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Youthful mindset can slow — even reverse — aging, research suggests
Your mindset can rewind aging, physically and mentally, as these jaw-dropping experiments show.
16 October, 2017
At the young age of 99, Tao Porchon Lynch still teaches weekly yoga classes and workshops internationally. Born prematurely on a ship crossing the English channel, her Indian mother died while giving birth. She was raised in France and India, working as a model, activist, actress, and wine enthusiast for most of her life. When I sat with her for an interview in 2010 she told me about walking on Gandhi's legendary Salt March. She was eleven.
<p class="p1">A few months before I sat down with Tao, she had broken her wrist. Fractures are common as we age and can even signal the end — my grandmother's broken hip at 90 proved to be her final brush with mortality. Yet by the time I took a workshop with Tao at Manhattan's Strala Yoga, just a few months after her fracture, she was crossing her legs into lotus and lifting herself off the ground on her hands. She was 92. </p> <div class="video-callout-placeholder" data-slug="michael-scheier-why-optimists-live-longer-than-pessimists" style="border: 1px solid #ccc;">
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</div> <p class="p1">When I ask her about her inspirational resilience, she tells me yoga has been a part of her life since she was young. Besides the obvious physical benefits, the mindset adjustment yoga promotes reveals the practice's true magic.</p> <blockquote></blockquote><p class="p1">I've had a hip replacement. I'm getting dog food at A&P and got twisted, ending with a pin in hip. But health-wise I'm seldom sick. Mentally, I don't allow myself to think about tomorrow and what will happen. I don't like people to tell me what I can't do. I never thought about age.</p> <p class="p1">When asked about what scares her, she laughs and tells me that the only thing she's frightened of is her assistant using her phone while in the car. To note, that's one of her two business assistants. Tao still drives herself around Hartsdale and Scarsdale to teach yoga.</p> <p class="p1">Can not thinking about age really make your body younger? Fortunately, there have been a number of experiments about just that topic. The answer is yes. </p> <p class="p1">Journalist Anil Ananthaswamy <a href="http://aging.nautil.us/feature/218/why-you-cant-help-but-act-your-age" target="_blank">reports on</a> fascinating research that shows how important your mindset is in influencing the aging process. In 1979 Ellen Langer, now a Harvard University psychology professor, invited two groups of elderly men to visit a New Hampshire monastery. One group lived inside a time capsule: everything about their week-long retreat was dialed back to reflect 1959. The other group was told to reminisce but given no specific instructions or stimulation from any era. </p> <p class="p1">The control group showed no physical or biological differences, save maybe the expected vacation results. The men told to live like they did 20 years ago, however, “looked younger in the after-pictures." That's not all.</p><p>"When Langer studied the men after a week of such sensory and mindful immersion in the past, she found that their memory, vision, hearing, and even physical strength had improved," writes Ananthaswamy.</p> <p class="p1">Langer never published her results. She didn't have the funding to properly control the second group and didn't want to release her data in a second-rate journal. But the experience never left her mind. Years later she conducted a study on patients with Type 2 diabetes. Forty-six subjects played computer games for an hour and a half. They had to switch games every 15 minutes. One group had a properly working clock; one had a clock that kept time slowly; the last clock was sped up. Langer wanted to know if their blood sugar levels would follow real or perceived time. </p> <p class="p1">Incredibly, perceived time won out. How each subject thought about time influenced the metabolic processes inside of their bodies. Ananthaswamy writes that people between the ages of 40 and 80 tend to feel younger than their chronological age, while those in their 20 feel older. This makes sense, as Robert Sapolsky points out in <em>Behave</em>: after the age of 30 our metabolism slows down, which skews our <a href="https://bigthink.rebelmouse.com/philip-perry/why-does-time-seem-to-move-faster-as-we-grow-older" target="_blank">perception of time</a>. Time actually <em>feels</em> different. What's amazing about the research above is we have a conscious decision in how we feel about that.</p> <div class="video-callout-placeholder" data-slug="eric-kandel-on-memory-loss-lifelong-learning-and-brain-health" style="border: 1px solid #ccc;">
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</div> <p>Florida State University College of Medicine psychologist and gerontologist Antonio Terracciano states subjective age is correlated with factors such as walking speed, lung capacity, grip strength, and bodily inflammation. As Langer's work, among others, shows, it's not necessarily the body influencing the mind. Your mindset about aging has an equally important role in aging. Terracciano's research has shown that this affects cognition: a belief in a higher subjective age correlates with cognitive impairments and even dementia, prompting this advice:</p><blockquote>If people think that because they are getting older they cannot do things, or cut their social ties, or incorporate this negative view which limits their life, that can be really detrimental. Fighting those negative attitudes, challenging yourself, keeping an open mind, being engaged socially, can absolutely have a positive impact.</blockquote><p><span></span>So much can be revealed by how we talk about ourselves. How much emphasis do you place on numerical age? Do you believe age limits your physical and mental abilities? Is age an excuse for all the new things you don't try? Do you spend more time reminiscing about what once was instead of planning on what's to come? These questions and more are indicative of the mindset you have around age. And, as this research shows, will affect how you actually age. </p> <p class="p1">Tao Porchon Lynch still keeps an active schedule, professionally and socially. Her body and mindset is indicative of her innate drive. As the home page of her website states: “In my head I'm still in my twenties, and I have no intention of ever growing up." Even with all her accomplishments she's still hungry for more. </p> <p class="p1 shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODM0MDgzOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMzAyMzMzNn0.oTwiz15mbiDn6Co96SXeb7MK3pxFQXdoepISVoRc3_A/img.jpg?width=980" id="4ed28" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f5c58d9b11f5e23398c4b7b152bc6c3d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><br></p> <p class="p1">You can see Tao in the photo above, assisting me in a posture she had just flawlessly demonstrated, mere months after her wrist fracture in 2010. Fifty years from today I'll be her age in this photo. Perhaps if I keep thinking I'm in my twenties I'll still stretch myself into this shape. One thing is certain: if I don't think I'll be able to, I won't. Mindset matters. The science is on our side. </p> <p>--</p> <p>Derek is the author of <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Motion-Training-Optimal-Health/dp/1631440721/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476996488&sr=8-1&keywords=whole+motion" target="_blank">Whole Motion: Training Your Brain and Body For Optimal Health</a></em>. Based in Los Angeles, he is working on a new book about spiritual consumerism. Stay in touch on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</p>
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Why a Healthy Lifestyle Won't Help Certain People Live Longer
Researchers at UCLA have found Grim Reaper DNA in 5% of the population. But there is a bright side – lifestyle choices go a long way in overriding a shorter genetic life expectancy.
