to a concert or lecture.
–Go to a museum.
–Go see a movie by yourself or with a friend.
–Get a massage or reiki healing.
–Get acupuncture.
–Walk in a park, forest, beach, desert, or some other place of natural beauty.
–Have a party or meet friends for a drink.
Super Aging Habits
Daily Habits
•Compassion – Practice a daily self-compassion meditation (Chapter 11).
•Keep a gratitude journal.
•Make a God Box or a surrender box. If you find yourself constantly worrying or thinking about the negative, begin to write down your negative thoughts and worries. Place these worries in a box. Place symbols of your worries in the box. If you find you cannot let go of your worries or negative thinking, allow yourself to indulge in thinking negative thoughts or let yourself worry, but put a time limit on it. Set your timer for fifteen minutes or even an hour. When time is up, put your thoughts back in the box. If it is too hard, try doing it the other way around, give yourself fifteen minutes or one hour worry-free, then let yourself worry like crazy the rest of the day or think negatively. You may find you like the worry-free time better.
•Stop Complaining – This is a fascinating exercise from the book, A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted by Will Bowen. I was introduced to this book through yoga teacher Judith Lasater and her yoga club. She asked us to read it and try the exercise, which meant wearing a colorful soft plastic bracelet. The exercise went like this: each time I complained, I would have to move the bracelet from one wrist to the other. It made it oh so obvious just exactly how much I complained. Judith Lasater reminded us that it is human to complain. The real truth is that when we complain, we block ourselves from accepting things as they are or from taking action. Complaining creates a kind of inertia, a stagnation that quietly pollutes our mindset.
•Cease gossiping – Are you talking about someone else? Is what you are saying about another person something that you would feel comfortable saying to their face? If not, stop right now: you are gossiping. Mitch Horowitz, author of The Miracle of A Definite Chief Aim and One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life, says that to stop gossiping is like taking a healthful pill. “This formula is free, and it can be yours immediately. It’s only aftereffects are satisfaction, calm, and good spirits.” Stop talking behind people’s back to experience an immediate shift in mindset.
You Are a Mosaic of Habits: Everyday Opportunities to Super Age
“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you have to start young.”
—Fred Astaire
Lifestyle makes up 75 percent or more of how you we age. You are a collection of your habits. Your habits are who you are. The biology of aging is extremely complicated, involving so many systems of the body, brain, and the nervous system. Not to mention that behavior can be complicated. What should you change, how can you change? It can seem overwhelming and impossible to change behavior. Yet if you can change one thing at a time, you can increase your confidence. Then you will realize you can change your habits slowly over time. You can make a big difference in your behavior with small, gradual changes. Super Agers cultivate healthy habits as an integral part of their aging plan.
If you’re lucky, you started life with healthy habits that have continued throughout your life. The truth is not many in the western world begin life this way. Many who live in Blue Zone® areas won the habit lottery by being born into cultures that naturally integrated healthy aging habits. Don’t worry if you didn’t have healthy habits modeled around you by family and community: you are not alone. You can change your habits, and it is never too late!
There is no “typical” in aging; people age at vastly different rates. As humans increase in life expectancy and achieve better health through diet, lifestyle, and habits, there will probably be even more disparity in how people age. Many will increase their healthspan through good daily, weekly, and seasonal habits. There will be a steep increase in the numbers of outliers, known as Super Agers. The growing population of aging adults and our ability to remain healthy longer has made a mockery of previous stereotypes of aging. Even the World Health Organization has created a campaign to reduce outdated prejudices around aging, stating, “Ageism is everywhere, yet it is the most socially ‘normalized’ of any prejudice, and is not widely countered—like racism or sexism. These attitudes lead to the marginalization of older people within our communities and have negative impacts on their health and wellbeing.” Human bodies are complex, with a myriad of diverse internal biological factors that influence our aging, as well as the external environmental and lifestyle factors that influence aging. Genetics is believed to account for 20–25 percent of the aging process, and the other up to 80 percent is in our hands. This book is about all of the relatively easy and inexpensive lifestyle changes that you can make to become a Super Ager.
Geroscience
This is an interdisciplinary field that aims to understand the biology of aging, age-related diseases, and quality of life, as well as other issues of aging. Geroscience spans multiple disciplines, including molecular biology, genetics, neuroscience, endocrinology, and genetics, among others. Traditionally, aging research focuses on single diseases and isolated conditions. Many scientific studies centered around aging fail because of the complexity of aging. “Geroscience” as a discipline was coined in 2007 by aging scientist, Gordon J. Lithgow of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Geroscience was recognized by the US Senate in 2010. “What has come out of our work is a keen understanding that the factors driving aging are highly intertwined and that in order to extend healthspan we need an integrated approach to health and disease with the understanding that biological systems change with age,” according to former Buck Institute CEO Brian Kennedy. The Buck Institute is “focused on the connection between normal aging and chronic disease,” as well as extending the human health span.
Recoding
In 2014, Dr. Dale Bredesen of UCLA and the Buck Institute published the results of a small clinical trial on a multipronged protocol for treating Alzheimer’s disease. The study scientifically demonstrated the possibility of the reversal of symptoms of Alzheimer’s, a disease that is presently believed by western medicine to be irreversible. In his book, The End of Alzheimer’s, Dr. Bredesen likens Alzheimer’s to a leaky roof with thirty-six holes. The current medical model can’t cure Alzheimer’s because it only treats one cause at a time, which Dr. Bredesen likens to patching only one of the holes in the roof. If there are thirty-six holes, patching one of them will not do much good. The Bredesen Protocol, also known as ReCODE, is a collection of healthy lifestyle habits, combined with specific supplements that target biomarkers of Alzheimer’s. By following the ReCODE protocol, you patch up many holes at the same time. Both the clinical trials that were published and Dr. Bredesen’s continued work with Alzheimer’s demonstrate that by patching even half of the “holes” in the Alzheimer’s roof, symptoms can be reversed or arrested. Many declared Dr. Bredesen’s protocol was “too complicated,” or simply did not believe that it was possible to reverse or cease the progression of Alzheimer’s in patients, yet the protocol is an oddly familiar set of healthy habits along with more complicated and specific supplements. The ReCODE protocol also divides Alzheimer’s into three categories and uses specific protocols for each type of Alzheimer’s.
The reason Dr. Dale Bredesen’s work excites many health coaches, integrative doctors, and wellness professionals is because western science almost always focuses on one cause and effect and rarely, if ever, examines the effects of multiple lifestyle changes on chronic diseases