs, creative color, locs, braids, twists and natural textures, opening the door to looking however they want.”

When it comes to getting older, there are many factors that help you live a fulfilled, healthy life — ones that go beyond working out and eating your vegetables (although that’s part of it, too).

“Aging well, in my opinion, consists of three different components,” said Dr. Parul Goyal, a geriatrician at Vanderbilt Health in Nashville. These categories are physical health, emotional connection and mental support, Goyal said.

These elements come together to help you live a life that’s rewarding, lively and healthful. Doctors say there are lots of behaviors that contribute to your physical, emotional and mental health as you grow older, and some clear signs that you’re taking care of yourself in these ways.

Below, geriatricians share the indicators that someone is aging well, along with a little advice if you feel like you’re not hitting the mark.

The older we get, the fewer chances we have to absorb new information; many of us are far out of school or work. The opportunities to learn are limited if those opportunities aren’t sought out.

“We also look at their cognitive health in this … making sure that they are staying mentally strong, they are using their mind, they are engaging in exercises to stimulate their mind, which means they are learning like a new skill,” Goyal said.

She encourages her patients to learn something new, whether it’s a new game, exercise, language or musical instrument.

“That will help form new pathways in the brain so that they can continue to stay cognitively strong,” she said.

“So often, people don’t age well because they’re not upfront about what their needs are,” said Robyn Golden, the associate vice president of social work and community health at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “How do we make it OK for people to say, ‘This is what I need, I’m feeling lonely, I need someone to go out with on a Tuesday night.’”

Rampant ageism makes it easy for people to feel like a burden or invisible, Golden said, which can encourage silent suffering. But it’s important to push against that and let folks know when you’re having a tough time. So if you’re someone who can share your thoughts and needs with your family and friends, that’s a good sign.

What’s more, if you’re struggling with depression and anxiety, it’s important to let your doctor know. There’s often a false belief that anxiety or depression after a certain age is more “normal,” but Golden said this is not true.

“Depression can be treated at any age, and not just with medication, with counseling, with group interventions, you name it. So, I think that’s part of how you age well, being open to being able to say, ‘This is who I am, this is what I need,’” she explained.

Loneliness and isolation are a big problem, so much so that the surgeon general of the United States declared an epidemic of isolation and loneliness throughout the country.

“As you know, with the COVID pandemic, this has become really important. There was a lot of social isolation among our geriatric patients because they were confined to their homes,” Goyal said.

To combat feelings of loneliness and isolation, it’s important to bolster your social connections, whether that’s with friends, family, your church group or your community, she said.

There isn’t one right way to connect with your community, either. Golden said this could look like anything from volunteering at a local food bank to helping a neighborhood child learn to read.

Socializing can help your brain health, too, said Dr. Lee Lindquist, the chief of geriatrics at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

“We think of the brain as a muscle, so if you sit in a room with four walls all day and not talk to anybody, you’re almost living in a nursing home … your brain is going to go to sludge because it’s not getting any stimulation,” Lindquist said.

Socializing, whether that’s talking to people in person or on the phone, interacting with folks on Zoom or joining a book club, is a way to exercise your brain and make it stronger, said Lindquist.

Eating nutritious foods and exercising are important all throughout your life, including when you reach an older age.

Goyal said she talks with her patients about eating a healthy diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables, and one that aligns with a combination of a Mediterranean diet and a DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet. According to Goyal, the DASH diet is “a low sodium diet that is recommended for people that have high blood pressure.” The Mediterranean diet is a well-studied meal plan that is full of whole grains, healthy fats, lean meat and plant-based foods.

Drinking enough water is also part of this, Goyal said. And, beyond what you eat and drink, it’s important to keep yourself physically fit, too.

“I want people to keep moving, exercising. If you haven’t moved in a long time, or you’ve been sitting down for a long time, it’s sometimes useful to ask your doctors for a physical therapy order to help you with your gait and balance,” said Lindquist.

She noted that many of us may be afraid to move around as we get older because of a fear of falling, but exercising — whether you’re walking or joining a tai chi class — can help with your fall risk.

“Because what happens is if we choose not to walk or choose not to move, then it puts you at a higher risk for falling. So it’s almost like a catch-22,” added Lindquist.

When exercising, Goyal said it’s also important to work on your muscle strength, since muscle mass is lost as you age. Lifting weights, pilates, yoga and tai chi can all be a part of a good muscle-building exercise routine, Goyal said. Additionally, cardio fitness — like walking, biking, swimming and running — are important for your heart health.

“I love people who are doing activities and enjoying life, and doing it in a way that brings them enjoyment,” Lindquist said.

It’s not realistic to think that you’ll never deal with an illness or an injury, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do the things you love to do, whether that’s traveling, learning new recipes or playing games with your family.

“From my end, people get chronic illnesses throughout their life, but it’s all about managing their care and doing the best they can,” Lindquist added.

