After reading through a lot of materials there seems no doubt that Aging is fully reversible. If Jelly Fish can do it then why can’t other forms of Biological life. Now if we did’t live in the era of flying airplanes, would we not travel. May not be able to travel as much as we can do now, but certainly we would do it as much as we could. So what if age reversal is not here yet, we certainly have the knowledge and ability to slow down aging.
There are three levels at which Ageing is happening in Human beings. Generally, a lot of people just focus on the physical body and that is also very helpful. But it would be way more effective to combat aging if we work on all the three components of Aging.
Body: Physical body
It is said that of all the mechanical or biological or any physical instruments, Human Body is the most sophisticated machine ever designed. Body can recover and repair itself from most of the damages. The only thing that comes in between the Body and its repair is us. So during sleep when we shut down ourselves, body repairs itself. But sleep has its own limits and boundaries so is the ability to repair during the sleep. During Meditation also we kind of shut ourselves and in some ways body expands its ability to repair itself during mediation.
Our Body has evolved over millions of years, and it is designed for movement, physical stress, short periods of hunger and eating slow absorbing foods. Exercise regularly, eat healthy, fast every two weeks, move or switch body postures through out the day, put yourself under extreme physical stress for five minutes every two weeks (like sprint for 300-500 meters) and eat foods that release sugars very very slow. Anything that adds to our physical flexibility is great.
Our foods has evolved very industrially in the last 100 years. And this has been disastrous for our health. Wheat, rice, fruits and every other food has been selectively grown for high and quick sugar release, higher yields and faster crop cycles. Use more ancient cereals like barley and eat the unhealthy ones a little less. And eat more and more variety of foods.
Mind: Our problem solving skills that interact with the outside world
A few thousand years ago we discovered that going to school works great for increasing life spans. But since we had no machines to support us and everything had to be done manually, so we could not afford to send all our population to school. Industrialisation has been very helpful in letting us more time for ourselves so we can train our mind into new skills.
Our mind loses its flexibility and its elasticity. Leaning new things like a language helps it greatly to enhance its ability to recall, remember and analyse.
Socialisation and meeting a few same people and a few new people also helps greatly in keeping our minds working at their optimal level. It is not easy to recognise but during our time we are with other people we use a lot of different types of our mental capabilities.
Third thing is presence of mind. This is the most at risk skills with aging. As we lose our presence of mind, we lose almost everything including the people around us. Meditation, participation in intense games like board games, performing creative arts like a dance or something, everything helps in improving our presence of mind.
Spirit: Our being that drives our mind and body
Spirit is the most neglected of all the three components of Aging. People generally think that aging is a bodily phenomenon and mind is also regarded as a physical brain related thing. The experts who work with human spirit feel that aging is purely a Spirit issue.
Spirit is not some woo-doo thing that some religious people have knowledge of. Spirit is the extension of mind. Can you guess it now! It is our subconscious. Our Mind is our conscious self and Spirit is our subconscious self. Modern psychology has understood our subconscious self at a very shallow level. We still dont know much deeply about our subconscious self. It is the most complicated thing to investigate.
For spirit, be yourself, find yourself, be creative, use your creative energy, fill your hours with pure joy, engage in charity, give to others, Share, sacrifice. “Set yourself Free”. Two of the other most important things are Forgive and Party.
Yes, you read it right – Party. Dont party everyday but do party hard every few days. Celebration of the present time is the must do for rejuvenating spirit. If party means a few drinks – do it! As long as it does not hurt your body party hard. Be creative in your ways so you can party hard without destroying your body.
Remember, nothing kills more than a Boring Self. Boredom is a most common and a slow killer.
Second thing that ages people is their inability to forgive. Forgive everything with full consciousness and then embrace them. After that only you can afford to forget them. Unresolved and forgotten issues are the unlit holes that sap our spirit everyday. Good news is when we forgive we slowly close all these unlit holes from past also. Forgive as soon as possible and as close to the action as possible. Dont linger it on. Do it now! Purge your spirit now so it can be empty to fill itself with freshness. Like Nike says- Just do it! DO IT! How else should I say it!