Youth and all of the pleasures in life that go along with it is something that we take for granted until the day comes when we realize we no longer have it.
When we are young we don’t give a second thought to our ability to run, jump and play, or our endless desire to do so.
The endless options we have like doing chores around the house, taking strolls around the neighborhood, concentrating for hours at a time on a project, traveling to faraway places, running in the surf, snowboarding, biking, hiking, making love, dancing the night away and all the other activities that are seemingly effortless in our youth start to diminish as old age begins to set in.
At some point in life aches and pains start to become more noticeable, our vision isn’t as sharp and we have to turn the TV up in order to hear the dialogue because our ears have trouble picking up some of the higher frequencies.
Our energy starts to fade and we just don’t feel like doing the things that we used to do.
Old age is setting in.
The search for the fountain of youth probably began as soon as humankind became aware of its own mortality.
As I write this in the year 2017 the so-called fountain of youth is still an elusive fantasy however recent advances in science combined with the esoteric wisdom of the ages is able to provide us the closest thing to it.
Today it is not only possible to slow the aging process but to some degree even reverse it.
Let’s take a moment to see how this can be true.
To understand this, we have to understand the types of age that apply to us in our physical world.
Chronological age – this is your age based on how many times the earth has spun on its axis and has orbited around the sun, with you on it.
It’s the age associated with your birth certificate and the one you cannot slow down or reverse, at least not that I know of anyway.
So, you CAN'T reverse this age.
Psychological age – This is how old you feel and how old you perceive yourself to be. Your psychological age greatly influences your biological age and vice versa.
Your thoughts and feelings play a major role in determining your biological age which is why, and this is important to keep in mind, the mind matters.
The younger your psychological age, the more vibrant and powerful your mind is.
You CAN reverse this age.
Biological age – To determine this age, your physiological systems like immune, auditory, hormonal, visual, cardiovascular and so on are tested and then compared against the results of others.
Your numbers are matched with the known average values for all age groups with the result being your biological age.
The younger your biological age, the more youthful and powerful your body is.
You CAN reverse this age.
Functional Age – This is the combination of your psychological age and your biological age and the one that we will try to slow and even reverse.
The lower your functional age, the more powerful, vibrant and capable your body and mind are.
A 40 year old who leads healthy lifestyle and takes a proactive approach to their health for example by using the tips I'm going to suggest in later posts may have a functional age of an average 30 year old whereas a 30 year old who makes poor lifestyle choices may have a functional age of an average 40 year old.
This is why in middle age one identical twin may look much older than the other.
This is also why class reunions are full of people who don’t look the same age anymore. If you haven’t experienced this at one of your class reunions, go to the next one and you will.
If you are a 50 year old guy standing in a room with a group of 50 year old guys some of you might think, act, move and feel like 60 year olds while others might think, act, move and feel like 30 year olds.
That’s a 30 year span!
Would you rather have the chronological age of 50 with a functional age of 70 or a chronological age of 70 with a functional age of 50?
Who’s closer to dying of “old age”?
You make your biological and psychological age matter the most so your chronological age matters the least for as long as possible.
You can’t reverse your chronological age but you can slow and even reverse the other two which together can reduce your functional age.
This is the secret and the point of this post.
Anti-aging isn’t about living forever it’s about staying functionally younger longer so you can laugh, play, love, dance and experience life, longer.
Taking actions to reduce your functional age increases the odds of you having a longer “health span.”
Your health span is the period in your life in which you are in good health and free of chronic disease and debilitating conditions. It’s the period of your life when you usually don’t think about your health because all systems are functioning optimally and life is great.
At some point in, for some more abruptly than others, we enter into the disease span era of our life.
For some this begins at an earlier age but on average we begin entering the disease span of life in our 50s and 60s.
Once we begin to enter the disease span of life, living a full life becomes more of a challenge because we have to deal with one or more debilitating health conditions.
As we advance into the disease span these conditions become ever more consuming robbing us of the life we once had.
The goal of anti-aging is to increase the health span of our life as long as possible while at the same time reducing or even eliminating the disease span.
I think few of us would really want a 110 year lifespan if we knew that we would be incapacitated in a nursing home for the last 20 or 30 years of it!
By doing the things that make us functionally younger we increase the odds of having a longer health span and a more active and fulfilling life.
In future posts I will discuss ways to do this.
Hi I'm Michael
I've been into health, fitness and anti-aging for 3 decades and over that time I've discovered a lot about these topics that I want to share with you.
When it comes to health and fitness, I talk the talk and walk the walk.
As a grandfather, I can go out dancing with my daughter and have people think that we are a couple, and my daughter looks great for her age.
I do everything I could do at 20 years old.
I run almost every day, I scuba dive, I cycle, lift weights and I foot launch and fly paramotors.
