Longevity and how to extend your life is actually quite possible and hard science backs it up. Are you the kind of person that never accepts anything as truth until there is evidence to back it up? If you count yourself as a skeptic, you are certainly not on your own and you can be proud of the esteemed company you have in the scientific community. Even certain evidence is called into question due in part because of a lack of depth in research. For instance, where a dozen or so individuals are evaluated and the results are used to speak for the other six and a half billion or so of us.
If you follow such things, the name Dr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn, a now famous cell biologist, recently was awarded the Nobel Prize because of the research she conducted on aging. Blackburn is an esteemed director in psychology at the University of California, San Francisco and has been heavily involved in the study of aging since the late nineteen seventies.
What Is The Big Deal?
There are two crucial scientific terms associated with Blackburn’s work – telomeres and telomerase. This is cutting edge science in the field of life extension, aging and longevity. This research is so important it might just be the basis for the eradication of cancer utilizing telomerase as a means of intervention. Additionally, stress is now known as a primary reason why we all age and later we will learn how this factors into the Prize winning research.
Telomeres
In describing telomeres, one needs to envision a shoelace in their minds eye. See the tips of the shoelace? Consider what the purpose of the plastic cap on the end of the lace is for. This is so that the shoelace does not separate and untangle itself. A telomere is essentially a cap at the tip of the chromosome within your cells. Understanding the shoelace scenario makes it obvious what the telomeres responsibility is, to avoid any unraveling of the chromosomes. This is significant because your genes, all thirty thousand of them, are found in your chromosomes. There are twenty three pairs that hold your genetic makeup or code. That code is you – this is your design outline.
An Insightful Piece Of Information – How quickly the ends of your chromosomes unravel will determine how soon your benefactors begin spending your insurance money.
Telomerase
Dr Blackburn found an enzyme named telomerase that repairs the chromosome ends when they begin to breakdown. This is amazing news for humankind and someday our offspring or theirs may benefit from the discovery. Enzymes are a form of protein that resides in cells and they trigger reactions in chemicals. Telomerase mend the age damaged chromosome ends. Telomerase thwarts the swift process of senescence that inevitably ends in death. The more we age, the further the chromosome tips become frayed.
Where Does Stress Come Into This?
Dr. Blackburn reveals that it is psychological pressure or stress that is responsible for our cells aging as they do. Scientific investigators draw the association with continual stress [or distress] and the fraying of the telomeres. The higher the level of stress some is under, the lesser quantity of the enzyme telomerase is discharged, resulting in shortened chromosome ends. The biological observation witnessed is a nongenetic reason for progressive aging. This is classic nurture [the stress], and not innately caused by any means.
Age Related illnesses
The three primary diseases responsible for individuals passing away are heart disease, strokes and cancer. When a medical evaluation is performed, preliminary symptoms of these big three diseases include telomere length and in what amount telomerase are created. It is also noteworthy that this has been verified by pathologists during autopsies performed on the unfortunate victims.
Still unproven, the scientific community believes that cell divisions in irregular cell configurations may be a central factor in the shortening of the chromosome ends, thus, cancer is their assumption.
Eliminating Stress
For more than thirty years of American Studies on daily meditation by Dr, Herbert Benson, from Harvard Medical School, discloses that our bodies show a marked improvement in the immunity function, reduced hypertension and superior heart function due to meditating. Could this be because those individuals who meditate for up to twenty minutes each day produce more telomerase? This question still must be answered.
DNA [or Deoxyribonucleic Acid]
The interesting thing about science is how new discoveries mean new doctrine. Once it was believed that only DNA could generate DNA, These days we now understand that the telomerase enzyme can also produce DNA. What science is witnessing is an amalgamation of sorts, nature in combination with chromosomes and genes commanding how our life operates. Then nurture, that stress that plays upon this operational functionality and the composition of our physical and mental being. The power of our mind is how it combines our emotions, thoughts and behavior to influence our decisions. Then, the left and right sides of our brain – the neocortex – then work together to optimize those results. This is classic nature and nurture working in unison.
Meditation Plays its Role
A person can learn how to meditate in fairly short order. There is really no trick or secret to learning other than implementing the knowledge you have acquired rather than putting it off or overanalyzing what you know. Just get on with it.
All that is required to start eliminating stress from your life is gaining control of your awareness. Once you decide to seriously reduce your stress level there are some basic elements to produce some major modifications.
A Professor at MIT, Dr. Edward Lorenz, who created the phrase ‘the Butterfly Effect” stated, small changes result in immense reactions. If you are prepared to commit to some minor alterations in your every day routines, you could be rewarded with an astonishing ten more years of health and longevity.
Electro Brain Impulses
It is not an uncommon scenario for the big thinkers to attempt to figure out life’s greatest issues prior to them successfully commanding their own bodies and minds. What good is it to figure out the string theory if you are killing yourself with stress in the process? In only fifteen to twenty minutes every day you could defeat the EEG by scoring lower when tested, you can witness the amazing results achieved when you shut your eyes and experience a deepened sense of relaxation.
The electrical charges streaming through your brain are reduced from an active state of consciousness to a relaxed, yet aware state. You simply refocus your thought from any activity visible when your eyes are open, to focusing on your mantra with your eyes shut.
What is Mantra?
To begin with it is pronounced just as it looks on the page. The word mantra comes from the Hindu religion and is a particular sound or word series that is repeated while your eyes are shut and your body is in a state of relaxation, terminating your natural conscious flow of words in your head. You are concentrating on your in and out uniformed breathing that does not occur in your normal conscious state. After a few meditation sessions you will become quite adept at bringing yourself into this state of relaxation, and doing so swiftly.
If you are disciplined enough to stick with the process and learn how to effectively meditate, you will be able to lower your stress in minutes whenever you feel the need to do so. We know what happens to our physiology when we are stressed and this practice of relaxation will slow down the progression of aging and actually increase your life expectancy and with an improved quality of health.
Do you think you can find just fifteen minutes each day to practice this stress eliminator? For the sake of your longevity, avoid troubling encounters that result in tension and antagonism. You will notice a new level of confidence if you only take the time necessary to learn how to increase your longevity through meditation.
If you can eventually combine your new relaxation routine with mental agility techniques that enhance your cognitive function, you decrease the odds of contracting dementia and Alzheimer’s. Start reading more books that will develop your knowledge base. You will be glad you did when you are living out your golden years with exceptional cognitive capabilities.
Fri, May 28, 2010
Anti Aging, Anti Aging Theories, Bioscience, Longevity