And if you’re doing things you enjoy, you likely won’t find yourself bored, and boredom can be a red flag as you age, Golden explained. “Feeling like the day is very, very long is not a good sign.”

Hobbies, volunteer work and spending time with loved ones are all good ways to combat boredom.

Just because you were prescribed one medication in your 50s doesn’t mean it’s still serving you 20, 30 or 40 years later.

“Many times, we end up taking too many medicines for what we actually need,” Lindquist said. “Your body is always changing, it may not need [certain] meds.”

She said it’s important to talk to your doctor about de-prescribing any unnecessary medications. For example, if you were prescribed medication for stress when you were working in your 50s, you may not need it after you retire.

“And so it may be that they don’t need these medicines, or that these medicines might actually be bad for them as they get older. So, it’s imperative that you talk to your physician [or] a geriatrician … specifically looking at what drugs are unnecessary or can be dangerous as you get older,” Lindquist noted.

“The other thing I always tell people is to plan ahead because as much as we all want to age well into our hundreds, healthy and happily, there is a very good chance that something might happen that you need to be hospitalized, or that you might need more support in your home,” Lindquist said.

It’s important to talk to your family and friends about what you want to happen if you are hospitalized, if you fall or if you experience memory loss. This way, your loved ones will be prepared if any unplanned, stressful situations occur.

“It’s not planning for end of life, which is like hospice, or [planning] you’re going to die in six months ― this is planning for the 20 years before you need help,” Lindquist explained. This is a way to ensure your voice is heard as you get older, and that those around you don’t make decisions for you.

This could look like having a conversation with your kids about what kind of support you want if you get to a point where you can’t care for yourself. Or it could look like talking with your partner about downsizing to a one-story house that won’t require frequent stair use.

Lindquist said it’s good to start this kind of planning when you retire, but it’s also important to know that these plans may change as your life progresses, and that is OK. As plans change, it’s crucial that you keep the conversation going and inform your loved ones.

If you need future-planning advice or tips on how to talk to loved ones about these potentially stressful conversations, Lindquist and her colleagues created Plan Your Lifespan, a free future-planning resource for older adults that’s backed by research, studies and funding from the National Institutes of Health.

If you haven’t done any of these things yet — or you haven’t prioritized them like you should — don’t panic. Now is always a good time to begin; the sooner you start focusing on these things the better. And even if you still think you have time, Goyal stressed that you still should make these behaviors a priority.

“The important thing I want to really communicate with this topic is that oftentimes people will ask me this question: ‘How do I age well?’ when they’re well in their 60s or their 70s,” Goyal said. “I really want people to start thinking about aging well from the time they’re in their 30s and their 40s.”

If you start focusing on healthy habits earlier in your life, you can carry them along into your golden years, Goyal said. Additionally, as you age, don’t focus so much on the number. That has nothing to do with aging well.

“Chronological age doesn’t mean a whole lot — so, 65, 75, 85, it’s how you’re feeling that makes that difference, not that number,” Golden said.

If you prioritize your relationships, your physical health, your mental health and your future plans, you’ll be set up to feel good no matter what year you were born.

Being older at work is still seen as something to hide.

Elizabeth Harris has witnessed the toll it takes on friends and family. She’s watched her friends avoid mentioning graduation dates and years of experience on resumes, and dye hair before a job interview.

“I have been super lucky. And I have not [experienced age discrimination], as far as I know,” said Harris, the chief strategy officer of media and ad agency Arc Worldwide. “But it’s out there, for sure.”

Older age should be seen as a competitive workplace advantage. A 60-year-old startup founder is three times more likely to create a successful startup than a 25-year-old tech founder. Teams with older workers are more innovative than ones without them, Deloitte research found.

But even with their wealth of wisdom and leadership, older workers are all too frequently dismissed and discounted.

Ageist stereotypes are deeply entrenched in society: Older age still gets automatically associated with physical and cognitive decline at work. Older job applicants receive feedback that they are “overqualified” and “inflexible.” For women over 40, older age becomes a frequent excuse not to hire or promote them.

So talking about your older age is already radical enough on its own. But what if there was a club where getting older was not just acknowledged, but celebrated and championed?

In 2018, Harris decided to do just that when she started a new employee resource group at her company: one for midlife and later-career workers.

She appreciated the great work of the ERGs for women and parents that she was involved in, but she noticed there were particular issues directly affecting people over 45 that weren’t being talked about enough.

“ParentKind was talking a lot about caregiving for little kids, but they weren’t talking about when you’re caregiving for kids and parents at the same time,” she said. “They do financial planning and seminars in VivaWomen!, which is our women’s group, but they weren’t talking about specifically how do you save for your kids’ college fund and retirement?”

The idea for this new ERG would be to focus “on ending age discrimination and really providing employees 45-plus with the resources that they need to thrive,” Harris said.

