Living longer is the rage, judging by the amount of ink (real and virtual) expended on the subject. Just recently, as august a publication as National Geographic trumpeted “The Secrets of Living Longer” as its cover story.
But is the dream of radically lengthened lifespan simply that, a dream? Is this one of those topics like the weather, something everyone talks about, but no one can do anything about?
Count me as an optimist on the possibility of living a long time, in a healthy and youthful body. My personal goal, you may as well know, is to live to 150!
Now, maybe that marks me as out of touch with the realities of human life as we know it, or perhaps even crazy. So be it. At least I have a target to aim for!
There are people alive today, called centenarians, who have made it two-thirds of the way to 150. Scientists tell us their number, as a percentage of the population, is growing. A few are even reaching the 110- to 115-years mark.
Who knows what rapid leaps in longevity we will see as our knowledge advances during the coming years?
I figure the worst that can happen is that I never make it to anywhere near 150, but that the time I do have is lived youthfully, energetically and in glowing health, thanks to my deliberate efforts to stay as young as I can for as long as I can.
The DARE-ME Anti-Aging Program
The following outlines my program to live to 150--or at least, to have fun trying!
Feel free to implement some or all of its components in your own life.
Some advice: Before you spend time or money on anyone's antiaging program, gather as much information as you can from many different sources. The experts in this field disagree with one another as to what we can do to lengthen our lives--and whether it's even possible.
That said, here's what I'm doing to “live long, live young.”
DARE-ME stands for Decide, Affirm, Release, Embrace, Move, Enhance. Think: “Dare me to live to 150! I'll show you.”
The six DARE-ME components represent broad categories or groupings of actions that anyone can take who is interested in slowing or reversing the aging process. The first four--the DARE components--represent mental or emotion-based actions. The other two--the ME--represent physical or body-based actions.
In truth, these components work synergistically. They overlap and reinforce one another.
DECIDE -- First, make a firm decision to live a long, long time. Decide on a goal of, say, 110 years. Or 120. Or 150! Or whatever age you can honestly convince yourself that you can and will attain. Or, just decide, here and now, that you will forever be “younger than you are.”
When I was still twenty-something, I noticed the way that too many people in their 50s looked and acted--unnecessarily old and beaten down. I didn't like what I saw.
I said to myself then: “I will never let myself turn into that.” Above all else, I credit that decision with slowing my own aging process and with planting the seed of a continuing interest in the subject of antiaging.
AFFIRM -- Affirm, every day, the decision you made above. This can take the form of actual, specific affirmations, repeated mentally or aloud: “I am young. I am youthful. I am filled with energy.”
You can get tapes to play that automate this idea and take it even further. I have one I sometimes listen to that commands my body's cells to repair themselves faster and more efficiently, and thereby grow continually younger from a biological point of view.
To affirm also means simply to cultivate a firm confidence that you can achieve your antiaging commitment to yourself--that, in fact, you are achieving it at the very moment that you bring it to mind.
RELEASE -- After you've made your decision (to stay forever youthful, to live to 100+, whatever your anti-aging goal is), and after you've reinforced that decision with affirmations, then ... let it all go. Release it.
This might seem puzzling at first.
Of course you should release any negativity or pessimism you might be holding toward the possibility of attaining youthful, long life.
But here's the counter-intuitive part: You should also let go of your positive intentions and thoughts on the matter. I don't mean erase or try to suppress them. I mean, you just allow them gently to drift away.
When we have any fear--of growing old, of not having enough money, of looking foolish, etc.,--our tendency is to obsess about it, to gnaw on it like a dog with an old bone. Or, we grit our teeth and scrunch our eyes and try to push the fear way down, out of awareness.
This is like trying to hold an inflated beach ball under water--eventually, it's going to pop back to the surface, and the only thing we've accomplished is to waste energy.
The better way to deal with a negative emotion is simply to drop it. Releasing is a technique for learning how to do this.
Why, though, do I say to release even your positive thoughts, emotions, and expectations? Because these, too--if you're churning them over in your mind, or bearing down and trying to “will” them into reality--will keep you from living fully in the present. In the present is where you experience agelessness.
Releasing is a powerful technique. Unfortunately, it cannot be fully described in a short article. There are several good books available on releasing, even entire audio courses. I urge you to seek these out.
EMBRACE -- By this, I mean “Embrace life.” It sounds airy or downright sappy, I know. What it means is to cultivate a love for the world and the people and things in it, or at least boundless curiosity about it.
Some people are natural-born “huggers,” whether of other people, or dogs, or trees. They embrace the world literally.
But even introverts and physically standoffish types--among whom I count myself--can embrace the world through a desire to keep on learning about it. People who know me say that I seem to be interested in more different things than anyone else they've met.
What does this have to do with antiaging?
Embracing life--loving it--sends a message to your body and mind that life is worth sticking around to enjoy. The converse also holds. Reject life, or decide you're bored with it or tired of it, and you set yourself on a downhill slide to emotional, mental and physical oblivion.
Embrace life and life will embrace you. Sappy? Maybe. But true? What do you think?
