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7 Smart Ways to Age Well

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One of the most inevitable things in life is the fact that we must all grow old. However, it is an open secret that some people age better than others.
We often come across individuals in their sixties and seventies who appear to have found a way to defy or slow down the ageing process. This is often a result of specific and disciplined lifestyle choices which you can also adopt today.
The following tips from the Research and Development Unit of Yudala, Nigeria’s fastest growing e-commerce outfit, will help you age better.

Exercise
Exercise has always been seen as one of the means to promote a healthy lifestyle. But that is not all. Regular exercise has also been identified as one of the major reasons why some people not only live longer but also thrive in later life.
Indeed, you can slow down the aging process with as little as 15 minutes a day of moderate physical activity.
According to research from Harvard Health, while you can’t completely stop aging, staying active can slow down the destructive processes that lead to disease and immobility, which diminish your quality of life.
In other words, regular exercise may be able to offset disease-causing cellular damage and slow the ageing process.

Keep the brain active
In addition to physical activity, keeping your brain active can go a long way to slow down mental decline often associated with ageing.
Various studies show that engaging in mentally-stimulating activities on a regular basis can slow or even reverse the age-related mental deterioration.
Examples of some simple mentally engaging activities you can try your hands are include eating your food with the other hand, listening to an unfamiliar kind of music, learning to play a new musical instrument, sport, skill or dance pattern; researching an unfamiliar subject, playing the crossword puzzle in a newspaper, adding new words to your vocabulary, counting backwards from one million, etc.
The interesting bit is that it is never too late to start these activities as older adults and septuagenarians too have been known to show some remarkable improvements upon adoption of these habits.

Get some sunshine
Due to upgrades in social status, many adults often go for days on end without soaking up some sunshine.
It is common these days for many to move from air-conditioned homes into air-conditioned vehicles and to air-conditioned offices, with the cycle repeated at close of work for weeks.
Despite the comfort such a lifestyle seemingly holds, there are detrimental effects which worsen the process of ageing.
Apart from helping maintain the immune system, Vitamin D regulates cellular growth, promotes calcium absorption and helps the body fight cancer, diabetes and bone diseases – ailments that show up more often as one gets older.
While the medically recommended daily dose of Vitamin D can be admittedly sourced from a number of foods including eggs and fatty fish, among others; spending a few minutes in the sun especially in the hours before 10am can do a lot of good.
According to the World Health Organization, getting anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes of sunlight on your arms, hands, and face two to three times a week is enough to enjoy the vitamin D-boosting benefits of sun.
Adding a little sunshine to your life by getting outside more can relieve anxiety and reduce depression, thereby helping you cope better with ageing.

Watch your diet (and the quantity)
Diet and nutrition are important factors which determine how well your body ages. Latest studies indicate that a low-glycemic diet high in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean protein is best suited to this purpose.
Furthermore, research from Harvard Medical School identify the Mediterranean diet: a modern nutritional recommendation based on the dietary patterns of Greece, Southern Italy, France and Spain in the 1940s and 1950s as a good choice.
The principal aspects of this diet include proportionally high consumption of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits, and vegetables, moderate to high consumption of fish, moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), moderate wine consumption, low consumption of non-fish meat products and cutting back on salt.
In addition to helping the body age better, research indicates that Omega-3 fatty acids-rich foods including flaxseed oil, fish oil, chia seeds, walnuts, fish roe (eggs), fatty fish, seafood, soybeans, and spinach produce essential oils which makes the skin look younger.
Closely related to the foregoing, it is important to cut down on overeating as this has been linked to various ailments which ultimately lead to a shorter life span.

Build and maintain social relationships
Social relationships have a direct link to helping individuals live and age better. Several studies have established that people who build and maintain stronger personal relationships live longer than those with poor relationships.
According to a study published in a medical journal PLos Medicine, persons with strong social ties were shown to have a 50 percent higher chance of living longer than those with poor or insufficient relationships.
In addition, the Harvard Ageing Study indicates that close relationships have a greater impact on quality of life than money, fame, Intelligence Quotient or social class.
The study also shows that relationships have the capacity to delay mental and physical decline in addition to being strong predictors of long and happy lives.
One more reason for you to start working on your social relationships today: individuals with poor relationships often suffer from chronic health conditions such as depression, insomnia, dementia, cardiovascular disease and diminished immune response, among others.