The new ERG, dubbed Sages, would be for midlife and older employees, but anyone would be welcome to join. “Ageism is an ‘ism’ that can affect everybody at some point in their life,” Harris said.

Alma Klein, senior vice president and creative director at Arc Worldwide, was one of the members who joined outside the intended age range. Even though Klein wasn’t necessarily considered older in the workforce, helping older employees become more welcomed and valued within the agency came from an “altruistic and self-interested” place, she said.

“I didn’t see a ton of older employees, specifically older women, in creative roles,” Klein said. “And I feel like it was a bit of self-interest that I wanted to make sure that I could age-proof my career because I wasn’t ready to quit being in advertising.”

After launching, the new Sages group decided that its first programming would be about older women’s health, focusing on menopause. Harris said the organizers initially wondered if an event on menopause would draw a big enough crowd. They consulted with a Sages board member who was in her late 20s and was interested in hearing more on a topic that “nobody talks about,” Harris recalled.

Sages went forward with the forum, inviting two physicians to come speak. “A big part of what they spoke about was menopause. What it is, what it is not, what to expect, the changes that your body goes through and different ways to manage much of the less-than-fun stuff that comes along with it,“ Harris said. Turnout was a success.

“We actually had a bunch of guys show up because they’re like, ‘I want to understand what my wife is going through,’ so I was super happy and encouraged by it,” Harris said.

Since then, Sages has grown into a business resource group within the umbrella company of Publicis Groupe; it has over 300 members. Sages events have included film screenings and sessions on retirement planning and caregiving benefits, while its policy branch works to effect broader change such as inclusive interview practices.

And on a basic level, Sages gives members a space where the joys and frustrations of getting older are accepted and not taboo.

Recent topics of discussion on the Sages’ internal chat on Teams have included appreciation for “Grace and Frankie” and “80 for Brady,” advice on how to handle hot flashes ― which Sages members subsequently rebranded as “power surges” ― and a study on the importance of not overlooking consumers over 50.

“There’s power in numbers, and especially in an industry that is very youth-oriented, it’s nice to find some other folks who you have something in common with,” Klein said about the feeling of solidarity Sages offers.

Employee resource groups have a long history of advocating on behalf of underrepresented groups in corporate America. After the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Black employees at Xerox pioneered the first employee resource group in the U.S. in 1970, called the National Black Employees Caucus. The affinity group connected Black Xerox employees across different cities, addressed work discrimination, and identified and advocated for Black employees to get promoted to top management within the company. Computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard is credited with having the first ERG for LGBT employees in 1978.

Now, ERGs focused on women, race and ethnicity, and the LGBTQ+ experience are the most common types of resource groups for employees, according to a 2011 survey of 64 mostly global, for-profit companies ranging from 1,600 to 380,000 employees.

But openly acknowledging age diversity at work and making it the focus of an employee resources group is still rare and novel.

None of the top 10 largest employers in the U.S. have ERGs focused on the experiences of older employees. Theresa Welbourne, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Alabama, told HuffPost that for an upcoming study, she found that only 3% of ERGs out of a sample of 70 different ERG types were dedicated to people of different generations. While the study hasn’t been submitted for review yet, the early findings aren’t surprising.

Legal departments may hesitate to approve an age-specific ERG out of fear employees will either learn they are being mistreated or accuse each other of unfair special treatment and sue, said Anna Ettin, who helped launch the Inter-Generational Employee Network at Bank of America when she was a learning consultant there.

“Is this group offering a benefit to one generation or older employees that is not offered to younger employees?” is a question legal departments will want answered, Ettin said.

Kyra Leigh Sutton, an HR expert at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said that generational ERGs, especially those directed at older workers, are rare because they could lead to members revealing how old they are. And there are risks associated with being seen as older.

“Some employees avoid speaking about age in the workplace, as they don’t want people to think there’s something they can’t do because of their age,” Sutton said. “Unfortunately, by not speaking about age in the workplace, the needs of older employees go underreported. And consequently, unresolved.”

As Klein put it: “It’s still OK to be ageist in our society.”

“Nobody’s going to cancel you for being an ageist … people get away with it,” she said. “We also have a culture where it’s not OK to say that you’re old.”

For the rare companies that do create one, age-focused ERGs offer a number of benefits to employees. One big perk? The better sense of belonging when you learn you’re not the only one who is that age.

AT&T’s Professional 50 Forward ERG was founded in 2014 and has over 4,000 members. Tom Hamrick, the group’s president, said what separates his ERG from others at the company is that members are part of the “sandwich generation”: People in this group often feel sandwiched between taking care of their own children and their aging parents, on top of other life events, he said.

Hamrick said one of Professional 50 Forward’s most popular events has been about retirement and estate planning.

For Sages board member Chandra Panley, who is the senior vice president of operations at the Starcom agency, one event that stands out was called “Dude, Where’s My Car?” about how to manage memory loss.

