That we age is a natural process and sure, in the end, we can´t stop this process but, we can decide how fast and what kind of way we wanna age. Everyone has his own feelings when we talk about aging.
There are the ones who ignore it and think that’s the way it is, the ones who are doing everything to hide and reverse the process through external interventions, the ones who are scared about it, and the ones who are trying to accept it. But nobody likes the feeling of aging.
Sure, we like to be not so naive anymore, we love the experiences we made during the years and are happy to be more conscious about our lives. But, if we could stop or slow down the aging process of our body most of us would do it!
So we´re not immortal, sorry for this. But in all this, there is a sparkle of hope. As actual studies show, we have it in our hands to expand our life and the way our body will receive these aging symptoms. The question which we have to talk about is how and how fast.
You can say, that´s life. That´s how it has to be, we can´t live forever on this planet. And sure, you´re right. Everything in nature has its beginning and its end.
But what is in between? Why do some of us are aging faster than others? Why do some of us get gray hair in their early thirties and other ones are looking with forty if there would be in their early thirties?
Genetic ? A bit. But the bigger role plays the Epigenetic.
There are different fields when we´re talking about Epigenetic and to a few of them, we don´t have an impact on, like inherited epigenetic. But there is also a part of epigenetic where we can have, the one which is influenced by the way we live.
As we said, there are different parts of epigenetic. It is a huge field where a lot of scientists are doing their research. But let us stay with the parts who are on us, the parts where we have an influence on, the way we live, our environment, including diet, stress and emotions. All of these factors can alter genes.
This leads over the years and decades to the classic aging symtomes.
Every cell in our body has his function. One of the most important cells are our stem cells. Stem cells can produce a copy of themselves . These are not a stem cells too they are daughter cells. The amazing thing about daughter cells is, that they are capable of developing into a specialised cell after division. Without them, life wouldn’t be possible. They contribute to a constant generation of new blood cells, muscle cells, nerve cells or bone cells.
So our stem cells are responsible for our repair and regeneration processes and they are classified as immortal as they are not subject to replicative senescence (irreversible loss of the ability to divide). But today we also know, that they are vulnerable to accumulate damage and this process increases with age.
That means, that they can lose their function/activity which leads at the end to a leak of repairing processes in our body. Through this, we are getting, what it calls aging symptoms. But our body is more complex than we think sometimes. There is one factor that is associated with the loss of the stem cells ability to divide. Sirtuins.
Sirtuins are enzymes that influence many crucial processes in our bodies, such as building muscle, burning fat, and protecting us from disease and they help to slow down our aging process. They are playing an important role while repairing our DNA and they are connected to the aging process of our stem cells.
So as you can see, our body has a lot of mechanisms to fix damages in our body which are often triggered due to external factors. But as we get older this capability slows down. It comes to a disbalance of inflammation and repairing. Sirtuins are like voluntary firefighters. They have their daily job with all their normal commitments but when there is somewhere an emergency or fire they have to step out from their daily routine to fix the emergency.
Normally that´s not a problem. They are just getting back home to their normal jobs. But, when we´re getting older there are more and more emergencies because of the way we live and our environment. What happened then is, that the sirtuins are running from one emergency to another but don´t have the time for their normal tasks like repairing our DNA.
That means, that there are more and more unrepaired DNA damages when we get older and the result is – We´re aging.
Like you know and what you really often heard is, that you have to move. Besides trying to eat well, this is one of the most hardest parts for most of us. The reason is, we´re too comfortable. We like i warm and cozy. We love to sit on the couch and relax.
Against what we need, our subconscious mind does everything to avoid unnecessary movement. And this is because of our evolution. Our body will be prepared for the situations when we have to flee from danger. But there are no more situations like this. The problem here is, that our body doesn´t know this. He is still trying to store our energy for the saber-toothed tiger who will attack us on our couch. So yes it´s up to you to bring movement into your life. But don´t be to hard on you.
Tips:
Stress is not just bad and like everything in life, it´s not about avoiding it completely. A bit of it can even be good for our health and immune system. But too much of it leads to a lot of health issues and inflammations in our body. A lot of people doesn´t recognise anymore how much stress they have in their life because iti s so normal for them.
Most of us are totally overwhelmed when they are trying to remove stressful situations from their life. Thats because they are feeling not being productive anymore or are afraid to disappoint others and not give them all the time THEY need from them and often we don´t know what to do when our calendar is not packed with appointments. We have forgotten to spend time just with ourselves and our needs.
Step One:
Take every morning 15 minutes time for yourself.
Grap a coffee, take a magazine or book (avoid your phone, tv or radio) and set a timer .
Do this constantly for two weeks and then, find some more time for yourself.
We are nature, we´re coming from there and yes we will go back there too. By today, for us it is more normal to go to doctor, tell him what we have (no matter how small our aches and pains are) and expect that he is giving us a pill and we´re getting angry when he is asking us about our lifestyle and suggest us to change something.
But the need of our body and how he is functioning is based on nature and a natural based lifestyle.
Most of our western medicine is based on plants, mushrooms and secretion from animals. The nature provides us with a lot of things which are extremely important and helpful but displaced in our modern world. So far, that most of us can´t even imagine that nature and a natural lifestyle is more logic than our artificial one.
No we don´t expect from you to move into the woods, wearing bearskin and hunting for you food. But to take a step back and letting nature a bit more part of your life would be one good first step.
Try:
Herbal Tea (Artischocke, Peppermint, Mary’s Thistle, Fennel)
Tea is something normal for us but often we don´t know what kind of magical healing powers herbs can have. I don´t talk about flavoured Vanilla Black Berry Tea, I talk about, peppermint, artichoke, fennel, camomile.
There are so many herbs who help your body to digest or your liver to detox, which overall helps your body to function and stay healthy.