If you want to feel younger in your 70s, stop doing these 8 things that quietly drain you

I was having coffee with my book club last month when someone asked how old everyone was. When I said 72, one of the newer members nearly dropped her mug. "But you seem so... energetic," she said, as if energy and seventy-something were mutually exclusive.

That comment stayed with me all week. Not because I was flattered, but because I remembered feeling utterly exhausted at 68, right after my second husband passed.

Back then, I could barely make it through a day without two naps. The difference between then and now isn't some miracle supplement or a new exercise routine. It's what I stopped doing.

You know that feeling when you're carrying grocery bags and don't realize how heavy they've become until you finally set them down? That's what these energy drains are like.

They accumulate so gradually, we don't notice we're being depleted until we're running on empty. After years of trial and error, therapy, and some hard-won wisdom from my widow's support group, I've identified the habits that were quietly stealing my vitality.

Here are the eight things I've stopped doing that have made all the difference.

1) Trying to be the person you were at 40

When my knees forced me to leave the classroom at 64, I felt completely lost. For 32 years, I'd been Mrs. M, the English teacher who directed school plays and stayed late to tutor struggling students.

Those first months of retirement, I kept trying to recreate that identity. I'd volunteer for things that mimicked teaching, wear my teacher clothes, even organize my days like I still had a bell schedule.

But here's what I've learned: Clinging to who you used to be is exhausting. It's like wearing a coat that no longer fits, constantly adjusting it, trying to make it work. At 72, I've discovered that writing personal essays gives me a different kind of purpose.

I volunteer at the women's shelter teaching resume writing. I tutor adults learning to read. The energy I wasted trying to recapture my past now goes into creating something entirely new.

And surprisingly, this new version of me feels more authentic than the one I was desperately trying to preserve.

2) Pretending your body hasn't changed

For years after my first knee replacement, I insisted on gardening the same way I always had. I'd be out there for hours, ignoring the shooting pains, pushing through because admitting I needed to modify felt like admitting defeat.

After particularly stubborn days, I'd spend the entire next day on the couch with ice packs, frustrated and angry at my "failing" body.

Shakespeare wrote, "This above all: To thine own self be true." Well, being true to yourself includes being honest about your physical reality. Now I garden every morning, but with a kneeling pad and a timer. I take breaks.

I've traded my beloved high heels for supportive walking shoes. I've discovered that working with your body instead of against it doesn't make you older; it makes you smarter.

And when you're not constantly fighting yourself, you have so much more energy for actually living.

3) Holding onto relationships that no longer serve you

I maintained a friendship with a former colleague for years after retirement, mostly out of habit and guilt.

Every phone call was a competition. Whose grandchildren were more accomplished? Who looked younger? Who had the more interesting retirement? I'd hang up feeling drained and slightly sick, then immediately feel guilty for not appreciating the friendship.

Have you ever noticed how certain people leave you feeling energized while others seem to suck the life right out of you? It took me until 70 to realize I didn't owe anyone my energy just because we had history.

When I finally ended that toxic friendship, the relief was immediate. Now my time goes to my widow's support group, where we laugh until we cry and cry until we laugh.

To my weekly supper club with three women who celebrate each other's wins. To the neighbor who brings her coffee over every Thursday morning. Quality over quantity at this age isn't just a preference; it's self-preservation.

4) Saying yes when you mean no

As the youngest of four sisters, then a single mother, then a teacher, I learned early that saying yes meant survival. Yes meant being liked, being needed, being worthy. Even after therapy in my 50s helped me understand this pattern, I struggled to break it.

Last year, my daughter asked me to babysit for a full weekend when I was already exhausted from a week of medical appointments.

The old me would have immediately agreed, then spent the weekend running on fumes, probably getting sick afterward.

Instead, I said, "I love those kids more than life itself, but I need this weekend to rest. Can we look at next weekend instead?" The world didn't end. My daughter wasn't angry.

And when I did babysit the following weekend, I had the energy to really engage with my grandchildren instead of just surviving until their parents returned.

5) Postponing joy for "someday"

My husband and I saved for years for a trip to Italy. We had a whole folder of clippings, restaurant recommendations, phrases to learn. Then he was diagnosed with Parkinson's, and suddenly "someday" was never going to come.

After he passed, that folder sat in my desk drawer like an accusation.

Finally, at 66, I started learning Italian through an app on my phone. Six months later, I went to Rome alone. Was it scary? Absolutely. Was it the trip we'd planned? No.

But it was the trip I needed. Now I've stopped waiting for special occasions to use the good china. I bake cookies with my grandchildren and let them make a glorious mess.

I wear the sparkly earrings to the grocery store. Joy isn't something you save up for the perfect moment; it's something you create in imperfect Tuesday afternoons.

6) Living in past regrets

Do you ever lie awake at 3 a.m. reliving moments you wish you could change? I spent years torturing myself over missing my son's college graduation because I couldn't afford the plane ticket.

Over making him the "man of the house" when he was just a boy trying to navigate his own adolescence. Over all the school plays I missed because I was grading papers or working a second job.

But here's what I've discovered: Regret is a thief that robs you twice. First, it steals your past by rewriting it as only failure. Then it steals your present by keeping you focused backward.

I've apologized to my adult children for my imperfections. More importantly, I've forgiven that younger version of myself who was doing her absolute best with limited resources and no roadmap. Now that energy goes into being the grandmother I wished I could have been as a mother.

7) Avoiding difficult emotions

After my husband died, I became an expert at staying busy. I reorganized every closet, started three different craft projects, and watched entire seasons of shows I can't even remember. I thought I was coping, but I was actually just postponing.

Virginia Woolf wrote that "You cannot find peace by avoiding life." Turns out you also can't find energy by avoiding grief. Those suppressed emotions don't disappear; they just drain you from underground.

Now I journal every morning, letting whatever wants to come up have its say on the page.

I attend a grief support group at church where we ugly-cry and share the absurd things grief makes us do. Feeling the hard feelings actually takes less energy than constantly running from them.

8) Believing you're invisible

When I turned 70, I started feeling invisible. Cashiers looked through me to the person behind.

Conversations happened around me like I was furniture. I started dressing in beige and gray, speaking less in groups, unconsciously making myself match how I felt inside.

But invisibility at our age is often a choice we don't realize we're making.

When I started my blog about life lessons and teaching, joined the library board, and began mentoring young teachers, something shifted. I wasn't invisible; I'd just stopped showing up fully.

Now I wear the red lipstick, speak up at community meetings, and share my stories without apologizing for taking up space. Visibility at this age isn't about being seen; it's about knowing you have something worth seeing.

Final thoughts

Feeling younger in your 70s isn't about denying your age or chasing youth. It's about identifying and eliminating the habits that unnecessarily drain you.

Every morning now, I wake at 5:30, make my tea, and spend an hour writing. These aren't just routines; they're declarations that I'm still here, still growing, still becoming.

We don't have to fade away just because the world expects us to. We just have to stop doing the things that make us feel older than our years and start protecting our energy like the precious resource it is.