Ponce De Loen searched for the fountain of youth all throughout Florida and finally thought that he’d found it in Saint Augustine, FL. He was mistaken, but that doesn’t mean that anti-aging doesn’t exist, it just means that it’s unlikely that we’ll find it in a spring bubbling up from the ground.
From the times before Ponce De Leon to present day people have and will continue to look for ways to anti-age, look and feel younger and stave off the hands of time while aging gracefully.
It’s just human nature, we want to remain youthful for as long as possible and we surely don’t want to age before our time.
So, below we are going to delve into the hidden aspects of aging, why we age and what exactly can we do about it.
This is going to be helpful, interesting, and fun, so let’s go dip our toes into the fountain of youth together.
How Do We Age?
The primary method by which we age is of course oxidative stress. The primary cause of oxidative stress is our diet. One of the drivers of dietary oxidative stress is the total number of calories that you take in on a daily basis. This is why low-calorie diets are associated with longer lifespans.
There is NO doubt that the quality of the foods we consume also play a huge factor. Anyone who has ever been a junk food junkie and started eating seriously clean can tell you that there is a lot of detox that will be happening for thed first few months.
We all know that when we eat certain foods we feel like garbage. Or when we over consume alcohol, we wake up wishing we hadn’t done that. Bad foods will give us what we also wake up with what people call food comas.
Most people have experienced the 2 to 3 o’clock drop off in energy during the day. You know, you eat lunch and a couple of hours later you are falling asleep at your desk.
This is actually really bad for you because this means that you’ve spiked your insulin to the point where it shuttled too much carbohydrate into storage and now your blood sugars are lowered, and you feel exhausted.
This is absolutely contrary to longevity and can work to shorten your lifespan, cause diabetes and cancer as well as add tremendous amounts of body fat to your frame.
The oxidative stress actually comes from the fact that your body has to oxidize your foods (crudely speaking) to burn them as fuel. It is this process of calorie utilization as fuel that causes the greatest amount of oxidative stress in your body.
Other direct and indirect aging methods are other things that stress systems such as smoking, a sedentary lifestyle, sugar consumption, bad fat consumption and of course stress itself.
Below in this article we will discuss the best ways to remove as many of these stressors as possible and get you on track to looking and feeling younger faster than you might have ever thought possible.
Disclaimer: The following is for educational purposes only. We are not advocating a change in dietary, health or exercise protocols. Please seek the advice or council of your nutritionally educated health care practitioner prior to engaging in any dietary or exercise changes.
What Is Anti-Aging?
Anti-aging is the process of slowing down or eliminating the amount of oxidative stress and other outside stressors that the body has to endure to achieve optimal health.
If you noticed the whole thing revolves around stress and to be more precise, oxidative stress.
So, things that remove or limit stress are generally considered to be anti-aging in nature.
The thing you have to be careful of is just thinking that it’s just regular stress, then running off half armed with knowledge believing that you have it figured out when over 50% is missing.
The majority of your oxidative stress is diet related and that’s where the real nuances come into play.
Yes, there is a solution, so read on and it will become self-evident to you.
What Is Biological Age VS Chronological Age?
Your chronological age is simply how old you are in years. If you were born on such and such a date. then you are so many years old. Your biological age which is what we are concerned with here is how many ‘years’ you could say, has your body aged. The two are quite different.
We’ve all seen people out playing tennis in their 60’s and seen other people the same age in nursing homes. What separates these people? Why are some active, with a sharp mind and an adventurous spirit, while others can barely keep a thought and are bed ridden or close?
They are the same chronological age. They are both 65 or 70 years old, they weight the same, look rather similar and maybe even grew up in the same town as one and other. But one has the pep of a 40 or 50 year old and the other that of a 90 year old
These are the differences between biological and chronological age.
The big question is, which of those two scenarios do you want to find yourself in as you age. Because, unless you die of unnatural causes or a disease gets you, you’ll be that age one day.
Why Do Humans Age Differently Than Other Animals On Earth?
A lot of how we age has to do with how we develop.
Many creatures have to develop very quickly so that they can literally breed and die in a season or even just a few days.
A couple of examples of this would be:
1. The common housefly has a lifespan of just 28 days.
2. If you think that’s short, check this out. Certain species of the mayfly have a lifespan of just 24 hours or less.
3. Another odd creature that has to get busy pretty darn quick is the Gastrotrich, an aquatic creature that’s nearly microscopic that has to be born reach its sexual maturity, reproduce and die in about a week.
While such short lifespans may sound completely crazy to you, they are quite common in the world of nature.
