As I start writing on health and lifestyle, I always trust my instinct based on my own life experiences.
I trust more on what I feel before what I think.
I generally make clear momentum with my feelings because it is my internal force and nothing beats it.
Nowadays, my inner awareness always encourages my discipline so I must be aware of what I’m writing or trying to write.
After reaching this point in life, I don’t believe in who I was yesterday and who I am now, but I do believe in who I can become and help others in the long run.
I’m pretty sure this applies to everyone.
Wherever I’m in my life now, I think back a few years and compare who I’m now with who I was then.
I see many differences, especially the way of living and thinking about my own life.
What brings me joy now that wasn’t my priority before?
Looking back, I went through many different phases in my life, many ups and downs, though they didn’t feel much different at the time.
I remember I was always motivated by worry about money, desire for many material things, and a need to impress people around me.
The balance and significance of these things has changed drastically over time.
Exploration of inner talent requires time, thinking, flexibility, and self reflection
Certainly, for the long run in our lives, we need to measure things everywhere especially in our health and longevity.
As Peter Drucker, the author of ‘Effective Executive’ said, “What gets measured gets managed.”
In ‘Effective Executive’ Drucker said, knowing where and how to mobilize our strength for best effect with right priorities help to grow an organization.
In reality, this book is not only for organization, principles are also equally important for healthy living and healthy aging, if we apply thoughtfully.
At present, my notion of aging, engagement, passion, and retirement is changing continuously. My relationship with my passionate work is evolving everyday.
I’m sure, we all agree, if we become healthy with a vibrant mind and body, passion evolves everyday in a new form.
But if we fall sick, everything stops in life.
One of my passions now is to write and communicate things that matter in life.
Recently, I read a book called ‘The Algebra of Wealth’.
Scott Galloway, the author of ‘The Algebra of Wealth’ said, “Don’t follow your passion, follow your talent.”
What makes every one of us unique is our inner talent whether we know it or not.
But, the exploration of inner talent requires time, thinking, flexibility, and self reflection.
In the long run, in many circumstances, talent also appears as a passion.
A healthy lifestyle with a healthy body and mind leads to graceful aging
In the section on diversification of ‘The Algebra of Wealth’, Scott talks about working in any place in adult life as an active investment of our life.
Once we become old, the active part must be replaced by something else on which we have invested over the years.
As Scott says, personal growth is a part of our stoicism, career grind is a part of our focus, discipline is a part of our time management, and finally investing is a part of our retirement.
In the final stage of life, we call retirement, someone else is doing the real work and we sit back and enjoy the fruits of the labor.
The crux is, to enjoy the fruits at retirement, we must invest during time of active working years.
‘The Algebra of Wealth’ is a fascinating book to read, learn, and understand our life as a complete picture.
Our educational degree only focuses on what we can make and use, not who we are at the core and capable of doing.
This is based on my PhD title that I’m holding almost over a decade now.
My only curiosity was how do you find passion when you pass 40, you are married, and you are raising kids?
It is possible by developing a habit of self reflection each day for a few minutes that helps to pave the way forward, in my experience.
In my view, success in today’s world, overall, is communication and building relationships.
Whether you accept it or not, communication is salesmanship across different segments of humanity.
I’m writing and sharing my knowledge and experiences, it is a form of communication.
I’m trying to show my salesmanship.
One of my passions now is making people aware about the importance of their health and lifestyle during early years of their lives.
A healthy lifestyle with a healthy body and mind leads to graceful aging.
Struggling to remember and write our own children’s names in our late 40s directs to be proactive to find out about genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s
Recently, I met one of my old friends whose family is suffering now.
My dear friend’s conditions encouraged me to write this content.
I have watched the heart-wrenching journey of my dear friend’s father’s Alzheimer’s disease and how it had affected his family.
He did not want the same thing to happen in his family.
“After my father passed away from Alzheimer’s I began noticing my memory was slipping, even though I was only in my late 40’s,” said Naren.
At first he noticed that he was simply struggling to find the right word or name in conversation.
But then his memory became progressively worse.
He started to forget the name of his daughter frequently.
After knowing my friend’s family story, I recalled my own father who is 92 now.
He also finds it difficult to find words during conversation.
Most of his memory is gone now.
He speaks very little because words don’t come smoothly in his mouth.
My father is not diagnosed with Alzheimer’s formally yet or maybe we don’t know yet, but symptoms are moving in that direction.
At age 92, many things happen in our body.
Nerves transmit signals very slowly.
Maximal pulse rate declines.
Immune cells decrease in number as well as their effectiveness also declines dramatically.
Skin cells lose their elasticity.
All joints become less flexible.
All bones become less dense and more brittle.
This picture, seeing my father’s transformation, shows that aging is complex and invites a gradual decline in many physiological functions.
But, eventually, all we want is dignified aging, graceful aging.
When we find ourselves struggling to remember and write our own children’s names in our late 40s, we must be proactive and find out if we were genetically predisposed to getting Alzheimer’s disease.
Butyrate is a good bacteria byproduct of the gut fermentation as a result of eating fiber and other prebiotics that increases BDNF
In Alzheimer’s brain, there is destruction of nerve cells that use a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine that communicates with one another.
People with Alzheimer’s lose NMDA, N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors.