03 October, 2016
Veteran marathon runner Noel Bresland attempts to run a marathon on a treadmill inside a capsule of the famous London Eye in central London.
<p dir="ltr"><span>Those of you trying to ward off old age with macrobiotic diets and 5am running sessions? Chill. It might not be helping you. In fact, according to new research led by </span><a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/epigenetic-clock-predicts-life-expectancy-ucla-led-study-shows" target="_blank"><span>UCLA</span></a><span>, you might very well die young anyway, thanks to your genes. </span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>“You get people who are vegan, sleep 10 hours a day, have a low-stress job, and still end up dying young,” Steve Horvath, a biostatistician who led the research, told </span><em><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/28/internal-clock-makes-some-people-age-quicker-and-die-younger-regardless-of-lifestyle" target="_blank">The Guardian</a></em><span>. “Some people [just] have a faster innate aging rate.”</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>That faster innate aging rate is caused by “subtle chemical changes” in the blood, </span><em>The Guardian </em><span>reports. Your body may age more quickly than your chronological age indicates it should. The culprit, according to Horvath’s previous research, are methyl compounds that attach or detach from our genome over time. Those compounds are one of the four primary ones that make up our DNA. While their change doesn’t alter our underlying genomic pattern, it does age us. </span><em>The Guardian </em><span>explains that “methyl levels at 353 specific sites on the genome rise and fall according to a very specific pattern as we age – and that the pattern is consistent across the population. The latest study… showed that some people are propelled along life’s biological tramlines much quicker than others – regardless of lifestyle.” </span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>The study involved 65 scientists in seven countries analyzing over 13,000 blood samples. UCLA explains what they did next: “Applying a variety of molecular methods, including an epigenetic clock developed by Horvath in 2013, the scientists measured the aging rates of each individual... By comparing chronological age to the blood’s biological age, the scientists used the clock to predict each person’s life expectancy.” </span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>How exactly can an epigenetic clock do that? According to Duke University Professor Randy Jirtle, it’s because epigenetics are “computer programs established in our genes.” He broke down the process for us here:</span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span> </span></p> <div class="video-callout-placeholder" data-slug="epigenetics-explained" style="border: 1px solid #ccc;">
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</div> <p dir="ltr">After applying that method to all those blood samples, Horvath and his team discovered that “5 percent of the population ages at a faster biological rate, resulting in a shorter life expectancy,” he explained in a UCLA statement. “Accelerated aging increases these adults’ risk of death by 50 percent at any age.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><span>More research needs to be done in order to clearly identify those risk factors, but one might be gender. </span><a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-scientist-uncovers-biological-248950" target="_blank"><span>UCLA</span></a><span> reports that “even by the age of five the different speeds of aging between genders was apparent and by the age of 40 a biological age gap of 1-2 years opens up.” “Women always age a little bit more slowly than men,” Horvath added. “It’s not lifestyle it’s this innate aging process that favours [sic] women.” </span></p> <p dir="ltr"><span>All that said, there are more bright spots than concerns in this research. Horvath was quick to point out that, “for an individual, factors like blood pressure and smoking were more decisive” than genetics. </span></p> <p dir="ltr">Another bright spot is that different parts of the body age faster than others. “Healthy breast tissue is about two to three years older than the rest of a woman's body," Horvath told UCLA back in 2013. "If a woman has breast cancer, the healthy tissue next to the tumor is an average of 12 years older than the rest of her body." That could explain why <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/types/common-cancers" target="_blank">breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosis</a> in women. </p> <p dir="ltr">The biggest bright spot may simply be that our epigenetic clock isn’t as persistent as Captain Hook’s -- meaning, it’s not constant. "It ticks much faster when we're born and growing from children into teenagers, then slows to a constant rate when we reach 20," Horvath explained. That means its effects won’t sneak up on you; they’ll accumulate over time, which gives you time to act on them.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span>Horvath has no plans to market his tests for general use, but we’ve still got a lot to learn from it. One thing we can be certain of is that exercising like fiends won’t keep any of us young forever. The best we can do is live healthy lifestyles to enjoy the years we do have.</span></p> <p>--</p>
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