In the previous articles in this series we have glanced at the main cause of aging, that being excessive oxidation. We discovered that it isn’t the demonised process that it is made out to be. I even hinted that recent discoveries in science have shown that it is an essential signal in the body for optimal functioning. But it does need to be precisely controlled, so that it doesn’t end up causing more damage than is required to keep house.
I also briefly described how processes aren’t separate, as there is constant overlapping interplay in your physiology. If you stub your toe, it isn’t limited to that specific area. A message will be sent to your brain, which will then relay the message to your mouth to usually shout an obscenity as an expression of your resultant change in emotions of increased pain and anger. Your hands will also be informed to reach down and grab the offended digit. You may, if you’re anything like me, shed a tear. This is a gross oversimplification of what actually occurs, but hopefully it’s sufficient to imply the general idea.
The next major cause of aging, and an underlying factor in many of the conditions that plague the majority of the population, is what is known as inflammation. You would have experienced this process any time you have suffered from an injury. If the injury is minor such as a simple scratch, you probably would have noticed some redness and a little pain. As the injury becomes more serious so does the inflammatory response. A bee sting for instance not only damages the skin by the barbed stinger that pierces the skin, but also the injected toxin from the venom sac causes a huge toxic reaction, which depending on the person can range from redness, swelling, heat, pain and disturbance in function sometimes even to the point of death in certain susceptible people. This response is inflammation.
Inflammation is an essential process by which the body deals with all sorts of injuries, infections, and toxins. It achieves this by increased circulation and delivery of nutrients, and also by immune defense. In most instances, once the repair and maintenance work is done, the tissues return to normal.
With usual aging, and the average lifestyle, however, the inflammation doesn’t go away, but builds progressively until it hampers normal function. This has been termed ‘silent inflammation’ as it is below our consciously perceptible level, so it continues unopposed damaging our body until it results in a debilitating and often terminal disease.
Low-grade chronic inflammation gradually builds throughout our bodies and is treated as the inevitable crepitis and aches of age and simply put up with. This is the worst mistake, as recent findings show that this unchecked inflammation gradually destroys your joints, your organs and your brain.
So much so, that the new evidence shows clearly that inflammation is a major cause of the leading degenerative diseases. Current information puts chronic inflammation as the key factor in over 95% of all disease states such as cerebro-vascular disease, hypertension, adult-onset diabetes, osteoporosis, stroke, some forms of cancer (especially colon cancer) and Alzheimer’s and the list is growing.
Inflammation is caused by three main stimuli; Physical, Chemical and Emotional.
Physical stress is fairly easy to identify, it can range from a simple knock such as bumping into the corner of a table, to being subjected to a horrific motor vehicle accident.
Chemical stressors are a bit more ambiguous, from easily perceptible sources such as cleaning products like bleach coming into contact with the body to the very imperceptible sources such as man-made chemicals in processed materials or the invisible but omnipresent air-pollution. Then there are the chemical’s that you purposely put into your body, otherwise known as food. Food can either be an extremely pro-inflammatory signal, or the polar opposite and actually extinguish the flames.
Finally, there’s emotional stimuli. Your emotional state has a major impact on the inflammatory pathway in your body. In fact it is the main variable, other than food, that you have control over. Whilst we can be more careful not to bang our bodies up too much physically, life is unpredictable and accidents not only do, but occur more regularly than we’d like. The same goes for chemical stressors, as much as we try to avoid over exposing our body to toxins, in our current society, it’s a built in flaw to the system. However, your emotions, especially the most damaging negative ones, are entirely under your control.
I’ll explain how this occurs in the proceeding parts of this series. But if you want to slow down, or as has recently been proven, reverse the negative effect of the stress response on the aging process and telomere functioning, then you can begin right away.
I began to show in previous articles how you can use meditation to dampen down and even eliminate the majority of your negative emotions. You can read about it here http://tinyurl.com/5t864vn and in the preceding articles.
However some people do not like the fact that they are spending time seemingly doing nothing, although they don’t object so voraciously when they spend hours every day watching tut on the tube, but I digress. The external craving for stimulation has become so engrained that a compromise had to be sought. However just because it’s a compromise doesn’t mean it has to be a zero-sum game.
Meditation is a state of mind, not necessarily requiring a motionless body, so we can practice silencing our mind whilst in action.
You can meditate while doing repetitive daily chores that really require little thought. Or while practicing a movement pattern such as Tai Chi or a sequence of form from other martial arts, the more flowing arts such as Aikido lend themselves better to the purpose of the exercise.
The easiest way to do this, as the physical act aids in the calming process, is to practice stretching in the evening. It doesn’t take long, 20 minutes or so, is more than sufficient. If you are so inclined you can extend this time period. If you are unsure of how to stretch, then consider attending a few yoga classes to learn a basic routine to follow. Once you have a rudimentary routine, simply focus on your breathing as you move through the routine, this will aid in centering your mind. As you move into stretches or allow yourself to move further into stretches, try to time this to coincide with a gentle and extended exhalation.
It’s well worth your time to practice learning how to enter this state of mind and reduce the burden of distress on your life. Remember your thoughts cultivate your personality. If you tend towards being distressed, the residual effects of these thoughts propagate a fearful, anxious and often hostile personality. These people generally suffer from worse physical and mental health, and are chronically poorly.
Once you have learned how to achieve Mushin in your stretching routine, you can then gradually extend this practice to other areas of your life. Eventually more and more of your life is spent in this state, which enables you to experience existence without suffering the damaging effects of anxiety, pain, anger, bitterness and melancholy.
I realise it sounds a bit airy-fairy, but you have the power within you to transform your life, and it all begins with a simple choice in your head.
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