The pitch for interested employees was that “Our memories can be a big part of our identities. Join us for a coaching session where you’re going to learn strategies for being intentional, and how to be patient with ourselves and learn that it’s OK to ask for help,” Panley recalled.

“It was so fun and so interesting, and so well attended,” she added.

It’s now common to work next to someone at the beginning of their career while you are finishing yours. There are as many as five different generations in today’s workplaces, from people born between 1925 and 1942 to those born in the mid-1990s and later, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. And they don’t always understand each other.

That’s why ― in addition to ERGs that focus on the needs of employees of a certain age ― some employers create intergenerational ERGs to help bridge those gaps in work styles and communication.

Ettin, who helped launch the Inter-Generational Employee Network at Bank of America, said the idea began with her researching generational dynamics in 2010 and sending out an email survey to gauge whether employees would be interested in the topic.

Ettin got a strong response. “It was baby boomers saying, ‘My new manager is the same age as my kid who’s living in my garage apartment. How am I supposed to report to this guy?’ And the millennials are saying, ‘You guys hired me, you know, you got me out of my MBA program … and I’ve been sitting in a cubicle for six months. Nobody cares what I think,’” Ettin said.

“That’s when we’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is an intergenerational issue. … We can’t just do a young employees group, that doesn’t actually serve our employees’ needs,’” she continued.

The Inter-Generational Employee Network launched in 2012 and now has 37,000 members and 33 global chapters at Bank of America. As part of the monthly new member orientation, hires learn about generational diversity from generational ambassadors and employees can take training opportunities about working with people in different life stages.

One powerful benefit to an intergenerational ERG is how it can connect two people with different tenures in an organization, so that it’s a mutual benefit to junior and senior employees, Ettin said.

Take it from Calandra Jarrell and Devan Kane, two Bank of America employees who started working together about a year and a half ago. Jarrell, the senior vice president of diversity and inclusion, is a Gen Xer and Kane, who works closely with Jarrell on her internal communications, is a millennial.

It was an instant connection. “I immediately started learning from her and picked up on her energy,” Jarrell said. She said she’s learned from Kane about what younger generations want their employers to openly talk about, as well as the power of a “be brief, be bold, be gone” style of communication.

Instead of just texting, Kane will “just meet me where I am and pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, let me talk you through this.’ And then all is right with the world,” Jarrell said.

“One thing my generation can be known for is being kind of super fast and almost reactive,” Kane said. “And what I’ve learned from Calandra, in just the short time we’ve known each other, is to take a deep breath, take a step back and let things almost come to you, which is not my nature.”

It’s a reminder of how age can be a barrier between co-workers, but it doesn’t have to be. It can also be a way to gain a new work friend and ally.

Ultimately, aging is a life experience that everyone carries with them to work.

At Land O’Lakes’ Aging Successfully ERG, for example, anyone ― from interns to senior employees ― can join. The ERG teaches employees who are just out of college about 401ks and discusses phased retirement with employees interested in transitioning out of the workplace.

“The truth is that we’re all aging,” said Kevin Hoepker, the ERG’s co-lead.

To start your own age-focused ERG, Harris said to make membership inclusive even if the group is tailored for people of a certain age. “You don’t want to just be talking to yourselves,” she said.

When pitching the ERG, point out the value of keeping older workers engaged.

“We bring experience and wisdom and deep knowledge and client relationships. So there’s also a value to the experience and historical knowledge of older workers,” Klein said.

And if that’s not enough, remind bosses of the importance of reaching older customers. “Guess who’s got the deepest pocketbooks and the most spending money? Surprise, it’s people over 50. They hold a dramatic percentage of the wealth in America,” Klein said. “And yet too many brands are hyper-focused on the 18- to 34-year-old brackets.”

It may take some convincing, but it’s not too late to start your own age-focused ERG. You may be surprised by how many people will want to join.

Just last year in April, Intuit’s Karen Weiss posted a blog about the new Intuit Silver Network she was helping to launch to serve the interests of employees 50 and over.

After her post, she saw the internal channel for the group spike from 40 members to 560. Unprompted, members shared their ages when they joined.

“People were joining, saying, ‘I’m so happy, I finally feel seen and heard at work,’” Weiss recalled. “It was so liberating. We discussed things together that we never discussed before.”

“We’re not squeamish in the Silver Network,” Weiss said about their internal chats. “I presented to the group on the care and death of my elderly parents. And everybody had some aspect of that they related to, whether it was diapers for adults, whether it was dealing with hospice care. We talk about things that are not necessarily happy, but that are important.”

This October, Weiss said the Intuit Silver Network will do weekly one-hour Zoom sessions where members can work on building a legacy document of instructions for loved ones after death “so that by the end of the month, we’ll have it done. And we’ll have the support of each other.”