Remember, amyloid plaques in our brain can start forming as early as our late thirties in our lives.
We must be very alert for our health and longevity.
The reality is Alzheimer’s disease is incurable but preventable by diet and lifestyle changes.
To prevent Alzheimer’s with diet, we have to reduce foods with added sugars and salt, we have to reduce saturated fat, animal products, and processed foods.
Research shows that people with a total cholesterol of 225 mg/dL or higher have 25 times higher chance of amyloid plaques in their brain 10 to 15 years later.
Because, amyloid fibres cluster around tiny crystals of cholesterol.
They hang out together happily.
So, controlling cholesterol is key to minimizing Alzheimer’s.
One concept we have to develop is that brain health also equals heart health.
For both brain and heart health, vegetables, legumes especially beans, peas, and lentils, fruits, and whole grains should replace meat and dairy products.
Neurotrophins are growth factors that promote the development, function, and survival of neurons, the nerve cells in our brain.
The most abundant neurotrophin is BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor.
High BDNF blood level lowers the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
Michael Greger, the author of ‘How Not to Age’ said, “Regular physical exercise boosts BDNF.
For example, just 15 minutes cycling or running can significantly elevate BDNF levels in our body.”
Dr. Michael Greger, MD, founder of NutritionFacts.org, further adds, “A good plant based diet could regulate every one of the most promising strategies for combating the effects of aging and chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s.”
For example, the food rye groats boost BDNF in our blood.
Butyrate is a good bacteria by-product of the gut fermentation as a result of eating fiber and other prebiotics and it also increases BDNF.
Know it, the vagus nerve goes directly from our gut straight up into the brain.
Animal rich diets increase pro-inflammatory species in the gut but plant rich diets increase anti-inflammatory microbiome.
The sulforaphane of cruciferous vegetables has neuroprotective effects from arsenic to carbon monoxide to pesticides
Low levels of vitamin D leads to poorer cognition over time and a high chance of developing dementia.
Homocysteine is a toxic metabolite naturally formed in the body.
It is a degraded product of methionine, an amino acid that mostly comes in our body from animal protein.
If we eat bacon and eggs for breakfast and steak for dinner, homocysteine levels spike in the blood.
This can be detoxified using three vitamins: folate, vitamin B12, and vitamin B6.
The deficiency of vitamin B causes brain dysfunction.
Vitamin B12, B6, and folate all are crucial for brain health.
Berries are best for brain health due to polyphenols called anthocyanins which are red, blue, and purple pigments capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier and settle in the brain regions of learning and memory.
As we become older, our brain slowly atrophy.
At age 90 and older, the brain weighs 10 percent less than at age 50.
Most elderly people have homocysteine level 11 micro mol/L is due to folate deficiency.
Remember, folate is found mostly in beans and greens, and more than 95 percent of Americans don’t eat a minimum amount of beans and greens.
The fact is folic acid is not folate, the best way to get enough folate is from food sources.
One more point, every one gram of daily fiber intake might increase 2 percent folate increase in blood.
This is due to folate production in the colon by the happy gut microbiome.
Green leafies are good for cognitive function but cruciferous vegetables are even better.
The sulforaphane component of cruciferous vegetables shows a broad range of neuroprotective effects from arsenic to carbon monoxide to pesticides.
Garlic, ginger, and black cumin seeds are very good brain boosting spices.
Walnuts and flaxseeds are major sources of long chain omega-3s DHA and EPA.
Non fish eaters can take 250 mg of a mix of pollutant free, algae derived, EPA/DHA.
The essential one is ALA, the plant based, short chain omega-3, because DHA and EPA can be made from it.
Non fish eaters can take 100 to 300 mg of DHA in a day.
There is a literature of case study of mercury poisoning by eating contaminated fish where the patient has Alzheimer’s.
But after stopping eating mercury contaminated swordfish, he became normal with no Alzheimer’s.
A lot of fish and fish oil products have heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, and lead, organochlorines, polychlorinated biphenyls, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
We should be very careful while consuming these fish and fish products.
Lisa Genova, neuroscientist and author of ‘Remember’ explains how our memory works, why we forget and how to keep our brain in great shape in her TedTalk ‘What You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s’.
Conclusion
On average, daily, we replace about 330 billion cells in our body, which is about 1 percent of our total cells.
The biggest factor of getting older and catching disease is the slowing down of our cell’s turnover rate that also leads to faster aging.
These are some key habits for minimizing Alzheimer’s chance as well as dignified healthy aging.
Regular exercise is required in age 40 to 60, and to avoid fat weight we have to choose better plant based foods.
Absolutely no alcohol drinking.
No smoking at all.
Staying active mentally with our passionate work and having a social life is a prerequisite.
We have to keep a positive mental outlook and a good attitude towards life so that we can keep living well for a lot longer.
Mental stress affects cellular aging so we have to learn to remain calm and relaxed.
Controlling body inflammation by eating anti-inflammatory foods is essential because inflammation contributes to heart disease, insulin resistance, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
Most importantly, we have to be proactive about our health from the very beginning especially when we enter age 40.
Our biological age or how our body is working is more important to a long healthy life than our actual age in years.
The significance of living a fulfilling healthy life at any age is reflected in this popular quote: “Don’t just count your years, make your years count.”
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
Disclaimer: “Please note that some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you.”
