Unless an advertiser wishes to risk a penalty by placing an advertisement promising you will live longer if you partake of a certain product or service, you will not see this form of false advertising in the media. That is why when a particular New York Times edition had dedicated a complete page talking about the one and only longevity secret, a method of living for an extended period, it was important to pay close attention to it.
What Was This Secret?
Pretty safe to say the answer is not found in a bottle of vitamins at the corner health food store However, folic acid has displayed a capability to elevate higher thinking and better heart function]. Nor is it grown in your back yard herb garden or located in the produce section at the market. This New York Times piece was extensively researched and it concluded that remaining in school – an education and acquiring knowledge are what increases longevity. The one single issue in each industrialized country around the world that contributed the most to longevity is – the amount of education you receive.
Sure, it does not hurt in the least to have great genetics with a mother and father both living past the century mark, and having a load of money in the bank is helpful as well. The real longevity deal though is how long you spend in school. Your education has shown itself to be the connection to whether or not you live past mandatory retirement or hang around long enough to see the Cubs finally win a world series. Investigations courtesy of the National Institute on Aging have specifically said that education is the most important reason why we live longer with a better quality of health well into our senior years.
As cynical as we humans can be, there does seem to be some meat to this theory on aging and longevity. When you think about it, there could be some good reasons why education results in extended life and quality health. What immediately enters the mind is socio economics and the better standard of health care due to better health coverage because of a better career and income. A solid hypothesis and likely has some merit, but not what we are talking about here.
According to a University health expert based in New York, when queried about what it is that affects health and longevity the most, the answer that was number one on his list was education. He claimed his reasoning was that the education effect never waned [or diminished] and that acquiring knowledge improves health and how long a person gets to enjoy that life. One additional year of schooling means an additional one and a half years of life span.
Research experts are fronting a concerted effort to establish why the education effect happens; they have no idea why. It can be verified via statistics. A Harvard School of Public Health professor is of the belief that the strongest indication of this phenomenon lies in durable social networks. Her conviction that being inaccessible – the contrary position to the social network – produces two to five times the number of fatalities over those who have a social net where people know you are alive and are concerned about you.
Getting A Bit Philosophical
Life has four central parts to it, you decide if these are correct.
• Determinism – meaning that everything is already predetermined regarding our life and is written down in some very large gold gilded book somewhere as we follow along an already definite path. Fate or genetics – maybe both – pull the strings.
• Retribution – This is all about Karma. You get what you deserve or if you break it you just bought it. Karma means if we cause pain we will eventually feel pain as a result of our actions. It is what it is folks.
• Reciprocity – meaning quid pro quo, you help me, I will help you. Cause and effect. You do this and I’ll do that means you have some choice in the matter so be responsible. Our security, control and confidence is up to us.
• Chance – means we cannot be sure of anything in our life because life in itself is uncertain. Like the guy who died of a massive heart attack at forty two years old and would run a marathon per week. Each of the former points has some basis in fact as to how we see life and make sense out of it.
It is a fact that genetics actually have little to do with our life expectancy – maybe ten percent. Do less educated people have less of a plan for their lives than the educated do? Do they seek immediate gratification of their wants placing themselves at higher risk? Does discipline come into play? Does postponing gratification, delaying it, suggest improved prospects rather than doubling down on life.
Seems unbelievable but it is a fact that it is not genetics that produces better health and a longer life – it is education. It just does not appear to be the nature of things.
Acquiring That Education
Those who should know these things believe that the continuous use of our cognitive function works the neural pathways of our brain keeping our thoughts crystal clear and lucid. Reading is an excellent way to stimulate your cognitive thought processes and speed learning is an even better method. The principal goal of speed learning is to increase your reading speed by three times while elevating your level of long term memory by twice what it is currently.
There are programs available that will aid in this endeavor by coordinating your left and right brain hemispheres altering your brainwave activity or [EEG] from high beta [pressure, anxiousness and concern] to low beta [attentiveness and at rest] and Alpha Theta.
In early 2007, a report from the University of California, Irvine revealed that effects of Alzheimer’s disease are actually lessened through regular learning and information acquisition. The belief is that learning and utilizing new skills and information crafts a sort of firewall around one’s brain and safeguards it from numerous degrees of dementia.
Recommendation
Reading more, comprehending what it is you are reading while retaining it to your long term memory, the healthier your brains cognitive neural pathways will be. When you acquire knowledge and work your brain, you make physiological alterations to your brain function and its configuration via neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, let me explain.
Neuroplasticity is the brain reshuffling the deck so to speak by making neural connections and it does this throughout your life. Neurogenesis simply means the birth or generation of new brain cells.
Therefore, when you utilize your brain to learn and absorb new knowledge you are essentially recharging your brain and developing new gray matter. This happens at eight years old or eighty depending on how much you work your brain. Now balance reading one book as opposed to reading three of them in the same amount of time. Consider the improvement to your memory if it was expanded by twice as much. A younger person might get the promotion they were hoping for as a reward for their improved learning skills. A senior citizen might be able to outlive their peers while living a quality of life comparable to a fifty year old.
Start Pumping Out those Neuronal Cells
Consequently, it makes nothing but sense to do what it takes to elevate your learning capability in order to have increased longevity and a higher quality of life as you hit your golden years. There are numerous things you can do that should be easy for our elders. These days the Internet offers amazing opportunities for acquiring data. However, make sure what you are reading is something useful and qualifies as knowledge in the skill sense of the word. We have all heard the phrase use it or lose it, your brain and its ability to process information through cognitive function is at stake. Failure to use it means you could well lose it to Alzheimer’s or dementia.
If we allow our brain to stagnate, we begin to lose the will to function both mentally as well as physically. My own father was in his eighties and suffering from dementia. For years prior to his decline he would often comment about my own ability to speed read and my thirst for knowledge, asking how he could do it himself. I frequently tried to motivate him to learn the skill of speed learning but to no avail.
This is a common problem with most people, we know what we should be doing to maintain superior health, but lack that discipline required, a certain constitution to follow through. Lacking this element will contribute to our demise as surely as eating a pound of bacon every day. I suggest that regardless of how old you are now, you begin to take the necessary steps to ensure you are learning something new and useful every day. Your well being and longevity depend on it.
Thu, Jun 3, 2010
Anti Aging, Anti Aging Theories, Gerontology, Longevity