Get enough sleep
The benefits of proper, restful sleep cannot be over-emphasized. Research shows that during sleep, your body releases a growth hormone that helps restore collagen and elastin, the essential building blocks of young, healthy skin.
Owing to the daily hassles of making ends meet in our increasingly fast-paced society, many often treat sleep as a luxury.
If you fall into this category, then you are robbing your body of a very important regenerative factor which helps slow down the wear and tear associated with ageing.
Apart from adversely affecting the brain’s functions and speeding up the ageing process, studies show that insufficient sleep also predisposes you to a higher risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
To enjoy the benefits of sleep and its direct impact in helping you age better, it is advised that sleep should span seven to nine hours each night.
Furthermore, short naps of up to 15 minutes in the course of the day can help improve memory and aid the body recover from the effects of a poor night’s sleep.

Stay positive
A positive attitude goes a long way in serving as an anti-ageing factor. Individuals with a positive outlook on life and what the future holds have been known to cope better with the inevitable onset of ageing, thereby prolonging their longevity.
This optimism also helps significantly when health problems set in, with a positive-minded outlook often making the difference between life and death for such individuals.
Considerable research has also shown how optimism and a positive outlook affects overall health and longevity.
According to Harvard Health, an optimistic outlook early in life can predict better health and a lower rate of death during follow-up periods of 15 to 40 years.
Measuring optimism You are what you think you are when it comes to aging.
Seniors who think of age as a means to wisdom and overall satisfaction are more than 40 percent more likely to recover from a disability than those who see aging as synonymous with helplessness or uselessness, according to The Journal of the American Medical Association.
 


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NIA Questions Legality of Reps’ Financial Probe

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The Nigerian Insurers Association has urged the House Committee on Capital Market and Institutions to respect the constitutional separation of powers as it carries out a probe on over 20 insurance firms.

In a statement on Tuesday night, the Director General/Chief Executive Officer of NIA, Mrs Bola Odukale, said the decision of NIA and the affected firms to approach the court was to seek clarity on the constitutional limits of the House Committee’s probe.

It would be recalled that the House of Representatives on Monday is investigating no fewer than 25 insurance companies operating in the country for various financial infractions spanning financial reporting, claims settlement, premium remittance, and issuance of policies.

The Chairman, House Sub-Committee on Capital Market and Institutions, Kwamoti Laori, during a meeting with the management of the insurance companies at the National Assembly Complex in Abuja, said the meeting was convened following the receipt of a petition on infractions by the insurance companies.

In the statement, Odukale said, “The Association wishes to state unequivocally that all actions taken by the NIA and the affected member companies in response to the Committee’s invitations and pronouncements were based entirely on legal advice by its Solicitors. It was on the firm instruction of legal counsel that recourse was made to the courts.

“The objective of approaching the Court is to seek judicial guidance on the legality, propriety, and constitutional limits of the Committee’s intervention in order to safeguard institutional integrity, uphold regulatory independence, and ensure that legislative oversight remains within the bounds of law.

“The Court action seeks to determine whether the current posture of the Committee reflects an exercise of legislative judgment, which, by constitutional design, is the exclusive province of statutory regulators, such as the National Insurance Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigerian Exchange, Financial Reporting Council, Nigeria Data Protection Commission, and the National Information Technology Development Agency.

“This raises serious questions about legislative overreach and an erosion of the doctrine of separation of powers, a cornerstone of Nigeria’s constitutional democracy.”

Odukale maintained that the NIA was committed to lawful and constructive engagement with all arms of government, provided that such engagement respects the autonomy of statutory regulators and the boundaries established by the Constitution.

“The NIA will continue to provide its full support to all member companies while upholding the principles of legal compliance and sector-wide integrity,” Odukale concluded.

17 of the companies that went to court were represented by their lawyer, Mr Abimbola Kayode, at the meeting with the committee.


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Horn of Africa Leaders Seek Enhanced Digital Integration for Increased Regional Growth

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Finance ministers and development partners from the Horn of Africa have called for enhanced digital integration to boost trade, drive economic growth and promote regional stability during the 25th Ministerial Meeting of the Horn of Africa Initiative (HoAI).

Held in Nairobi, on July 14, the meeting was co-chaired by the African Development Bank’s Vice President for Regional Development, Integration and Business Delivery, Nnenna Nwabufo and Somalia’s Minister of Finance, Bihi Iman Egeh. Discussions underscored the critical role of digital integration in reducing trade barriers, boosting government service delivery and creating employment — particularly for the region’s youth.

