I had a minor accident a few weeks ago that jarred an already tender lower back. It appears that I have a pinched nerve that’s now irritated and stirring up trouble in the form of pain. Definitely not my favorite experience.
It wasn’t something I could ignore, so off to the doctors, I went. It’s been eye-opening dealing with Western medicine and the preconceived notion of how the body ages. Ageism is alive and well. I believe our concept of aging is outdated and inaccurate, particularly in light of recent research.
It’s not simply that we live longer or that we have more functional capacity, or even that we have more options available than prior generations had. Many of our ideas about aging are now being challenged and proven false. There are new developments regularly from what happens to our physical health, mental acuity, and cognition to life satisfaction.
The impact of sleep, nutrition, mindset, relationships, and purpose have taken on a greater meaning. A few short years ago, we thought the brain stopped changing shortly after puberty. There was no talk of glial cells in the brain playing clean up while we sleep or telomeres on our DNA, indicating how long we might live. These are topics front and center now showing up in much of the new research on longevity.
Most people are all for living a long life as long as they can enjoy at least moderate physical function and mental acuity. I’ll admit my biggest fear around aging is dementia. I’m not sure about you, but I’d like to keep my mental acuity intact thank you very much!
One of the areas that piques my interest is our mindset and how it influences aging. In my research on the placebo effect, it played such a critical role I became interested in how it affected aging. Numerous studies connect younger subjective age, that is, how old you feel rather than how old the calendar says you are, with an improved sense of well-being. This makes logical sense to me.
This injury had me looking at my subconscious beliefs around aging, many of them regularly reinforced by society and western medicine. As I shifted my attention to healing rather than accepting that ‘this is just what happens as we age,’ my energy changed. I found several resources that opened up different avenues for successful aging. I’m looking at systemic inflammation, ferreting out those negative, outdated aging beliefs, some research on immersion in a time capsule of sorts that resets subjective age, and improving sleep quality. Thankfully my back is on the mend, and I’m diving into the longevity research with gusto (so you’ll likely hear more in the coming weeks)
Where do you have an underlying belief that may be holding you back?