TEN WAYS TO LIVE TEN YEARS LONGER

Ten Ways to Live Ten Years Longer, Youthfully

by Dean Darcy

NO MATTER how old you are now, 21 or 71 - or older - the time to start extending your lifespan is now. The aging process is inevitable, but many new discoveries of the last few years can slow down its effects, leaving you healthier and more youthful and active, longer than your parents or grandparents - or any prior generation we know of.

But life extensionisn't just going to happen because you're alive in the 21st century. Agribusiness and the big drug companies aren't necessarily going to give you the right kind of products or information to maximize your lifespan and quality of life - they're going to promote the products that make them the most profit. It's up to youto do the reading and research and critical thinking to take charge of your health and your life.

Living in the 21st century does give you some tremendous advantages, though. Never before has there been more research into life extension and health - and never before has access to that research been easier, thanks to electronic publishing and the Internet.

Let's review some of the things we know are very important if you want to maintain radiant health during an active and long life - ten things that could help you live ten years longer, youthfully.

1. Exercise:

We know now that modern lifestyles - where we typically sitand work, sitas we drive from place to place, sitand watch television, sitwhile we access the Internet - make our waistlines balloon. But did you know that this sedentary lifestyle can also take years off your life?

The latest research shows that one cause, perhaps the major cause, of the aging process is the shortening, over time, of the protective segments of DNA - called telomeres - at the ends of the chromosomes in every single cell of your body.

Every time your cells divide, the telomeres get shorter and shorter, and shorter telomeres eventually prevent cells from dividing further, spelling cellular death. Telomere shortening has also been found in association with many symptoms of aging, including senile dementia and elevated blood pressure.

There is an enzyme called telomerasewhich counteracts this constant telomere shortening, however. And, according to a study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, regular, intense exercise - in addition to giving us innumerable and well-known benefits like weight loss, increased energy, sense of well-being, resistance to depression, less bad cholesterol, lower resting heart rates, and lower blood pressure - alsowas found to activate telomerase and stabilize telomeres!

That means that exercise has a benefit we didn't know about until just recently - it directly addresses a major cause of aging. To get this benefit, the study suggests that the exercise must be both intenseand long-term, like that of professional athletes. If you've been out of shape for some time, you might have to start slowly and build up to an intense regimen over a period of many months. Remember, even though exercise seems like hard work if you haven't been active for a long time, most people report that, after a while, it gives them moreenergy throughout the day, and feels so good (as a result of the release of pain-suppressing endorphins) that they never want to miss a session. Since it has so much health- and lifespan-increasing potential, what's your excuse for not giving it a try?

2. Replace processed foods with natural foods:

The big food corporations add huge quantities of preservatives, salt, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavoring, artificial coloring, and texturizing agents to many of the foods on our grocery store shelves. Needless to say, these additives are notput there to enhance your health. Industrial-scale food production and distribution involve lengthy time delays and huge inventories. If these companies didn't load them with preservatives, these foods would go bad while being transported or stored.

And competition in the food business is cutthroat, with fortunes made or lost by capturing or losing a few percentage points of market share. The executives at these companies know that market share can often be gained by adding a bit more salt or a bit more sugar or a bit more artificial flavoring or coloring than the "other guy."And we, the consumers, get accustomed to - or even addicted to - that sweet, salty, zippy, "flavor enhanced" taste. So, over time, use of these additives ratchets up - almost never down - and we consumers end up eating food that is increasingly composed of chemicals and empty calories and less and less real nutrition (processing often strips foods of nutrients, too).

Transfats

For example, food corporations responded to the publicity about the bad health effects of saturated fats by replacing them with what was thought to be a heart-friendly alternative: trans fats. But new research has now proved that trans fats are in fact twice as badfor your heart as saturated fats. Some studies say they cause up to 100,000 heart disease-related deaths every year. Trans fats decrease cholesterol, all right - but it turns out they reduce the "good cholesterol" (HDL cholesterol) and actually increasethe bad LDL kind. By increasing your LDL levels, and also increasing your levels of lipoprotein and triglycerides, something that saturated fat doesn't do, trans fats contribute to clogged arteries.

Trans fats can hide under a number of different names on ingredient labels: Look for the terms "partially hydrogenated," "hydrogenated," or "fractionated." Cutting out trans fats can make you 53 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

High fructose corn syrup is another additive to avoid. It's been linked to increased chances of arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. You'll have to give up all sweetened soft drinks to avoid it, and a lot of other things, even cheap rolls and hamburger buns - so read your ingredient labels.

Grains and Starches

Refined grains are another culprit, providing your body with empty calories with much of the beneficial nutrients and fiber naturally present in grain stripped away. Avoid white bread, white rolls, low-fiber cereal, white rice, and white pasta.

