one effect scientific model; all you must do is to take a look at the efficacy of Dr. Bredesen’s comprehensive protocol to understand that this will be the future of medicine. Patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s can enroll in online support programs for Dr. Bredesen’s protocol. In many degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s there are multiple holes in the roof. Using one drug is like patching one hole. And Alzheimer’s is no different; if there are thirty-six different ways that brain health and physical health are degrading, you won’t change much by patching up one hole with one drug or one therapy. Dr. Bredesen has found that he can reverse or stop the progression of Alzheimer’s even by patching only half of the holes, so to speak. In a small trial of what Dr. Bredesen calls the ReCODE protocol, promising results were found for reversing or arresting the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Dr. Bredesen’s ReCODE protocol gives hope for more mainstream adaptation of holistic lifestyle protocols for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and many other degenerative diseases.
Bredesen Protocol, ReCODE:
•Optimize Diet
•Eat 3 hours before bedtime
•Eat during a 12-hour period and then fast for the other 12 hours
•Enhance autophagy (cellular clean up, especially in the brain) and ketosis (see Chapter 6)
•Meditate/Reduce Stress
•Optimize Sleep
•Exercise
•Optimize your microbiome
•Reduce Inflammation
Start with Small Steps
As a Yoga Health Coach, I am familiar with helping people to change habits gradually, as I will outline techniques in this chapter. It can take time and it is important to change gradually. I am trained in meeting people where they are and helping them to slowly transform their habits. When you change your habits, early success is important as it creates a momentum. Neuroscience affirms that the way to feel confident and cultivate success in habit change is to start small and build. I feel that this is the crux to changing and altering our habits, especially as we grow older. You start with small steps and things that are very easy to change, building to greater and greater levels of difficulty. Working at your own pace and building to more complicated habits or to habits that you may be resistant to ensures greater success.
As you read this book, you will be thinking about your own habits. You may read about something that does not appeal to you. Never worry about what you can’t or are not ready to do. Ignore those habits that seem impossible or unappealing. Those are habits you can change later, or never. You are going for low-hanging fruit at first. As you realize the practice of Super Aging, I am imagining you will become emboldened and take on other small steps. Don’t disregard the power of community. One of the biggest factors in healthy aging is strong support and community. Many of us in the western world don’t have the traditional family ties and close knit communities that are a part of every Blue Zone® community. I predict that in the next thirty years, the human race will be rethinking communities. For now, begin to think about how you can look for support around you right now. Maybe you can read this book with a friend or start a book club. There’s lots to read on aging, and you will be hearing about a lot more studies and advice about aging well in the next few decades.
Form Your Own Community to Support Your New Habits
Support can be critical to healthy habit change. Start with a buddy or a group. When you act in unison, the support becomes palpable. Suddenly changing long-ingrained habits becomes doable. Start a walking group, a volunteering committee, a healthy book club, or join a meetup focused on healthy habits or healthy aging.
Those that follow Dr. Bredesen’s ReCODE protocol have an online support group for his complex protocol. Members of the group meet once a year and if it is their first time at the meeting, they are thrilled to meet online buddies in person. In my own experience as a Yoga Health Coach, my colleagues and I have found that creating support groups online or in person leads to far greater success in changing habits. The fact that our habits are part of our inner and outer ecosystem and are reinforced by friends and family can sometimes go unnoticed. When you feel supported in taking a step away from an old model of living, it can make change seem less overwhelming and scary. Have compassion for yourself as you transform.
It is never too late or too early to start your healing your lifestyle by embracing new habits that help you to feel good, look good and age well. When you feel isolated and alone, you will have more challenges in changing habits. Fear and apprehension can take over your mind when you lack support. Many of us live isolated lifestyles, so don’t compare yourself to Some Super Agers who are a part of a culture that naturally supports Super Aging habits, like those who live in Blue Zone® regions. Some Super Agers have developed healthy aging habits at various stages of their lives, on their own, for many different reasons. It is possible to develop habits to find optimism in aging. Among all Super Agers, habits form the structure from which their purpose, dharma, or ikigai flourishes.
Science of Life
I am a longtime student of Ayurveda, which considers daily habits to be integral. Ayurveda, meaning “science of life” in Sanskrit, codifies an optimal way of life, one that is in harmony with nature and the world. A person who lives in union with the here-and-now, who they are at the deepest level, and then in harmony with nature will live a long and happy life, according to Ayurveda.
“When I studied Ayurveda, yoga and enlightenment, I was told which habits I should be doing daily. Almost no attention was paid to behavioral science or how humans actually evolve their habits.” observes Cate Stillman, in her book, Body Thrive: Uplevel Your Body and Your Life with 10 Habits from Ayurveda and Yoga. I resonate with this observation and wonder why behavioral science is not taught in every high school and college. Some acupuncturists, chiropractors, naturopaths, and MDs often don’t instruct their clients in healthy habits and then almost never teach them how to set up a new habit using behavioral science. Cognitive Behavioral Therapists and other forms of behavioral therapists seem to be the only ones who are armed with the simple tools to identify, form, and then solidify healthy habits that benefit their clients. As the author of two books, I realized people liked to read my books on the Chakras and healing foods. They were inspiring, readers told me, but I wondered if anyone changed that much from reading them. On the other hand, books can make an impact when the author purposefully encourages habit change in the form of simple daily lifestyle practices that don’t even take much time to perform.
When I joined the Yogahealer online community, I found myself able to integrate at least two habits that I had tried to change for at least a decade or so before meeting her. Cate Stillman and Yogahealer helped groups from all over the world shift their bedtimes, eat less meat, and to get up and get out and exercise. There is so much more to her habit-changing courses, and I, along with a team of editors and administrators, now run her health coaching blog at www.yogahealthcoaching.com.
One of the reasons I began studying Yoga Health Coaching with Cate resulted from a study that I worked on in 2010, when I was a yoga instructor for the PRYMS (Practicing Restorative Yoga for Metabolic Syndrome) study. This NIH-funded research study examined the effects of restorative yoga versus stretching in patients with Metabolic Syndrome, which is a cluster of symptoms that are an indicator that you are highly likely to get Type 2 diabetes. The lead researcher on the PRYSMS study, Dr. Alka Kanaya, gathered participants for our first class and orientation where she took some time to explain the study. This would be a year of restorative yoga for everyone and the study participants were required to engage in a home practice. As an instructor, I had to be sure my students were participating and do as much as I could to get everyone on board. During the orientation, Dr. Kanaya mentioned a previous study that she directed, The Live Well, Be Well study, which compared two groups. One group was waitlisted, while the other group received healthy lifestyle counseling, primarily by phone. After a year, many in the counseling group had made small, yet important reductions in risks for Type 2 diabetes. Why weren’t interventions like this widely implemented, I wondered. As a yoga teacher, I felt I could make a significant difference in the lives of my students simply by counseling