Think About It – You Can Slow or Accelerate Your Aging!

Your telomeres are listening to you!! And they may not like what they are hearing.

OK, buffo – what’s a telomere?

Think of that little plastic wrap at the end of a shoelace that keeps it from fraying. You do wear laced shoes occasionally, don’t you? Or have recently enough to remember that little essential component, right?

Now transfer that visual to a chromosome which is in your DNA which is in your cells which are in your body to the tune of 35 trillion, give or take a few trillion.

Got the visual? OK – that little shoelacey-type thingy at the end of your chromosomes is a “noncoding DNA”. What does that mean?

I have NO idea.

Let’s just go with telomeres and call it good. The length of those telomeres at the end of each of your chromosomes is important. When they get real short, that cell in which they reside checks out and stops dividing. That’s called cell senescence – as in, DEAD!

So if we were able to keep those shoe-lacey-type thingies long, our cells would stay alive and, if I understand basic biology, that means our bodies would stay alive longer.

Some really smart people tell us that this works because telomeres keep the genetic material in the cell from unraveling. Unraveling genetics does sound like something to avoid if we have the option.

Apparently, we do have some options to prevent it from happening, at least according to two of those aforementioned “smart people” – researchers Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel.

I did learn about telomeres because I read Mses. Blackburn’s and Epel’s book last year – The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer.

I believe their book was (maybe still is) considered a breakthrough publication on the topic. If you need to go deep on the topic, slog through it. And believe me, it’s a slog. I read a lot of heavy stuff and this one nearly got sent to used-book heaven unfinished because of the academic- and researchese-writing style. It’s a good substitute for a melatonin fix should you need one.

But I digress.

A good friend forwarded me this article, which is excerpted from that book: “Could your thoughts make you age faster?” I think it pretty much says in 1686 words what it took the authors 383 pages to say in their book about what you need to know about telomeres and your role in their length.

This excerpted message cuts to the chase: your thoughts and lifestyle decision shorten or lengthen your telomeres.

Mses. Blackburn and Epel put it this way (bolding is mine):

“The foods you eat, your response to challenges, the amount of exercise you get, and many other factors appear to influence your telomeres and can prevent premature aging at the cellular level. One of the keys to enjoying good health is simply doing your part to foster healthy cell renewal. People who score high on measures of cynical hostility have shorter telomeres. People who score high on measures of cynical hostility tend to get more cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and often die at younger ages.”

OMG, yet another part of our body that doesn’t like bad food, laziness and “stinkin’ thinkin”.

We’ve known for like forever that stress-released hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are devastating over the long haul. In fact, Mayo Clinic weighs in with this from one of their website articles:

The long-term activation of the stress-response system — and the subsequent overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones — can disrupt almost all your body’s processes. This puts you at increased risk of numerous health problems, including:

Anxiety
Depression
Digestive problems
Headaches
Heart disease
Sleep problems
Weight gain
Memory and concentration impairment

The more we poke around and digitally-dissect this transport system we walk around in, the more we seem to end up coming back to the same conclusion.

We are what we think, eat and do – all elements we can control.

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? Get these under control and live forever.

Well, for whatever the reasons (which are legion), we’re not very good at it even though the solution isn’t all that complicated (not to be confused with easy).

The late Dr. Harry Lodge, co-author of the life-transforming book, “Younger Next Year” put the solution simply with his “Harry’s Rules”

Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life
Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life.
Do serious strength training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life.
Spend less than you make. (Stress relief)
Quit eating crap!!
Care (Stress relief)
Connect and commit (Stress relief)

Why can’t we do this – and “die young, as late as possible” – like maybe around 100 or more?

Need a reminder to do the right thing?

That thingy at the end of the shoelace is called an aglet. Buy a bunch of shoelaces, paint the aglets red and hang them throughout the house/office/car, especially in the vicinity of the lazy boy and the fridge. And maybe one in your pocket at all times to pull out when the resistance takes your thoughts into the toilet.

Your aglets won’t get shorter, but just maybe your telomeres won’t either – because, remember, they are watching and listening to you.

Bryan says:

January 15, 2019 at 12:14 am

Great information Gary. My telomeres thank you for passing this along. 🙂

Elise Perpall says:

February 17, 2023 at 12:30 pm

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Minda Decker says:

February 21, 2023 at 6:08 am

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Humberto Coningham says:

February 28, 2023 at 1:44 pm

Hello makeagingwork.com admin, You always provide great examples and real-world applications.

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March 1, 2023 at 8:05 pm

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