Plenty of surprises come with the aging process (like those weird noises our joints make or the monster hangovers that follow two sips of beer). But few are more of a bummer than the way our digestive system seems to lose interest in, well, digesting things.

“Intestinal issues can arise at any age and can become more prevalent as we age,” Dr. Sara Attalla, a gastroenterologist at Inspira Health in New Jersey, told HuffPost.

Roughly 60 million to 70 million Americans are affected by digestive diseases, according to the National Institutes of Health. Some of the most common symptoms? Heartburn, bloating, abdominal pain and changes in bowel habits (as in constipation, diarrhea or even a combo of the two).

Nailing down what’s causing your digestive drama can be tricky since it’s a multi-faceted problem that typically stems from a highly individual combination of aging and lifestyle-related culprits.

As we age, the nerves and muscles in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract can start to glitch, resulting in changes to how our digestive organs function individually and work together — usually, this translates into the digestion process itself becoming sluggish and communication signals between digestive organs getting haphazard.

Movement within the esophagus and muscles involved in swallowing may not be as effective or coordinated, for instance, and can lead to higher rates of esophageal reflux (known as GERD, where your stomach contents start to make a comeback), while slower motility in the stomach can cause what you’ve eaten to linger and trigger indigestion.

“The stomach lining can also become thinner with age, which renders you more susceptible to injury in the stomach from things like inflammation,” Attalla said.

Decreased prostaglandin production over time (a hormone-like substance that plays a role in stomach acid secretion and GI muscle functioning) means a decrease in the protective lining of the stomach, too, leaving you more prone to gastritis and ulcers.

The next stop on your food’s digestive journey is a pit stop in the small bowel. “Slower motility here can lead to higher rates of bacterial overgrowth, which can cause bloating and diarrhea,” Dr. Sunana Sohi, a board-certified gastroenterologist at Gastroenterology Health Partners in Louisville, Kentucky, told HuffPost.

And if motility screeches to a halt in your colon, get ready for possible bouts of constipation and diverticulosis (a condition where small sacs form and push against weak spots in the wall of your colon, putting you at risk of symptom flareups, such as bleeding and inflammation).

Then there’s the chronic health conditions that tend to stack up as we get older (arthritisis, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases), many of which can cause limitations to the level of movement we can tolerate, further exacerbating gut motility issues. (“If you don’t move, neither does your gut,” Dr. Pritesh Mutha, an associate professor at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, told HuffPost.)

As for the medications we take to manage these conditions (both prescription and over-the-counter, especially NSAID pain relievers such ad aspirin and ibuprofen), they’re known to cause gastro-themed side effects of their own. Cue nausea, constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, even ulcers.

All of this is understandably frustrating and concerning. But experts stress there are ways to minimize any effects from age-related stomach issues. They recommend:

Better digestion begins in the mouth. “Salivary enzymes help digest starch and fat in the mouth, decreasing the GI tract’s workload,” Mutha said. “The alkaline pH of saliva also helps neutralize acid in the esophagus due to reflux and alleviate GERD symptoms.”

Bonus: Cutting your food into smaller pieces and chewing at least 15 to 20 times per bite can help mitigate any complications associated with trouble swallowing.

Saliva production tends to decrease as we age, which can affect chewing and swallowing, Sohi said. According to the American Dental Association, dry mouth is twice as likely to strike when you take one or more medications daily, compared with people with no medications on their roster.

Things like regularly using an over-the-counter saliva substitute or sipping water between bites can be helpful if dry mouth is a problem for you at mealtime.

The best way to optimize digestion is to eat a diet as low in processed foods and high in plant-based diversity as possible. “Diets high in processed food can alter the gut microbiome, leading to dysbiosis,” Sohi said, an unhealthy balance of gut bacteria that’s associated with higher rates of digestive disease.

Besides keeping your gut microbiome on the rails, going plant-based is the best way to increase your fiber intake, which is crucial to the quality and consistency of your number two sessions.

Fiber — soluble and insoluble — is what bulks up your poop, Mutha explained. This not only makes your time on the throne more pleasant and efficient, but it also decreases the likelihood of fecal incontinence and even helps treat diarrhea by absorbing water.

Hydration is crucial to avoid constipation, Mutha said, especially once you start upping your fiber intake. The National Council on Aging recommends drinking one-third of your weight in fluid ounces daily. That means if you weigh 150 pounds, then you should be drinking 50 ounces (or 6¼ cups) of water per day.

“Exercise stimulates the motility of the GI tract, so this can be very helpful for digestion,” Sohi said. “Lying recumbent on the couch after eating is one of the worst things you can do because not only does it not help with GI tract motility, but it can also promote acid reflux.”

Mutha agrees and recommends walking for roughly 15 minutes after your meals to help activate your stomach and improve gastric emptying.