MOVE -- It is well known that regular exercise keeps people looking and feeling young and wards off many of the illnesses associated with getting older.
Aerobic exercise such as walking or jogging is one of the best things you can do for your physical well-being. I have a confession, though. In this area, I don't exactly practice what I preach.
I have spurts of commitment when I get out every evening and walk two or three miles. But then I skip a couple of days, and soon whole months pass during which I never get out the door except to walk to the car.
Nevertheless, I do move. Every morning I run up the three flights of stairs to my office, to the amusement of others in the building who say they can always tell it's me because no one else ever does that.
Often, I'll pass by a particular building that has a flower bed lined with a low brick “wall.” I like to walk along the top of the bricks, performing a little balancing act as I do.
You frequently hear of older people falling and breaking bones because they lost their balance. So, start now to practice balancing whenever and wherever you spot on opportunity.
Certain Eastern exercises are said to confer long life and agelessness. Tai chi is one. I have practiced tai chi, and can report that it will leave you feeling mentally and emotionally centered as well as physically balanced.
Here's an amazing antiaging exercise you can start doing today: Spinning.
Don't laugh or dismiss this out of hand, and don't reject it because it might be uncomfortable at first. After all, you used to do it for fun as a kid!
Stand in the middle of the room, arms raised out to your sides, and begin turning clockwise (left to right). In the beginning you might only manage two or three slow turns before you get too dizzy to continue. Don't worry. Spin every day and in a short time you'll be able to do it rapidly, many times, with very little dizziness. Work up to 21 spins per daily session.
This spinning is one of five “secret” Tibetan yoga exercises said to have a miraculous ability to reverse aging when done every day. There are books and web sites describing all five in detail.
Some people say these exercises work by speeding up certain “vortexes” that reside within our bodies. These vortexes are energy centers, spinning rapidly when we are young but slowing down as we get older until they stop altogether at death. The Tibetan exercises get those vortexes spinning fast again.
Whether or not you accept the idea of vortexes spinning away inside your body, there are many reports that practicing this Tibetan yoga can actually de-age a person.
ENHANCE -- This refers to things we can do to boost (enhance) our natural chemistry to raise the levels of youth hormones and other anti-aging substances in our bodies.
Science has discovered a handful of vitamins, nutrients and other substances that appear to have genuine anti-aging effects. Many are available as dietary supplements, which you can buy over the counter in pharmacies and grocery stores, and cheaply via the Internet.
Supplements I personally take for their anti-aging powers include coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), alpha lipoic acid, acetyl-l-carnitine, and pregnenolone. For each of these, there is strong evidence of their ability to slow some aspects of aging and, perhaps, extend life. Please look them up and decide for yourself whether or not there is anything to the claims made for them.
I also take supplements of DHEA. Because this one is a bit controversial, I want to say more about it.
DHEA--dehydroepiandrosterone--is a so-called “mother hormone,” which our bodies produce naturally. Our bodies convert it into sex hormones--testosterone and estrogen, primarily--as needed.
Our natural DHEA levels decline rapidly with age, eventually falling to a fraction of what they were at their height during our 20s. In fact, the level of DHEA in a person's body is one of the surest biomarkers for age.
Knowing this, researchers have experimented with DHEA supplementation as a treatment for everything from obesity to lack of energy to loss of libido. The news from these experiments has been mainly good. DHEA looks to be--potentially--one of the most powerful antiaging substances readily available to the average person.
Some experts worry, though, about the possible risks from people using a powerful hormone as a dietary supplement. For example, what if taking in DHEA from the outside signals the body to shut down production of its own natural supply?
Questions such as this underscore the need to do your own research and form your own conclusions before taking any supplement. This is so important in the case of DHEA that I created an entire web site to present all of the evidence for and against its use as an antiaging therapy.
For the record, I take one 25 milligram DHEA capsule every other day. This reflects my own comfort level as far as dosage and frequency. It seems to be enough to provide the benefits of DHEA that I hoped for when I started. (For one thing, I'm finally losing some stubborn belly fat. The ability to melt away adominal fat is one of the more recently documented benefits of taking DHEA.)
Taking the right vitamins and other supplements is an important part of making the DARE-ME formula work. They will greatly aid your own antiaging program. Learn as much as you can before starting them, though.
I hope this introduction to DARE-ME has excited you to explore the real possibility of living to 100, 120 or even more--in good health, in a youthful body, with a perpetually young mind.
Each of the six DARE-ME components would require its own book chapter to fully explain. That's why I'm working on a series of reports, due to be published soon and made available for the asking, on the complete DARE-ME antiaging program. As soon as they're ready they will be accessible through my various antiaging sites (starting with the DHEA for Antiaging site).
So, why not live to 150?
I dare you!
About the Author:
Steve Smith is a writer, editor and informational web site developer who currently lives near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the United States. Among his web sites are DHEA for youth (http://www.dhea-youth.com), Golf In the Year 2000 (http://www.golf-in-the-year-2000.com) and Tops for Tennis (http://www.tops4tennis.com). More information is available at http://www.mindspring.com/~freedom1/.
Live to 150 - I Dare You!