Replace them, consistently, with whole grain products - like kasha or bulgur, dark bread, cooked oatmeal, brown rice, popcorn, bran, and others - and see your risk of heart attacks go down by almost a third. Read the ingredient labels and look for whole oats or whole grain with a high fiber content of two, three or more grams per serving.

Avoid Processed Food

A great way to minimize the amount of processed foods you eat is to start buying food at your local farmers' market, where you can eliminate the middlemen and all their additives and practices. If you still shop at the supermarket, there are organicfoods there if you take the trouble to look for them. Use extra virgin olive oil for cooking, and consume lots of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. A widely varied diet, eating foods that are as fresh, unprocessed, and natural as possible should be your goal.

3. Don't smoke or abuse drugs:

Do I really have to tell you not to smoke tobacco or abuse drugs, prescription or "recreational" (including alcohol)? Do I really have to tell you that inhaling smoke - whether from cigars, pipes, cigarettes, or marijuana "joints" - is very bad for your throat and lungs, proven again and again to severely increase your risk of painful, irreversible, fatal cancer?

Do I really have to point out that overmedicating yourself to "feel good" - as a substitute for having and happy and healthy lifestyle that naturallymakes you feel better than any drug - is a very bad, health-destroying idea? Looking at human behavior as a whole, I suppose I do!

The human body was made to take in natural food and drink that enhancebodily and mental function, notelevated levels of the artificial compounds of Big Pharma - or misused natural substances that make you intoxicated. There's a reason the word "toxic" is contained within the word intoxicated. There may be exceptions for illness and extraordinary situations (for example, chronic severe pain is more dangerous to health if untreated than the painkillers needed to treat it), but overmedication as a lifestyle choice kills thousands of people every year, and blights the lives of millions.

Alcohol accelerates age-related brain deterioration, which can manifest itself as early as age 30 and accelerates rapidly by age 50. Cognitive deficits and an increased chance of dementia are associated with misuse of amphetamines, "ecstasy," marijuana, heroin, oxycontin, and other opiates. In a very real sense, your brain is you. Are you really sure you want to impair it temporarily and possibly damage it permanently?

Think on these facts and then act:

A 30-year-old non-smoker of tobacco can expect, on average, to live 18 years longerthan a 30-year-old smoker.

Heavy marijuana use can increase your risk of lung disease, chronic cough, mucus, nasal congestion, and can trigger lack of motivation, decrease in sexual desire, and weight gain - and long-term use can lead to significant deficits in memory, attention, and other cognitive abilities.

Heavy alcohol use can take ten to 12 years off your lifespan. Not only does it increase risk for heart disease, liver disease, and stroke, but your chances of death by violence or accident are increased by alcohol abuse - and alcohol overdose itself can be a cause of death.

4. Take a good vitamin supplement:

There's no substitute for eating a highly varied diet of fresh, natural foods. You can't just pop a few vitamin pills while subsisting on a diet of junk food and expect to be healthy - there are so many nutrients, minerals, fibers, and trace elements in good food that no cocktail of supplements can adequately replace them. Scientists admit, furthermore, that there are probably unknown beneficial elements in natural food that haven't even been discovered yet!

Nevertheless, taking vitamins and other nutritional supplements can benefit your health: You can't always eat your preferred diet every day - schedules and unplanned emergencies sometimes prevent it. Taking supplements can ensure that we get specific required nutrients nevertheless. Some of us practice veganism or religious diets that make it harder to get certain nutrients. Sometimes stress or illness depletes some elements in our bodies, and age can cause lower production of certain hormones to below replacement levels. Supplements can help in many of these situations, when lifestyle changes and intense exercise are added to the mix.

A daily (sometimes several times daily for certain formulations) multivitamin can make sure that you're getting the basic minimum nutritional requirements for vitamins and certain other substances as set out by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Many anti-Aging physicians believe that some of the FDA suggestions for daily vitamin intake are lower than they should be.

There are so many different brands and manufacturers of vitamins and other supplements that it can be quite confusing to the end user. Several independent organizations have testing procedures and manufacturing requirements that must be met before their seal of approval - shown on the product's packaging - can be displayed. These include U.S. Pharmacopeia, ConsumerLab.com, Life Extension Foundation, and NSF International.

5. Exercise your mind:

For many years, the "received wisdom" in the health community was that you could never increase the number of cells or neural connections in your brain - what you were born with was what you were stuck with, and any losses, such as from injury or alcohol abuse or aging, were permanent. You simply couldn't recover.