Sleep is a healing mechanism for the body, so not getting enough quality shut-eye — the recommendation is seven to nine hours per night — can adversely affect your gut barrier and immunity, Mutha said. Researchers are still nailing down the exact mechanisms behind how, but one theory is that sleep deprivation leads to an increase in microscopic inflammation in the bowel that may domino into gastrointestinal symptoms.

“Any and every medicine has GI side effects — even the ones that are prescribed for GI illnesses,” Mutha said. “Making sure you take your medications exactly as prescribed decreases the risk of side effects.”

NSAIDs should never be consumed on an empty stomach, for instance, while acid-suppressive medicines should be taken 30 minutes before breakfast. But if side effects happen anyway, let your doctor know.

Even if you’re confident the digestive drama you’re experiencing is aging-related or a sign your lifestyle needs a revamp, “it’s important to not assume” and to “share your symptoms with your doctor anyway, as sometimes there can be a more serious underlying cause,” said Dr. Neena Mohan, gastroenterologist and assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia.

If, in addition to persistent changes in bowel habits, you’re also experiencing trouble swallowing, abdominal pain, nausea and/or vomiting, unexplained weight loss or have noticed blood in your poop (or it looks black and tarry), it’s time for a consultation with a gastroenterologist.

“Depending on the issue, your doctor may start with bloodwork and prescribe medications or do further testing, such as an endoscopy or colonoscopy,” Attalla said.

While it’s not exactly accurate to say it was a voice from the grave that commanded me to drop out of the Mrs. America pageant, it’s not exactly a lie, either. The truth lies somewhere in between and involves a questionable photographer, a threat from a friend to disown me, and a dingy bra once worn by Ivana Trump. But for five days, I was Cathy Alter, your Mrs. Georgetown DC.

It started from a place of insecurity — never a good thing in competition. My 11-year-old son, Leo, and I were sharing a late lunch at a British-style pub in Washington’s Dupont Circle. As we sat demolishing our mozzarella sticks, I took a moment to check my phone for emails. Maybe it was my text neck, or maybe Leo had never seen me in severe profile, but whatever the case, he reached over and grabbed the hunk of loose flesh residing below my chin (a wattle, a friend would helpfully explain).

“What’s that?” he asked, tugging on it like an udder.

I don’t remember how I answered him. But I do remember trying not to cry or ask my son if he was some kind of sociopath.

“I feel bad about my neck,” Nora Ephron confessed, in the opening essay and 2006 book of the same name.

“Our faces are lies and our necks tell the truth,” she wrote. “You have to cut open a redwood tree to see how old it is, but you wouldn’t have to if it had a neck.”

These days, at 57, it’s hard not to look in the mirror without thinking about how my reflection has changed. It’s me but not me. The face is certainly mine, just more gutted, the area underneath my eyes carved out by a wood gauge. It’s less feminine, somehow, and more Founding Fathers, especially when my hair is pulled back in a Jefferson braid. We won’t discuss my burgeoning FUPA.

To accept this image would be the healthiest way to proceed. The most empowering thing I could do for myself would be to love the marionette mouth, the nasolabial folds, the “elevens” between my brows, the time stamps that make this face uniquely mine. To say, to sing, to emblazon on a T-shirt: Here I am, world! A middle-aged woman with declining looks and a soft body!

Instead, I went home and sobbed to my husband, Karl.

“All boys should think their mothers are the most beautiful women in the world,” I said through my tears. “And it’s clear that Leo does not.”

“Well,” Karl said, “what can you do about it?”

I couldn’t tell if he was answering me rhetorically or expecting me to come up with an action plan.

And I did have a plan. Or, more accurately, a wild impulse that stomped on any attempt at levelheadedness.

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” I told him. “I’m going to enter a beauty pageant — and win.”

When I was growing up in Connecticut, my parents threw an annual Miss America party where guests bet on the contestants as if the young women were racehorses. It was the hottest ticket in town. Friends arrived in evening gowns and tuxedos, tossed $20 into the pot, and rooted for their “girl” while tearing down the 49 others.

My mother, a 6-foot-tall beauty with a penchant for red lips and backless suede dresses, could be especially vicious, taking note of a competitor’s “thunder thigh” or “unfortunate underbite” or describing a pair of straight-on nostrils as looking like “the Holland Tunnel.”

As the owner of the hippest clothing boutique the Bermuda-bag-carrying women of our sleepy town had ever seen, my mother was a true arbiter of style and presentation. By midnight, everyone was tanked and the guest who got closest to choosing the evening’s winner paraded around in a homemade sash and dime-store crown, both courtesy of my mother.

Now, decades later, I found a slew of pageants on Pageant Planet, a website that consolidates local and regional contests including Miss Earth USA, Mr. Crimson and Cream, and the pageant I wound up entering, Mrs. DC America. There were pageants for veterans, for senior citizens (I’m still a few years away from that one), for full-figured women, and one that sounds like a meta version of itself, The Empowered Woman pageant. If I were to create a montage of the contestants I saw across the site, the result would look like the b-rolls from all the Real Housewives franchises in existence.

