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Published: June 20, 2021 5:43 PM

The Ultimate Guide to Unlocking Your Longevity Potential: Empower Your Lifespan for a Fulfilling Future

Written by Dr. T.K. Nadisha Shanuka

MBBS

Medical content writer and healthcare educator.

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What is longevity?

Longevity is living a longer life. But it should be healthy. Otherwise, it is not worthy. How to live a long healthy life? When you are getting old, diseases are expected. But you can be young for a long time without getting old. You can maintain a healthy lifestyle and longer life. Is it possible to stop or reverse ageing? Yes, of course. There are a lot of people in the world that have already done that. We can't change our chronological age. But we can reverse our biological age. 

What is chronological age?

Chronological age is the age calculated according to the date of birth; we can't take good ideas about the cells and metabolism of the body because some people have biological age greater than chronological age. But some people have less than that. But body composition is mainly represented by biological age, Not chronological age. In forensic medicine some situations, forensic age estimation is done, and Biological age is calculated using the hypothesis that biological age and chronological age are the same. It does not apply to people with a massive biological and chronological age gap. 

What is biological age?

Biological age is the actual age of a human, which represents the person's age, cellular function, and cellular ageing. Biological age can be greater, lesser or equal to chronological age. Chronological age is unidirectional. But biological age is bidirectional. That means it can increase or decrease at any age. But it has limits. But can. Reversing the biological age is called biohacking. People who do that are called biohackers. There are a lot of biohackers in the world. 

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How to calculate biological age

There is a test called the telomerase enzyme test. The level of telomerase enzyme represents the biological age. It is the presently available most accurate test in the world. It has a high cost. But in future, there will be more precise and low-cost tests. But using the appearance of the person, we can guess their age. We are guessing biological age. Not chronological age. But it is subjective. But can take some ideas about the biological age. According to that, biohackers are very young-looking people. 

What is mental age?

That represents the mental development of the person. But it is more subjective than the biological age. But to assess cognitive development, mental age is essential. It is measured using a questionnaire. 

What is IQ?

The intelligence quotient represents intellectual abilities and potential. It is calculated by dividing mental age from chronological age and then multiplied by 100. For example, if your chronological age is 25 and your mental age is 50, your IQ is 200. IQ represents whether your mind is adequately developed according to chronological age. Most countries have an education system with fixed periods for particular grades. That is why we are using chronological age. Suppose we want to compare whether people are mentally developed adequately according to their physical development. We have to use biological age instead of chronological age in the above formula. 

What is ageing?

Ageing is getting old. But that is the surface idea. At this moment also, cellular ageing is happening. In cellular ageing, cells become weak structurally and functionally. After every cell division, cells get old because terminal ends of the DNA are missed. Those terminals are called telomeres. Presentation of the telomerase enzyme reduces the ageing process. That means cellular ageing is delayed. 

How do people get old?

There are a lot of reasons for getting old. Such as oxidative stress, glycation, telomere shortening, side reactions, mutations, aggregation of proteins, etc. 

What factors affect the biological age?

There are two types of factors affecting the biological age. They are modifiable factors and non-modifiable factors. 

Modifiable factors 

  1. Neurotransmitters levels of the brain 
  2. Toxins levels in the blood 
  3. Oxygen and carbon dioxide partial pressure of blood 
  4. Nutrition 
  5. Sleep 
  6. Body fat percentage 
  7. Basal metabolic rate 
  8. Consciousness 
  9. Glycemic response to the food 
  10. The stress level of the life

Non-modifiable factors 

  1. Chronological age
  2. Gravity 

How to reverse biological age?

There is no exact way to reverse biological age. But changing the factors that affect the biological age can reverse the biological age. Modifiable factors can easily be reversible.

Modifiable factors 

Neurotransmitters levels of the brain 

Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers of the brain. Neurons secrete these messengers. The imbalance of neurotransmitters causes cell ageing. Suppose we can maintain the proper balance among neurotransmitters that can improve your life and lifestyle. Drinking morning coffee helps balance the neurotransmitter levels in the brain. That is the easy way. And also, mindfulness is the best option to maintain the neurotransmitters at an optimum level. Mindfulness is being in the present moment. That means present moment awareness. On the one hand, that is the easiest way to do it.

On the other hand, it is the most complicated way to do it. Because it has zero cost and no side effects. But you have to do it 24 hours. If you try it, it is possible to do. For practice, it takes time. But its benefits are unbelievable. You have to do only one thing when doing any work, focus on it entirely. Do not think about the future and past. Just focus on the job for that particular time. Then next work. Like that you can do anything one by one. After a few days or weeks, you will feel inner peace. That will balance the neurotransmitters in the brain. 

Toxins levels in the blood 

Blood has different kinds of toxins. These toxins are from the outside environment or formed inside the body. Typically some toxins are directly removed via the kidney. Some toxins are converted to non-toxic substances by the liver and then removed by the kidney. Modern researchers find that cold showers can reduce the toxin levels in the blood if you can take a cold bath for a few minutes, which helps remove the toxic substances from the blood. 

