Why Mark Cuban regrets stressing so much about aging

Age is just a number, if you ask Mark Cuban.

The 65-year-old billionaire says he now regrets stressing about his age every time he hit a big numerical milestone. “People always ask me what I would do differently in my life. Just one thing: I wish I hadn’t thought I was getting old at every milestone [birthday]… 30,40,50,” Cuban wrote in a recent post on Threads.

“I was young and should have known it,” added the Dallas Mavericks co-owner.

Staying positive about the aging process can actually be good for your overall health: It can improve your memory and blood pressure, according to the work of Yale University psychologist Becca Levy. Thinking negatively about getting older can have the opposite effect, even inadvertently hastening the process, researchers at Foundation University Islamabad in Pakistan found in 2022.

Cuban’s comments came in response to a post by author and fitness coach Steve Kamb, who wrote a list of ways to “stay strong and fit with a low body fat [percentage]” as you age. Kamb’s advice: Stay physically active, and acknowledge that often uncontrollable factors like “luck, genetics [and a] flexible schedule” can greatly affect your physical appearance.

The more you self-aware you can be about body and fitness abilities changing as you age — without stressing too much about it — the better off you’ll be, social psychologist Yoav Bergman told CNBC Make It in 2022.

“The key is a realistic understanding of the gains and losses associated with aging,” said Bergman.

You may need to change your habits as you age to stay healthy, Cuban noted. In the past, he’s talked about being proactive when it comes to making changes to his habits and diet to stay healthy as he gets older.

“I just try to be smart,” Cuban told Recode in 2019. “It’s interesting: As you get older, your body is more receptive to vitamins and food and all these different things, [like] allergies I never had until I hit 35 and 40. It’s really interesting to try to figure some of these things out.”

Rather than getting frustrated about those changes, embrace them, Cuban wrote on Threads.

“Your body will change. Your diet will need to change,” he wrote. “But that’s not being old. That’s being wise!”

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.

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