5 minute read
Dive into the blue of well-aging
by GoWellMag
As Jorge Bucay, a great writer and therapist, says: “Stories are made to put children to sleep and to wake adults up...” So, I hope this story awakens in you self-love, passion for self-discovery, self-management, and improving your quality of life.
There was a time when regions of the world were painted blue, a blue that symbolized oxygen, sky, water, life… by the hands of a scientist who carefully observed how people in some regions aged healthily, accepting the passage of time, taking responsibility for what they could control not only to care for their body, mind, and spirit during this process but also falling deeply in love with this process called aging. Determined to find not the key to eternal life but to healthy aging, he began to map out, marked in blue ink, all these areas where longevity was well-lived, well-regarded, and accepted… but he also decided to write down the characteristics or best-kept secrets of these regions to achieve this wonderful quality of life… here is what he found in those blue zones…
The superpower of having a purpose in life, the ability to wake up daily with a heart motivated to leave a mark, to bring a small change to the world, the art of doing any activity from the soul.
He also found the power of the tribe, because as mentioned in the book “Atomic Habits”: “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” Those around us have an immense influence on our lifestyle; statistics say we are the average of the five people we surround ourselves with. Thus, having good habits will be much easier if we are surrounded by an environment that facilitates doing the right thing and promotes quality of life.
He further discovered that nutrition, since ancient times, directly influences our quality of life, metabolic functioning, and immune system response. As Hippocrates cited: “Let food be your medicine.” This awareness begins when we choose and plan what we are going to eat, where we are going to buy it, and how we are going to prepare it.
Also, the quality of nutrition is measured in terms of having the time and disposition to nourish ourselves, being able to easily renounce what makes us sick, and, of course, enjoying choosing healthy options and relating to food without anxiety and eating to fill emotional voids.
Sleep hygiene, the habit of good sleep, is a pending item for 40% of the adult world population, which in recent years has reduced its normal average of restorative sleep from 8 to 6 hours per night. Increasingly, the obsession with productivity in a world where being busy seems synonymous with success is leading us to live a real nightmare at bedtime. It’s not just about the act of resting itself, but also the possibility of having better mental health and giving our cells a chance to regenerate. It seems like a difficult factor to control, but in reality, we can start by ritualizing bedtime and accompanying it with actions that invite rest and the deservingness of time for our physical, mental, and emotional repair.
Skincare and preventive healthy routines. When it comes to skin, it is, of course, one of the organs where aging is most evident. However, the tendency has always been to react when signs of aging are already present, instead of starting early skin care, where we don’t just leave the responsibility to an aesthetic or cosmetology professional every three months but also involve ourselves daily in a skincare routine that promotes cellular regeneration, hydration, care, and reduction of sun exposure, and, of course, reduces the power that external factors can have on skin aging.
According to the WHO, we are in the decade of healthy aging. Therefore, it is imperative that we understand one of the many miracles that occur in our biology: there are tiny, extraordinary structures with a vital responsibility in our healthy aging, called telomeres, which are the protectors of our DNA. Located at the ends of our chromosomes, they provide genomic stability to help preserve the integrity of our genetic material. Of course, over the years, these structures become weaker due to endogenous factors we can’t control, but we can also support their work by improving our habits and controlling exogenous factors, like those mentioned in this article, to promote healthy aging.
