Our lifestyle cannot only help us live longer but also live younger.
“Life is beautiful, and longer every day. Part four”. was originally pubished on Sep 27 2019, but now has a video version. You can watch the available videos in the Vlog section, or directly in my Youtube Channel https://youtu.be/UV7BRwRValw
So here it is, the fourth and last blog of this series “Life is beautiful and longer every day”. It is the last one based on the Time Magazine article, not because there is no more meat on it but because there are so many other things and themes to write about and you have the link here if you are interested in reading the whole thing. This last part is about the mind, how the way we think and train our mind can affect our health and thus also have an influence on the way we age.
Just remember that the mind is part of the body, it is not a separate entity. The brain is another organ; it is the organ of the mind, just as the lungs are the organs of respiration. So really we should not make a split between the body and the mind.
The days where words like mindfulness, meditations, resilience, optimism and social connections were hocus pocus and alternative medicine have gone. We now know with scientific certainty that the way we think matters to our health and we can train our brain to work in a way that is beneficial for us, just like we can improve our diet, our muscles and cardiovascular system.
Telomeres are located on the end of our chromosomes; they are there to protect them. As we can read in Time Magazine “The Science of Living Longer” 2019, telomeres burn down like candles and leave our chromosomes exposed and as they get damaged the ageing process accelerates. There is no known safe drug that can boost telomeres but how we react to stressful situations is relevant to how fast they burn at any age.
Anxiety is another state of mind that can affect your overall health and thus living younger. When you are anxious the adrenal gland begins to secret epinephrine and cortisol and together these hormones signal to the immune system to release the proteins known as inflammatory cytokines. Which means that your body is getting ready to fight infection and rush away to find the wound. However, in this case, there is none and your system is flooded with inflammation and creates the perfect environment for cancer, brain deterioration and cardiovascular disease, all enemies of living younger ( Time Magazine 2019)
However, there is hope! We can train our mind to react in a different way to life’s challenges and it has now been scientifically proven that meditation and mindfulness are very effective ways of doing this. Dr Richard Davidson has dedicated decades to prove this and now his research turns up everywhere I look on this matter. He does have a brief mention in Time Magazine but more importantly, I would like to recommend you his book “The Emotional Life of your brain” to which you can also find a link to below.
More over positive thinking is very significant in how the non-negotiable tragedies of life, affect our overall health. And the same healthy life recommendations for the body, we learned in the previous blogs, are also relevant for your brain, exercise regularly and eat foods that will cover your nutritional needs within the calorie intake your body needs. Being kind to others is also an important factor in your well-ness as are your social connections and physical touch.
I hope you are as happy as you want to be and remember being kind is for free,
Best wishes
Ivalo
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Amazon link to the magazine, if you want to read the complete text.