MYTH: Life Spans Are Longer Today Than Ever Before.
We so often hear these days that we are living longer today than we ever have in the past. However, based on evidence presented by author Dan Georgakas, who wrote The Methuselah Factor, surprisingly, the average human life expectancy has not been altered in documented time.
With the advent of proper sanitary systems such as septic tanks, sewage disposal and the introduction of antibiotics, the overall average lifespan of a particular population has increased. In parts of Europe in the eighteenth century, the regular individual managed to squeak out twenty to forty years of life. These days, most of us will live for an average period into our middle seventies and even longer for females.
The difference in life expectancy did not happen due to an increase in the ages of people in general but as a result of there being far fewer deaths during childbirth, stillborn infants and the communicable illnesses passed around because of improper hygiene and sanitation practices.
The author Georgakas states that when a person arrives at the age of sixty, the individual in modern times lives not a minute longer than a person in attendance at the Declaration of Independence signing. No longer are we keeling over due to infectious illness and contagious diseases as once occurred routinely. Today we are perishing due to quite often preventable and chronic conditions such as heart disease, various forms of cancer, diabetes mellitus and stroke.
MYTH: People Living In The United States Of America Are Age Normally
In The US, we get all silly in our admiration of those people who live to enjoy their eightieth birthday when that same celebrant can hardly blow out the candles on their cake provided by their nursing care staff! Specialist physicians who deal with the elderly – Gerontologists – claim that the nationwide bar for aging is set much too low.
Our bodies have a shelf life of about one hundred years. Even more significant, we have been engineered to appear, feel and move about quite well at the hundred year old benchmark. When we survey the people about us who have reached the century point in their life time, the mobile, good looking ones are as rare as Giant Pandas!
Since we are generally prone to early onset decline in America, it is valid we would believe that we are all aging at a normal rate and quite naturally at that. The simple fact of the matter is that the majority of Americans are aging at a hastened pace and the true indignity of it is we do not even realize it is happening to us. Consequently, there is no personal urgency to try and do something – anything – to slow the aging process down.
The fundamental result of this is early onset skin wrinkling and creasing, sagging and baggy skin, diseases that afflict us prematurely, degenerative illnesses that disable us and culminate in our death. There is much that we could be doing to prevent this trend but human nature being what it is; people languish in their mediocrity and creature habits.
MYTH: Longevity Is Not Within Our Control
A majority of us believe that the genetics sweepstakes and or the luck of the draw will determine the length of our life. In effect we believe that with good genes we hit the jackpot and will live longer; bad genes and we are going to be here a short time, our lives being just so much burnt toast!
This is absolutely false according to the age expert Georgakas in his book, The Methuselah Factor. He claims that with a few exclusions of rare genetic anomalies, as well as also being a female, our genes might have a five to ten percent impact upon our longevity – certainly not anymore and quite likely even less. Your life expectancy from a personal perspective is typically decided by your choices that you make as a way of life – most particularly your diet, exercise and lifestyle decisions.
MYTH: Disability, Illness, Pain And Discomfort Equals Longevity
You often will hear people say they would rather not live to an elderly, advanced age. Who wants to get old and decrepit since in our nation today it usually is associated with pain, disability and loss of independence and mobility, not to mention any dignity that remained?
It by no means needs to end up this way. Observe a man like Jack LaLanne, he of the amazingly popular “Power Juicer” fame and an approaching centenarian who has spent most of his life doing physical training, eating a nutritious diet of fruits and vegetables while avoiding any junk food.
As Georgakas states, the Abkasians from the former Soviet Republic nation of Georgia who routinely add another long living person to their population of aging longevists who have reached the century mark while maintaining strong minds and bodies. They have the same human physiology as the rest of us and no secret elixir for a long life that has come to life like the fabled fountain of youth.
What follows are some longevity secrets that really are not all that secretive but certainly serve many cultures well when it comes to aging. We would do well in western civilizations to follow these youth retaining secrets:
• Maintaining a lean body mass and overall social disapproval for excessive fat on our body and over eating.
• A diet that mainly consists of fresh wholesome veggies and fruits and plant based foods. No coffee, sugar, barely any meat, salt or butter.
• Avoiding refined and processed foods, packaged foods with additives, fried and fast foods.
• Avoid taking in more than fifteen to two thousand calories. Most westerners routinely consume between twenty five to four thousand calories daily.
• Make exercise a habit and healthy lifestyle you can stick with long term. Walk more often.
• Work at something you enjoy for as long as possible and do so in a steadfast manner without over exertion or stress.
• Have more fun in life. Enjoy recreational activity that pleases you and stick with it.
• Modify your sleep habits so you get plenty of rest and avoid the senior habit of lack of adequate sleep at a time when it does you the most good.
• Avoid tobacco
• Create a reverence around your community elders and allow them to enjoy purposeful positions within your family and your immediate community.
• Start speaking the Mantra of “Health is normal; sickness is not normal” – this applies to everyone, specifically those who are advancing in age.
• Keep strong relationships with family and close friends. Care and share within your network and reciprocate goodwill and caring gestures with others.
Learning from other societies who have shown a proclivity for producing long living citizens can significantly improve our own nation’s life expectancy and add positive healthy years in our own lives.
MYTH: You Cannot Teach An Old Dog New Tricks
Do not believe it! You most definitely can teach that old canine some novel tricks!
We are not trying to understand the Theory of Relativity here. We are only suggesting that you grab a pair of sweat pants and running shoes and begin to go for walks each day. This is not difficult folks. Will it kill you to grab an apple instead of a bag of chips? What about chopping a carrot and whip up a salad for dinner?
Henry Ford, Founder of the Ford Motor Company once stated that “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” How is that for simple wisdom?
It is really very easy to learn new tricks or to eat a healthy meal, go for a bicycle ride or alter lifestyle choices. The trick comes in maintaining the new tricks you have been taught. It is so much harder to live in a debilitating old age or even middle age in some cases when you fail to challenge yourself with the new tricks you have learned. Living with chronic disease and disability with a fading mind and body is an indignity no one deserves. Simply visiting a nursing home and observing the residents should make you more determined than ever to make the right choices now.
In your mind’s eye, how do you see yourself in your old age? Are you moving about in good shape with a purposeful gait and doing so comfortably? Author and journalist John Leonard once wrote, “Aging is not simply decay; it is an accumulation of choices and consequences.” At the very least we should remember what Lucille Ball said, “The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.”
Think long and hard about your future on earth and how you want to spend it. What will be the consequences that you endure?
Tue, Aug 10, 2010
Anti Aging, Gerontology, Lifestyle, Longevity