Hello Everyone,
As I approach 55 this year I was just thinking how I just don’t have the energy I did when I was 30, nevermind 20.
What changes in our bodies that make our energy bevels decrease so much and why can’t it be reversed?
Yeah, caffeine a little, cocaine a lot. But I’m not talking temporary pick me up.
Depends quite a bit on how fit you were when you were 30. If you were somewhat sedentary, if you start going on long walks and hoist some barbells and eat a balanced diet and (if necessary) trim off some excess pounds, you can end up with more energy now than you had in your 30s. If you were an athlete back then, you may be limited to getting in better shape than typical 30 year olds.
You’re wrong about it not being reversible. Just get in shape and you’ll have about as much energy as you had when younger.
ETA: ninja’d by Ahunter who said it better.
We’re dying.
There are often physical problems that exacerbate the reduction of energy. If you have back problems, knee problems, etc., you’re going to have a more sedentary lifestyle. Yes, I speak from experience.
Strange that so many are putting it down to just lifestyle choices or whatever.
Fact is, the mitochondria (the “power stations”) of your cells gradually lose function throughout your life. Exactly why that happens is a question with a lengthy and disputed explanation. But in fact, the consensus is that it’s a critical part of ageing; either the main root cause of ageing or one of the most important effects of it.
You can ameliorate this to a certain degree; and as a middle aged man who runs an average of 50 km a week, I’m certainly trying. But we all know the end game.
The OP is in their 50s, so it’s most likely a lifestyle choice. The exception being if something like an injury is forcing a sedentary lifestyle, as panache45 points out. I got into cycling in a big way about 25 years ago when I was around 40. So I’m now a decade older than the OP, I still cycle pretty much every day the weather allows and I don’t notice any loss of energy.
Yes, age does eventually cause a loss of energy, but that can be delayed by 20 or 30 years by exercising.
I got religion about exercise at about age 54. Before that I was chair-in-butt 15 hours a day. Knocked 20+ years off my apparent age in about 6 months. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it.
That was not quite 10 years ago. I’ve lost a step or two since then, but I am vastly more energetic now than I was back then before I began this new chapter.
For damn sure it’s the closest thing to a Fountain of Youth that actually exists on this Earth.
I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that most people sleep less as they get older. As a teenager I slept 12 hours a day, now I’m lucky to get 7 hours. I wake up with less energy than I used to, and by 8 pm I’m starting to feel really tired. I don’t know why we sleep less as we get older, but apparently, we don’t need as much sleep.
I’m with Mijin here, and pretty surprised about the hard anecdotal resistance on exhibit.
Ageing is a fact. An athlete at 50 cannot compete with athletes that are 30, by any hard measure. Of course a lifelong couch potato that starts to exercise and eat right at 40 or whatever, will experience increased conditioning in an older age, but that’s a special case, even if a pretty common one.
When we talk about “having energy” as humans, we’re talking about a vague mishmash of psychological and physiological factors, such as motivation, ability and … actual energy.
A four-year-old has incredible energy that no 50-year-old can replicate, because it’s genuinely easier to move a small body around than a large one. A 50-year-old likely has beginning physical deterioration compared to their 20-year-old self, but apart from limitations set by actual injuries, the loss of “energy” is unlikely to be anything other than motivation and cumulative lifestyle effects.
To the extent that an active 50-year-old has a different metabolism than a 20-year-old the difference is almost entirely due to the activity, not the other way round. (Except in the sense that inactivity is a vicious circle.)
That’s a reduction in performance though, not primarily in energy. The reduction in ability for that athlete to spend as much time in activity at 50 as at 30 is probably not a significant factor in the OPs loss of “energy”.
Different people age at different rates. If you look at a group of 50 year olds some just look and act (and feel) older than others. Sure, some of it is lifestyle, but not all of it. As an extreme example, cancer treatment takes a lot out of people. For that matter, having kids ages women a lot.
Is there a typo here? I can’t quite parse what you are saying.
Cancer is an external factor, much like a severe injury, and having kids is lifestyle. That doesn’t contradict what I wrote.
Cancer is internal. It’s literally your own cells misbehaving. Cells can misbehave in less immediately toxic ways, too. “Stuff doesn’t work as well” is how aging works.
And having kids is “lifestyle”, but it burns up some of your vitality. It ages you. At least, that was certainly my experience, and I’ve seen it happen commonly to other women.
If you run for two hours every day at 30, and keep doing that, you will probably be able to do so at 50, barring injuries and illness. You might not be able to run as far in those two hours, but I doubt that’s what the OP means when they say they have less energy.
I could of course be wrong, but when I see statements like that in my life they are more likely to be about not being able to run for two hours every day, like they did in their thirties, and the cause isn’t aging, it’s lifestyle choices in the mean time.
And for “run for two hours every day” read “be physically active for the same amount of time”. But, to repeat myself “I have less energy” is a vague subjective statement reflecting both physiological and physical factors.
Vitality is in the same vague “mix of psychological and physical factors” category as “energy”. Plenty of people either maintain the motivation to be physically active through both cancer and parenthood, or go back to the same or higher physically active level afterwards, which over time gets them to the same level of “energy”.
What I’m saying is that is a lot more likely that parenthood “ages” you in that it robs you of time and motivation to keep physically active, than that it changes your metabolism significantly outside of the effects of less activity.
It seems unlikely to me that the OP would consider “for some people it’s having had cancer” much of an answer to their question. It’s uncomfortably common condition, but it’s not a universal effect of aging.
“Stuff doesn’t work as well” ignores all the research that shows great benefits of physical activity, including great improvement in “energy”, for people of any age who change to, or maintain, regular physical activity.
The way I’ve always understood it is that we don’t need less sleep (as we get older); we simply get less sleep.
I can testify to that 
And … yeah … +1 on the mitochondrial aspect. Even if you took very good care of yourself for your entire life – diet and exercise – the curve tends to bend downward over the decades.