So you look in the mirror and there are deep, vertical valleys between the eyebrows and your jaws have become two jowly, dangly pockets of loose teeth and fat. Your eyes are sunken and dull and your skin looks as healthy as an uncooked pasty.  You’re feeling old, life feels heavy and so do you. What do you do? How can you get out of the downward spiral of ageing – QUICKLY?

1. The first thing you need to do is to stop looking at yourself so critically. You’ve made the decision to identify yourself as prematurely old; now forget it!

Love yourself more – yes, love EVERYTHING about yourself MORE!

2. Find the positives and pump them  for all they are worth. A positive state of mind is very rejuvenating, whereas moaning about your double chin is not.

3. Love life and find your spiritual self by being more accepting of others’s faults as you eradicate your own. Grouch is ageing. Stop gossiping and seek good, rather than faults in others. Hug more!

4. Fix the outside by a wide range of organic, cosmetic treatments wherever possible, from CACI non-surgical facelifting to mineral makeup which reflects light and cease to apply lipstick with a trowel.  If any skin product contains paraffin, don’t buy it because it is occlusive, meaning it clogs the skin and draws OUT moisture which you need.

5. Fix what you can from within by avoiding foods which may be energy zappers and can cause depressing reactions – gluten products, some cheeses and some alcoholic beverages – and supplement your diet with the best, organic green and other colourful vegetables, as you drink more water (not sugary juices) as well as the occasional glass of wine. Caffeine and alcohol are both dehydrating and most older skins are also dehydrated. Surface creams can only help a little. Proper hydration has to come from within and it is better to drink water before you feel thirsty, in occasional sips, rather than one giant gulp every couple of hours.

6. Start to see what’s good in your life. An Attitude of Gratitude is a good foundation for anything. Find new friends and super-cherish the old ones. Take up a new hobby or learn a foreign language. Throw out one old or useless thing when something new comes along (this does not apply to people).

7.  Brisk park walks are better than a saunter around the mall and parks are not usually money magnets. Malls are not built for you but for the shop owners and contain all manner of psychological inducements to buy, buy, buy.

8. Laugh as much as you can. Find DVDs by your favourite comedians and play them until you can recite the routines back to front, inside out and upside down. Norman Cousins did way back in the 1970s. Despite being declared terminally ill, Mr Cousins gave himself humour therapy – and survived rather well.

9.  Remember if you are a man, that pulling wispy strands of fur from under your armpit to cover your bald patch is not generally an appealing look, especially on days of high wind, when they dangle their way back home. By the same token, f you are a female fresh from the surgeon’s scalpel, remember that no man wishes the woman he is dating to have her navel hoiked upwards to a chin dimple.

10. Being natural while ageing still works best, especially when vision mellows everything, including faces, into myopic soft focus. When the mirror reflection through thick lenses shows wrinkles as  ironed out, you will see that ageing does have one major, beautifying benefit: optical illusion.