Then you have many animals such as deer and horses and more that have to have their young up and moving pretty quickly to avoid predators. A gazelle is never so vulnerable as when it’s first born and cannot run yet. So, many of these animals must be up and running within hours or they simply won’t survive.
Next you have animals who’s young will stay with them learning the ways of survival for several years such as orangutans that let their young stick around for up to three years. Or lions where the females will stay with the pride their whole lives and males will stay for 2 to 3 years before going off to start their own prides.
However, when it comes to intricate learning, nurturing and a long staying young population you clearly cannot beat us humans.
Our children live with us generally through high school and then often times college as well. Some will even stay for years or decades after that.
Just look at the amount of education that goes into a human before they are ready to leave the nest and go be a contributing, functional member of society. We typically look at that as a minimum of 18 years, the bulk of which are spent constantly learning.
During this period, we are either taught low stress, healthful ways or high stress and anxiety, unhealthful ways.
It’s a combination of many things. If you were raised eating fast food and breakfast cereal out of a box you’re going to age faster during your youth.
Not to mention that it’s considered likely that you’d take those eating habits and addictions with you into your adult life.
If you were raised in a very stressful environment, you very well may have aged faster due to those external pressures and you may also take that way of living and thinking with you into your adult life as well.
The above items will play a role in how well you age and where you end up at 60 or 70 or 80.
The Good News!
The really good news is that you can change all that to an unbelievable degree.
No, it’s not too late, it’s not set in stone, you really can change your life starting right now.
How Can I Age Gracefully?
We all know that unless we get hit by a truck or something similar in the disease world that we are going to end up growing old.
So then, the question becomes how can you age gracefully so that you are the one playing tennis at 80 and not in hospice?
We get asked one question quite a bit, which is.
What Are The Best Anti-Aging Tips And Tricks?
What we’ll do is take the top questions people ask and show you the solutions, because they are asking the right questions and we’d bet that you have many of the same questions yourself. So, here we go.
How Does Reducing Your Calories Help You Live Longer?
Every calory that you take in must be either metabolized or excreted. If it is used as fuel it is oxidized. This oxidation causes a stress simply called oxidative stress and is the only clear mechanism that we know of by which we age. Other attacks such as outside stressors or radicals are also exerting their stress as oxidation.
We inherently know this is true just by the name of the quenching process. Free radicals are rendered mute by anti-oxidants.
When you are able to lower your daily caloric intake while still maintaining a great state of health or preferably optimal health you lower the oxidative stress on the body.
As this stress lowers the body can begin working on other things and eventually get around to major detox and cleanup which in turn makes you look and feel younger.
Then, because you’re not stressing the cells they don’t receive as much damage. This means that less damaged cells are replicating making damaged copies and this in turn allows you to live longer with less health challenges and less disease.
How Does Exercise Slow Aging And Help You Live Longer?
Exercise stresses the body in a good way that causes adaptation. You literally force your body to become stronger so that it can handle that stress load the next time that you do it.
These stronger cells are more resistant to disease, have greater insulin sensitivity and last longer before needing to be replaced.
Each of these things in turn help slow the aging process.
What Are The Best Anti-Aging Foods Or Products?
These are going to be foods and products that cause the least amount of damage and stress while providing the greatest amount of healing nutrition and energy.
A short list of such foods would be.
Spirulina – A multicellular blue green freshwater algae. Tribes in Africa around lake Chad and in other regions around the world have survived on this blue green algae during times when other foods were scarce. They not only show no ill affects but actually show improved health during those times in many cases.
Juices – Fresh fruit and vegetable juices give your body a break from all that digestion which takes an incredible amount of energy. You’re taking a solid food vacation in a sense.
This energy can then be used to heal or cleanse other areas of the body generally in order of need.
This helps slow the aging process by not using valuable energy and by helping to cleanse and heal areas that either are now a problem or will be in the future.
Wolf Berry or Goji Berry – These tasty little wonders have the highest ORAC (oxidative radical absorbance capacity) of any known food stuff. As we spoke of above it all boils down to oxidation and these berries are one of natures most powerful antioxidants.
Ginseng – The primary active component in ginseng (ginsenosides) have a very powerful oxidative radical quenching capacity of their own. Ginseng also provides a novel energy to the body that does involve the traditional ATP (adenosine triphosphate) pathways.
This combination action is why ginseng has been revered throughout the ages from ancient Chinese emperors to today’s modern man.
In Conclusion
Just remember to limit calories, stress and junk food while exercising, relaxing and eating and drinking only the best quality organic foods and you should do well.
Otherwise, you can age stressing out about every little thing and end up aging just as fast or faster anyway.
Sources
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