30 WILL NEVER BE THE NEW 29½

Telomere decreases as we age.

We tend to face aging with "FEEL GOOD SLOGANS", bringing platitudes to a knife fight. "I'm 30 years young!" we say ignoring the fact that, going by average age life expectancy it wont be long before we're 98 years dead. "Thirty is the new 20", we tell ourselves when the mathematical reality is no, it's not. 30 will never be the new 29½ BOOM!

     Then comes a bit of wisdom that, if anything seems like the most shopworn of all, you are only as old as you feel and as sentiments go, it has the twin flaws of being both banal and blaming-as if feeling old is your own fault. It turns out however, that whoever coined the one may have been unto something big.
It's also no secret anymore that the familiar mind-body divide, with your head home to abstract and ethereal and your flesh home to messy and mechanical is nonsense. Your moods, feelings and thoughts all influence your physiology. Learn to relax and your blood pressure goes down; emerge from depression and your immune system picks up; take a pharmacological useless pill for your headache or backache and as if by magic, you get better.

     Now the tantalizing question then is: If the mind can heal the body, can it rejuvenate it? Can it make it physically, measurably younger or, at the very least slow aging process? The people who research such things already accept that the way we think and feel can increase the population of disease fighting white blood cells and lower level of hormones that raises blood pressure so why couldn't it help recalcify bones or reverse heart disease or preserve the brain cells that are lost with age? "You are only as old as you feel" may merely be part of the equation. Perhaps, within reason, you're only as old as you bladdy well choose to be because research is mounting that your outlook, your personality and frankly, how upbeat you are have a profound impact not just on how you feel but always on how your cells age.

     One day mindfulness of meditation practice can down-regulate a gene that codes for inflammation-one of the greatest drivers of aging. Or the one showing that reducing stress can reduce the cellular damage from highly reactive oxygen atoms known as free radicals. Or research that found most remarkably, that the telomere within your cells-the little cuffs that caps chromosomes and erode over your lifespan can actually be made to grow longer provided your mind is in the right state to make it happen.

It all comes down to daily behavior and choices we make. Studies have shown that aging is not just an aspect of genetics but of how we live. Deciding to live better, it increasingly seems is the same as deciding to live younger.

Like I can bounce for 1 minute non-stop.

Personal simple tips on how to live younger

1. Be happy. Fill your life with things you love and get rid of almost everything else. Practice stress relieving activities like meditation and exercise. Meditation works fine for me as I'm too lazy to exercise.
   
   
2. Avoid Sugar. It is a direct cause of aging and significantly reduces lifespan
   
   
3. Sleep. For me the most important determinant of how I look (and feel) on a given day is how much sleep I get. If I don't get 6 hours of sleep I'm in for a long ride of headache the rest of the day.
   
   
4. Eat fruit Like vegetables. Fruits have an enormous amount of antioxidants and help with hydration.
   
   
5. No foundation or powder makeup. Generally I don't particularly like wearing make-up. Thankfully, I have a very flexible work environment and this is not possible for every woman, but skipping the makeup does help maintain your skin’s hydration and elasticity. I do wear makeup occasionally, maybe once or twice a week. But in general I find that mascara and lip gloss are enough for most situations.
   
   
6. Eat Right.  Cutting back on calories is the single most effective way to slow aging and extend life. I don't mean starve yourself, but it’s a good idea to avoid overeating in any situation.
   
   
7. Red wine. Red wine has a powerful anti-aging compound in it known as resveratrol. Though it is unlikely that the dosage of resveratrol in red wine is high enough to impact lifespan before some people will say they read it on gidiwriter. Ehen! Drink in moderation to avoid heart disease.

Disclaimer!!! I am no health coach, just a cheeky lil girl...