The rules to enter the Mrs. DC America pageant were straightforward. If you were married, you could enter — which meant I could potentially be competing with child brides. Contestants are judged in three categories: the interview, the evening gown and the swimsuit. As if striding across the stage in a bathing suit and high heels wasn’t terrifying enough, there would be an opening dance number. With choreography. The winner of Mrs. DC would go on to represent the District of Columbia at the national Mrs. America Pageant in Las Vegas.

The next morning, I called one of the pageant directors. After a bit of chitchat, I learned that I had a little less than five weeks to prepare for the event, which would be held at a community center over an hour away, in Frederick, Maryland. Somehow, I’d imagined that I’d have at least a year to get ready, both physically and mentally. Now things were becoming both very real and very surreal.

“What do you want your sash to say?” she asked.

When I hesitated, baffled by her question, she clarified. “Where do you live in Washington?”

Which is how I appointed myself Mrs. Georgetown DC, after forking over a deposit of $250 (the entire cost of entry was $750) and promising to schedule a headshot with the official pageant photographer within the week.

I immediately launched into overdrive, making a to-do list like I was planning my wedding. Each action item begot new actions. I made an appointment for highlights, but did I also want to talk about hair extensions? How much were hair halos? (What were hair halos?!) There was no time to sit and reflect on who I was fast becoming.

I called the photographer and asked him what I’d need to bring to the photo shoot. Everything on his list included the word glitzy. Also, he advised, “Wear something that either shows your cleavage or your shoulders but not both. That’s just overkill.”

He suggested I buy a bag of rhinestones and glue them onto my bathing suit, which, for some reason, he kept calling a “one-piece bikini.”

“Are you going to photograph me in a bathing suit?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you about rhinestones.” His parting advice, worthy of its own bedazzled T-shirt was, “Go glam or go home.”

My friends were divided on my new title. Some had a field day at my expense. “Can your bathing suit be Victorian or come with a turtleneck?” asked one. “Does AARP have a beauty pageant?” asked another, choking back laughter. One emailed me an Amazon link for Preparation H, which has famously been used to tighten bags under the eyes. “Maybe you can use this on your butt, too,” was the subject line.

Others were more perplexed.

“It’s ironic that you’re looking for acceptance and confidence in the very place designed not to give it,” said one of my closest friends, expressing concern.

A few were outraged. When I met a friend and former editor, she pounded on the table. “You can’t do this!” she said, holding her fist up for another strike. “What does this say about the progress we’ve been making as women?”

She brought up how precarious it is to be female in the wake of Roe v. Wade and the gutting of abortion rights and the horrible message about appearance that I would be sending to Leo. She told me she wasn’t sure if she could be my friend if I went through with the pageant.

Still another saw me as a champion just for entering: “You’ve been given a bigger stage, to stand up for all people who feel less than. You’re saying, ‘I’m here, I made it, and so can you.’”

I had been Mrs. Georgetown for two days before the idea of competing began to seem like a genuinely half-baked idea. What the heck was I doing? And what sort of message was I sending to myself? To my husband? To Leo? (“Do you think I could win?” I had asked the poor kid, who immediately looked to Karl for a clue before answering, “It depends on the competition.”)

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with beauty. As their ruthless Miss America parties suggest, my parents placed great value on physical appearance. When we were little, my father used to chase my younger brother and me around our swimming pool with a spray bottle of Sun In hair lightener. After growing up poor, eating mayonnaise sandwiches and fending for himself, having golden-haired, sun-kissed children who looked like they belonged in the Kennedy compound was, for him, an emblem of success.

My mother’s guiding principle was that it was more important to look good than to feel good. When I was in high school, she sat me down and gently explained that because I was no natural beauty — “no Christie Brinkley” were her words — I’d always have to wear makeup.

I was on the tender cusp of womanhood, and my mother’s grim appraisal took root in my soul. Before dementia completely robbed her of the ability to speak, the last clear words my mother said to me were, “How about some blush?”

On my third day as Mrs. Georgetown, I decided it was time to try on evening gowns at my favorite consignment shop in D.C. Even though the saleswomen aren’t permitted to mention the origin stories of their merchandise, I’ve gotten in pretty good with some of the staff and have been able to wheedle out some details.

Along these lines, I wound up in the dressing room with what I knew was an evening gown once worn by Ivana Trump by a designer whose name I didn’t recognize. It was $125 and the color of tomato sauce from a can, with a mermaid silhouette, red jewels scattered down the front, and about 40 miles of tulle. When I unzipped it, I saw there was a grimy Calvin Klein strapless bra sewn inside, size 36C, and I had a sudden pang, knowing such a private detail about Ivana. My mother, too, wore a 36C. Placing my own breasts inside the bra — and being this close to its original owner — was surprisingly intimate.