Oxygen and carbon dioxide partial pressure of the blood 

The blood's oxygen and carbon dioxide levels should be within the proper limit. That can be maintained using breathing exercises. Wim hof breathing style is highly effective. But any other pranayama breathing exercises are also helpful for this. Wim hof breathing method has four steps. 

Step 1: Stay comfortable. 

You can stay in any position you are comfortable with to expand your lungs quickly, whether sitting or lying down or in any position that can prove the above conditions. 

Step 2 - Deep breathing

Then close your eyes and clear your mind. Then focus on the breath and take deep active breathing via the nose or mouth. Then exhale it slowly and without force via mouth completely. You can use your abdominal and chest muscles to take deep breathing. Repeat this 30 to 40 repetitions. 

Step 3 - The hold

After completing step 2, you can take the final as much as deep and hold it until you feel the urge to take your next breath. Then slowly release the breath. 

Step 4 - Recovery breathing 

In this phase, you can take deep breaths, hold them for 15 seconds, and then exhale. Do it repetitively 3 to 4 times. That is the simple explanation of Wim hof breathing method. While doing this, if you get any headache, lightheadedness, chest pain or any other complication, stop the breathing exercise, rest, and try it later. If you have any difficulties, don't hesitate to contact your family doctor and take sound advice or modification for the breathing exercise. 

Nutrition 

Nutrition is an essential thing in longevity. Because most of the harmful substances are willingly ingested items, that means food. Preventing all the artificial and processed foods and fast foods is essential to upgrading your body. If you're vegetarian, that is better. But if you are eating animal products, try to get fresh non-chemicalized products. 

Dietary habits 

Eating food slowly and chewing multiple times have increased nutrition digestion and blood supply to the brain and scalp. 

After every meal, you can drink a hot water cup to improve digestion and reduce fat absorption. If you like, you can add some lemon to the hot water.  

Sleep 

Standard sleeping time is one-third of the total time. We have 24 hours in the day. That means 8 hours should be sleeping time. But we are not working another 16 hours. Because of that doctor's recommendation is at least 6 hours of continuous sleeping. 

Body fat percentage 

Fat cells release several chemical substances that can increase cellular ageing. With the high-fat percentage, the amount of these chemicals is high. That causes a high rate of cellular ageing. If you can reduce your body fat percentage to the optimum level, you can reduce cellular ageing. Body fat has important functions. That means fat is essential to life and reproduction. But excess fat can reduce your lifetime. The optimum body fat percentage for males is 8% to 19%. It is for females 21% to 33%. 

To reduce your body fat, you have to maintain a calorie deficit. You can reduce your calorie intake or increase your calorie burn. That means you can cut down your food intake or increase your exercise. To reduce your food intake, you can use intermittent fasting methods, maintaining a 12 to 16 hours gap between two meals if you can eat two meals per day. But if you have any other diseases. Please take the medical advice or modifications before intermittent fasting. If you want to increase the fat burning, you can do simple cardio exercises such as waking, running, skipping and bicycle riding. 

Basal metabolic rate 

Suppose the basal metabolic rate is at the optimum rate; that is better. If it is slow cellular ageing is also slow. But it has a few disadvantages, such as slow wound healing, slow immune response and slowness of critical chemical reactions. Because of that, we have to maintain the basal metabolic rate at an optimum rate. If you are in a calm mindset, your basal metabolic rate is low. 

Glycemic response to the food 

A high glycemic response is significant to maintaining your health. A small cardio exercise before a meal can improve your glycemic response. 

The stress level of the life

If you can maintain a stress-free lifestyle, that can improve your mental and physical health. In the modern world, stress-free life is impossible. But you can cope with stress. That means you have to have a proper stress management plan. Present moment awareness is the ideal way To manage stress. But if you have high pressure suddenly. You can do the Wim Hof breathing mentioned above. It is a beneficial way to reduce stress. 

Non-modifiable factors 

Chronological age

Chronological age can't change. But it is theoretically unlimited. Because of that, we can modify biological age up to a certain level. 

Is their maximum level of biological age?

Yes. According to Ayurveda medicine, it is 120 years. But chronological age hasn't any limit. Because of that, theoretically can be immortal. But it is impossible due to a lot of other factors. 

Who are the people that have already done that?

David Sinclair 

David Andrew Sinclair AO is an Australian biologist who is a professor of genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School.

Ben Greenfield 

Ben Greenfield is a biohacker, nutritionist, physiologist, fitness coach, competitive athlete and New York Times bestselling author of 13 books, including the wildly popular titles Beyond Training and Boundless.

Are there any medications to be young?

There are a lot of products to improve your health. But I'm not recommending any products. Above all, methods are entirely natural. Please try these natural methods. If you want to take any medications or supplements, please take the advice of your family doctor.

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