But the latest research has shown that that's not true. With proper stimulation, nutrition, and exercise the human brain can create new brain cells and connections between them. This growth of new cells -- called neurogenesis-- takes place in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is associated with learning, memory, and emotion - and, properly stimulated and nourished, this growth can continue throughout a person's lifespan.

Synapsesare the connections between nerve cells in our brains, and our thinking processes are totally dependent on communication between cells. This communication relies on the exchange of chemical signals, called neurotransmitters, at each of these, literally, trillions of synapses. For proper mental functioning, our brain cells and synapses must be maintained in top condition. Breakdown of cells and synapses can occur due to injury, disease, disuse, or aging. Such breakdown can negatively affect our mood and cognitive functioning, possibly leading to depression, memory loss, lower intelligence and problem-solving ability, and, in extreme cases, even dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

Stress, especially long-term stress, can cause synapses to malfunction. Removing sources of severe, long-term stress can improve brain health (and overall health, too). Loss of synapses can also be caused by alcohol, PCP, ketamine, and exposure to heavy metals and pesticides.

One source of synapse dysfunction is totally under our control, thankfully: lack of stimulation. A lack of proper stimulation has recently been found to correlate with with reduced synaptic function, which, if it goes far enough, can increase the likelihood of contracting Alzheimer's disease. It was found that older subjects who had demanding jobs requiring a high degree of skill or education actually had between 15 and 20 percent more synapses per neuron than average. Studies have also shown that senior citizens who engage in mentally-challenging activities, such as working crossword, chess or Sudoku puzzles, or playing a musical instrument, have significantly less chance of developing dementia.

Brain health and mental acuity are directly linked, so follow these tips to maximize your synaptic function throughout your life:

Exercise - a good, and regular, workout maximizes brain function and promotes the factors that allow brain growth. Don't sit and vegetate - keep that body moving! Walk, run, hike, lift weights. It's good for your brain as well as your muscles.

Cut down on stress - relax, engage in hobbies, do lots of pleasant activities with your loved ones, meditate, and don't overwork yourself. Chronic stress actually damages the brain.

Expose yourself to mental challenges and new experiences - take up activities you've never done before, learn a new and complex skill, visit places you've never seen, do puzzles, read widely, meet new people, take classes in unaccustomed subjects. All of these can be very beneficial in warding off the usual affects of aging on the brain and can add many top-functioning, happy years to your life.

6. Be spiritual and positive:

Having a positive attitude can add years to your life - to be specific, studies show that being positive about aging itself can add an average of seven and a half yearsto your lifespan. No one knows for sure why this is, but many researchers believe that there is a connection between positivity and the will to live. Having a strong will to live encourages the individual to take action to improve health, and positivity is linked to lower stress levels.

Aging-positive people don't deny the beauty and strength of youth, and in fact many exercise and stay in shape as much as their age allows, but they also recognize that maturity and experience and depth of understanding can increase as we grow older. Appreciation for one's own good qualities gives a sense of well-being that apparently has a positive effect on health - and on how long we live.

Spirituality- believing that our lives are a part of something greater - has also been shown to help us live longer. A study by the National Institute on Aging found that people who attended some kind of religious service once a week were 46 percent less likely to die in a given period of time than those who did not. Even when corrected for factors such as age, sex, race, prior health, and other factors, there was still a 28 percent difference - comparable to the difference between smokers and non-smokers!

It doesn't always seem to be the religious services themselves that make the difference: Other studies have shown comparable benefits among people who simply consider themselves spiritual- lowered blood pressure, less chance of suffering strokes, and less incidence of anxiety and depression. You can also benefit greatly from the social networks you form when part of a church or other spiritual community.

7. Boost your antioxidants:

One of the ways we age is through oxidationof our cells: Oxygen, as we all know, is necessary for life - but oxygen also interacts with the other substances in our bodies, causing cellular damage. Oxidation causes changes in body chemicals that result in particles called free radicals. Alcohol, cigarettes, and air and water pollution can also induce free radical production. Free radicals damage cells, alter important body chemicals, and can even lead to changes in cellular DNA, so cells don't reproduce properly and quickly die. Heart disease, diabetes, and cancer can be exacerbated by free radical damage, and research has shown that the ever-increasing number of free radicals in our system as we get older is a significant factor in the aging process.

An antioxidantis a natural or man-made substance that can prevent or reverse the damage caused by free radicals. Though the body produces some antioxidants on its own, it's a good idea to include antioxidant-rich foods as a substantial part of your diet. Try whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, especially foods containing seeds and nuts. Don't overdo supplements, but some that have antioxidant properties are vitamins E, C, and A, as well as selenium, beta-carotene, lutein, and lycopene.