I looked at myself in the dressing room mirror, trying and failing to imagine myself striding across a stage in a conference center in Frederick, Maryland, giving a royal wave, chest out, smile aided by Vaseline on my teeth, hammertoes screaming at the straps of my stilettos.

I heard a voice.

“Take it off,” it said. “It’s not you,” it said.

Whether it was my mother speaking or Ivana, it didn’t matter. The dress wasn’t me. And neither, I realized, was the pageant.

My mother often warned me about falling for a pretty face. “Looks fade,” she had said after a man with movie star looks obliterated my heart. She could have been talking about her own vulnerabilities around appearance and aging. It was the way I knew that, despite her critical eye, even she recognized deep down that there were things more valuable than looks. My mother would have been unsparing in her assessment of my chances in the pageant (none) and in my decision to enter it (dumb).

What good is beauty, anyway? It was surely a burden for my mother, who tried mightily to keep up appearances until that weight shifted to my father. He became her de facto makeup artist as she sat strapped in a wheelchair, unable to perform her own ministries, her hands clenched in rage.

After watching him spoon-feed her lunch (“Now, now,” he’d say whenever she tried to bite his fingers), the sight of him dabbing her lips with her trademark Love That Red made me reevaluate my own definition of devotion — of obligation. In the face of the inevitable, my father’s tacit efforts broke my heart.

On my final day as Mrs. Georgetown, I phoned the pageant director and dropped out of the race.

“Did something happen?” She sounded aghast, like maybe I had microderm-ed my face off.

“I don’t have the full support of my family and friends,” was my excuse, which approached the truth, at least partially.

The woman who went on to wear my Mrs. Georgetown sash, I learned later, was from Rockville, Maryland. In her official pageant headshot, she looks a little like a Facetuned Jennifer Coolidge.

The pageant fell on the same weekend as my father’s 90th birthday. Home in Connecticut, I showed my father a photo of my “replacement.”

“Good thing you dropped out,” he said. “You didn’t stand a chance.”

“Grandpa!” Leo looked at my face, concerned.

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” I said, lightly punching his arm and reassuring myself that limitations are not heritable.

Later that night, Leo slipped me a note before bedtime. It read, in part, “I love you for yourself. I love your sweet, sweet, heart. Though you are beautiful, it’s what is inside that counts.”

It is a note I wish my mother would have written and dropped in the mail, addressed to herself.

Cathy Alter’s articles and essays have appeared in O, the Oprah Magazine, The Cut, Wired, and The Washington Post, among others. She is the author of “Virgin Territory: Stories From the Road to Womanhood,” the memoir “Up for Renewal: What Magazines Taught Me About Love, Sex, and Starting Over,” and “CRUSH: Writers Reflect on Love, Longing, and the Lasting Power of Their First Celebrity Crush.” She lives in Washington, D.C.

Aging gracefully means something different for everyone. When it comes specifically to skin care, some turn to Botox while others embrace a mature look. Then there are those who fall somewhere in between.

If you’re not interested in something as invasive ― or expensive ― as Botox but want to do something to improve the appearance of your skin, we (and dermatologists) have good news: There are plenty of ways to minimize fine lines and wrinkles without injectables.

According to Dr. Jeannette Graf, a board-certified dermatologist and assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, Botox works by relaxing “specific muscles in the face to decrease lines that are caused by repeated movements to create “a lifted, relaxed look.”

In a story previously published by HuffPost, cosmetic dermatologist Dr. Peterson Pierre explained that Botox is produced from the same toxin that causes botulism: “The signal from the nerve to the muscle telling it to flex is blocked by Botox, thereby relaxing the muscle and improving lines and wrinkles.”

There are several other injectables that produce a similar effect, including Dysport, Xeomin, Jeveau and Daxxify. Dr. Dustin Portela, a board-certified dermatologist at Treasure Valley Dermatology in Idaho, explained that these injectables “all use the same active agent as Botox, botulinum toxin type A,” but have different carrier proteins that cause them to work a little differently.

None of these injectables remove wrinkles permanently, but if they are used regularly they can continue to soften lines “by decreasing repeated movements, which can cause them to deepen again,” Graf said.

If you aren’t opposed to a procedure but don’t want to use neurotoxins (Botox), there are alternatives. But Graf said that “nothing can take the place of a neurotoxin,” so no one should expect the same result as Botox with other treatments.

However, she explained that “rejuvenation procedures such as laser resurfacing, chemical peels and microneedling can be helpful in diminishing the look of lines while improving overall skin aging” without the use of neurotoxins.

Those who don’t want to, or can’t, use more invasive procedures can take steps to reduce fine lines and wrinkles at home. Portela advised that “nothing you apply topically will have the same effect as Botox.” Nevertheless, Graf said that “retinol is a good anti-aging ingredient” because it “boosts collagen production and can prevent fine lines and wrinkles after a period of long-term use.”