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January 14 - January 20, 2023
Calment’s relish for life captures what we all want: a life that is healthy right up to the very end.
make the rest of your life healthy, long, and fulfilling.
quality of our health is shaped by the way we live. We
it’s not what you’re born with, it’s your health habits that really count.
telomeres (tee-lo-meres), repeating segments of noncoding DNA that live at the ends of your chromosomes.
Telomeres, which shorten with each cell division, help determine how fast your cells age and when they die, depending on how quickly they wear down.
Your telomeres, it turns out, are listening to you.
The cells had a memory!
Several mind-body techniques, including meditation and Qigong, have been shown to reduce stress and to increase telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes telomeres.
Exercise that promotes cardiovascular fitness is great for telomeres.
Telomeres hate processed meats like hot dogs, but fresh, whole foods are good for them.
How am I going to use all those wonderful years of good health?
RENEWAL BEGINS RIGHT NOW You can start to renew your telomeres, and your cells, right now.
refocus your mind on the present, take a deep breath, and think of your telomeres being restored with the vitality of your breath.
Melanocytes are also sensitive to chemical stressors and to ultraviolet radiation;
Feeling younger is different from wishing to be younger.
FOR A HEALTHIER OLD AGE, CHANGE HOW YOU THINK ABOUT IT
What’s Your Image of Aging? grumpy: optimistic dependent: capable slow: full of vitality frail: self-reliant lonely: strong will to live
confused: wise nostalgic: emotionally complex distrustful: close relationships bitter: loving
Typically, older people experience more positive emotions than negative ones in daily life.
Our social circles get smaller, but this is largely by choice. Over time, we shape our social circles to include the most meaningful relationships, and we weed away those more troublesome relationships.
As the saying goes, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
She socializes with all sorts of people. She hosts monthly dinner discussions (held in many languages) for her younger colleagues.
She is always interested in new experiences, like visiting museum exhibits that come to town.
“I’m inspired by the idea of life’s ‘third act.’ The first act of my life was all about educating myself; the second act was about growing my teaching career; and for my third act I am planning to work with not-for-profits to help teen parents stay in school and complete their degrees.”
“If I’m still intellectually curious, and actively working on writing projects or a philanthropic project, I’ll be happy.
I want to be giving back in more than one way, appreciating our beautiful planet and the best in others, including
our life experiences, and the way we respond to those events, can change the lengths of our telomeres. In other words, we can change the way that we age, at the most elemental, cellular level. Figure 13: Telomere Length and Chronic Stress.
Life is full of little experiments we can learn from.
Rumination is a loop of repetitive, unproductive thoughts about something that’s bothering you.
short-term, manageable stressors can be good for you, because they build your coping muscles.
Incredible as it sounds, you can learn to use stress as a source of positive fuel—and as a shield that can help protect your telomeres.
Some of us are simply wired to be more stress reactive.
Knowing how emotions are created is powerful. Once you know this, you can have more choice over what you experience.
“My body’s responses are trying to help me. They’re designed to help me focus on the tasks at hand. They’re a sign that I care.”
We recommend that you regularly engage in an activity that brings you deep restoration.
When the telomeres of aging CD8 cells wear down, the aging cells send out proinflammatory cytokines, those protein molecules that create systemic inflammation.
Toxic stress is severe stress that lasts for years. Toxic stress can dampen down telomerase and shorten telomeres.
The next time a threat looms, pause and list what’s most important to you.
DISTANCING Create some space between your feeling self and your thinking self.
become more aware of your habits of mind. Learning about your style of thinking can be surprising and empowering.
The brain is constantly scanning the environment and comparing it to past experience, looking for upcoming threats to your safety.
we spend half of the day thinking about something other than what we’re doing.
UNITASKING We all have pressure on our limited attention these days and are inclined to multitask, to check e-mail, to use our time efficiently.
most efficient use of time is to do one thing and to pay full attention to it. This “unitasking,” sometimes termed “flow,”
RUMINATION Rumination is the act of rehashing your problems over and over.
Resilient thinking is encompassed in a new generation of therapies based on acceptance and mindfulness.
Instead, they help you change your relationship to them.
You realize that you don’t have to follow the story line inside your head—because, as you’ll notice, the story line doesn’t usually lead to productive thinking.
With time, you learn to encounter your own ruminations or problematic thoughts and say, “That’s just a thought. It’ll fade.”
