As a tool to predict how well you’re going to age, your own perception of just how healthy you truly are works fairly well. How does your health stack up against others in your age group?
- Excellent – Very Good – Good – Fair – Poor
If you chose Fair or Poor, statistics say that you are 30 times more likely than others to die in the next 2 years. Wow – that’s kind of scary, right? Well, the point is not to scare you, but simply point out that only you know how well or how poorly you feel, and that innate understanding of your own body may lead to a personal revelation – that you may not be headed in the right direction. If you have come to that realization, you can take these new scientific principles of longevity and shift your actions appropriately. Frankly, we all need to change how we think about how our bodies age.
It has come to the realization of scientists that the fundamental function of each of the body’s systems (pulmonary, endocrine, respiratory, circulatory, etc.) is to protect and perpetuate the human genetic code. Rather, the processes that have shaped our genetic makeup over the millenniums put much more importance on perpetuating the species than they do on sustaining your individual body. Actually, they are primarily intended to protect the human species during their critical child-bearing years.
However, these systems that work extremely well during our reproductive periods start breaking down after that, and can actually start working against you (hence, the aging process). If we take a minute to look at aging through the lense of the gene instead of through our own myopic view, it begins to make sense. Instead of aging being a specifically designed process, it is instead just a natural by-product of the master plan of life.
Our bodies are really no different than anything else – over time, they break down. Whether it’s just normal wear and tear (your sore back) or an acute injury (that nasty sprained ankle of yours), the real secret to living longer is not so much avoiding injury (although that’s important) as it is how well your body can recover from it. If we were unbreakable, we probably wouldn’t be able to move because we’d be so over-engineered. Rather, our bodies were designed to fix themselves when they break.
If we consider your car’s lifespan to be similar to your own, we all know that a little preventive maintenance goes a long way to getting the most out of it. Aging occurs because our cells, over time, lose their ability to regenerate themselves. Because of what we now know about the scientific causes of aging, it’s more possible now than ever to do things that help boost their resilience. Another hundred thousand miles isn’t out of the question!
Getting older isn’t just about cellular processes and genetics. It’s also taking into account external factors like car accidents, nutrition, and stress. It’s how we deal with, and respond to, these factors that really determines the rate at which you age. One good rule of thumb to remember is that a person’s rate of aging actually doubles every eight years. This is exactly what we’re trying to manage – our rate of aging.
Conventional wisdom holds that aging is pretty much a given, and that we all should get accustomed to the idea of using a hearing aid, walker, and Depends(R) as we get older. What science is discovering, though, suggests that we can at least postpone, if not avoid, these outcomes if we’re willing to nudge our systems so that they work more in our favor, and that it’s never too late to begin making those adjustments. Fixing these weak links can be huge when it comes to increasing the span and quality of your life.
Today, the life expectancy for women is around 80 and around 75 for men. Because of what we now know, we can extend our lifespans by a good third; that means that a life of one hundred years old is truly possible. Follow these 3 critical steps – reduce your caloric intake, keep adding muscle, and sleep well – and you can effectively control over 75% of your aging process.
It’s time to change our perspective. Taking longer to die isn’t what living longer is all about. It’s about having many more moments to enjoy in a longer, healthier life!
After having been the poster boy for eating too much and just generally bad health practices, Chuck Viccente now researches and writes about various health and fitness topics such as aging, prostate enlarged symptoms, and how to build muscle how the experts recommend.
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