“Digital technologies are shaping today’s economy and tomorrow’s industries. By embedding these technologies into our programs, we can not only improve inclusion but also leapfrog outdated development models,” said Nwabufo.

She called for digital integration a “central enabler” in each of the Horn of Africa Initiative’s pillars – trade, infrastructure, resilience, and human capital,

Learning through experience

Drawing from global and regional success stories, speakers highlighted the transformative potential of technology-led development. The ministers pointed to the Philippines as a strong example, where ICT has generated millions of jobs in business process outsourcing. Similarly, Kenya’s fintech innovation—especially the success of M-PESA—was cited as a model for scaling digital financial services across the region.

Participants urged governments to proactively foster digital ecosystems by capitalizing on the demographic dividend, identifying infrastructure upgrades, tighter regulatory reforms, and digital skills trainings as priorities to enable broader participation in the digital economy.

Minister Egeh reiterated the need for more coordinated regional efforts to create the enabling environment required for accelerated digital integration and expansion. He referenced the HoAI Digital Policy Matrix, adopted in 2023 which provides a blueprint on how to address key obstacles to achieving effective digital integration across the region.

Barack Makokha, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury, underscored the importance of regionally-aligned public private partnerships and advocated for blended financing to reduce investment risk and expand digital access in underserved areas.

World Bank Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa, Ndiame Diop, called for a comprehensive multi-pronged approach, combining cross-border coordination, large-scale financing, robust policy support, and digital infrastructure investments. He pointed out that such measures could transform digital integration into, “a powerful engine of economic transformation” for the Horn of Africa—ensuring no one is left behind in the digital era.

The meeting concluded with a shared recognition that sustained political will and the determination to implement a multifaceted approach are essential to unlocking the region’s economic potential and driving long-term growth.

The event also welcomed observers from the East African Community, Agence française de développement, and Shelter Afrique, reflecting strong regional and international backing for the HoAI in the development community.


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CSCS Inaugurates Custodian Portal to Enhance Digital Access, Operational Efficiency

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Central Securities Clearing System Plc (CSCS), Nigeria’s capital market infrastructure provider, has launched its Custodian Portal, a user-centric digital solution designed to optimise custodian operations through intuitive, secure and efficient features.

Haruna Jalo-Waziri, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), CSCS, announced this in a statement on Monday.

The CSCS is a Public Limited Company with a diversified shareholder base, which serves as the Central Securities Depository for the Nigerian Capital Market.

It serves as the Central Depository for Equities, Commercial Papers, Corporate Bonds, Sub-National Bonds, certain Sovereign Bonds like the FGN Sukuk and the FGN Savings Bond, Equity-traded Funds, Real Estate Investment Trusts, Mutual funds and Commodities.

Jalo-Waziri said that the custodian portal offered a streamlined experience for market participants with powerful tools that facilitate comprehensive portfolio and trade management, document tracking, share transfer operations, client symbol search, and real-time access to vital data.

He explained that the portal, designed to operate through a flexible subscription-based model, empowered users to manage their records effortlessly and securely through convenient payment channels such as GTPay and Paystack.

According to him, “Digital transformation remains at the core of our strategy to enhance the efficiency, transparency and accessibility of Nigeria’s capital market services.

“The custodian portal is a significant leap in that direction, offering custodians a centralised platform to manage critical processes in real-time.

“We are excited about the value this innovation brings to our stakeholders, and we will continue to evolve the platform in line with users’ needs and industry trends.”

The CEO also explained that the portal was designed with user experience in mind with feature tools like portfolio viewing and downloads in PDF or Excel format.

He further said that it also featured tracking of stock movements across date ranges, inbox messaging and request tracking, as well as robust user management capabilities including role assignment and status tracking.

Similarly, the Divisional Head, Business Technology and Digital Innovation, CSCS Plc, Tobe Nnadozie, said that the portal aligned with CSCS’s drive to automate the market.

“In addition to the normal features, the platform is a part of an omnichannel platform for custodians, and includes API services.

“It also connects to the market-wide workflow, which CSCS has built to ensure secured communication and approvals across all major stakeholders in the market.

“The platform is well secured with best-of-breed cybersecurity solutions and our SOC,” he said.

The Custodian Portal reinforces CSCS’s commitment to leveraging technology to streamline back-office functions and support a more agile, data-driven capital market ecosystem.

All custodians in the Nigerian capital market have now been successfully on-boarded on the Custodian Portal, marking a significant milestone in CSCS’s ongoing drive to enhance collaboration, standardise operational processes, and promote digital adoption across the market.


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