8. Sleep well:

Humans evolved over millions of years to be diurnal creatures: sleeping during the hours of darkness and being active during the hours of light. Acting in accord with our inner nature is wise, and science confirms the health benefits of deep, long, and regular sleep. You can juggle the hours around a bit, but consistently denying yourself proper sleep can take years off your lifespan.

Of course, we all know that a tired driver or equipment operator can end up dying violently, but that's far from the only risk. For the maximum lifespan-boosting effect, researchers have found that, for most of us, sleeping more than six and less than nine hours every night is best - with the higher hours best for young people and the shorter best for older folks. Studies have shown that those who get regular, restful sleep have a lower incidence of heart disease, depression, and stress-related disorders.

Here are some tips for sleeping well:

Shut out distractions while you relax and read, or meditate, just before turning out the light.

Let your room temperature be a bit on the cool side during your hours of sleep.

If others are up in the home, close your bedroom door, and ask others to close theirs and be reasonably quiet.

If noises keep you awake, consider getting a "noise machine" that can mask them with a rushing noise, a simulation of ocean surf, or other pleasant sounds. Simply running a fan can help too.

Keep your room reasonably dark while you sleep. A little light, like that from a night light (or from behind closed blinds if you must sleep during the day) is all right, but flashing or moving lights (such as those from some modems, car headlights, or a television screen) can easily disturb your tranquility.

9. Protect your skin:

Probably nothing affects your appearance more than your skin - and no organ of the body is more subject to impact from your environment. One of the main factors in aging your skin (and also possibly causing cancer) is sun exposure. The ultraviolet (UV) rays of the sun can do damage to the microscopic underlying structure of the skin, and, even though this damage can be almost invisible when you're young, it is cumulative. The days you spent baking under the hot rays at 20 or 30 can really haunt you when you're 50 or more.

To avoid UV damage to your skin, severely limit your time spent outdoors when the sun is most intense, roughly between 10AM and 2PM: 15 minutes or less is best. And, when you must go out, wear a sunscreen with an SPF rating of 30 or more, and wear long pants, long-sleeve shirts, and wide-brimmed hats if possible. And don't smoke: Studies show that smokers experience more age-related skin damage than non-smokers.

Although some inevitable effects of aging will impact the appearance of your skin - the long-term effects of gravity on your cheeks, and the lines on your face from your customary expressions repeated again and again over a lifetime, for example - there arenutrients that can help heal the skin from the inside out, and often these are more effective than slapping on some skin cream or moisturizer. Vitamin D is vital for good-looking, healthy skin. It's not naturally found in foods - the body synthesizes it from sunlight - so some of us need supplements if we stay inside all the time or live at higher latitudes. Soy milk and foods containing vitamin C are known to decrease wrinkling, and the caffeine that moderate tea and coffee drinkers consume helps block a protein that skin cancer cells need to divide, providing some protection. Vegetables, nuts, and whole grains are also thought to be beneficial in keeping your skin youthful-looking.

10. Have a healthy sex life:

I'm sure that none of you doubt that having an active, healthy sex life is beneficial. But not only does regular sexual intercourse give intense pleasure, improve self-esteem, banish sadness, make the next generation possible, and foster closeness, bonding, and love - but it also can improve your health and help you live years longer than you could without it.

Here are some of the benefits:

Oxytocin is a chemical released during orgasm that has been shown to increase trust and facilitate a bond of loyalty and love between partners - and it also lowers blood pressure, calms the nerves, and counteracts the effects of cortisol, a stress hormone.

The more often a man engages in sex, up to once a day, the less likely he is to get prostate cancer, according to an Australian study in 2003, research later confirmed by the National Cancer Institute.

Women who have frequent vaginal intercourse have a lower risk of breast cancer than those who don't.

Frequent intercourse enhances your ability to communicate emotions effectively and leads to enhanced intimacy and honesty in interpersonal communications, as well as an increase in self-esteem and sense of well-being.

Levels of the hormone prolactin rise significantly immediately after orgasm, which can actually help form new neurons in the part of the brain receptive to both smells and new memories.

Men and women who have sexual intercourse a couple of times a week or more have higher levels of the antibody that fights colds and flu.

It's been proved that another beneficial effect of oxytocin, released during orgasm, is a reduction in headache and body pain by as much as one half.

Most importantly, many studies have proved that an active sexual life actually helps you live longer: Make love two times a week - or preferably more - and you'll have a notably lower risk of experiencing strokes, heart attacks, and heart disease generally.

Final words

What's the lesson here? Just this: You can take charge of your life, and improve both its quality and length, to an extent never known before in history. By following a few simple guidelines, investing some effort, time, and a little money, and by being informed by the latest research, you can live longerand be happier- and be a better lover, partner, parent, and friend than you ever thought possible. The only thing that can stop you is inertia - so get moving today!

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