Centre for Vital Elders

“The key to our inner resources is self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is gained by personal development - that is by collecting experiences out of which new insight and wisdom are born.

“In fact, this comes close to being the meaning of life. Consequently, the raison-d’être for a company is to supply an environment in which personal development of the human beings involved in the company can best take place…

What a precious gift to humankind and to our planet it would be if the remarkable knowledge we have achieved should be united with wisdom. Then our planet would be the paradise it is meant to be. Business-life has the opportunity to bring that gift forward.”

Rolf Osterber, President, Svensk Filmindustri   

“In ancient times, various holistic sciences were developed by highly evolved beings to enable their own evolution and that of others.

These subtle arts were created through the linking of individual minds with the universal mind. They are still taught by traditional teachers to those who display virtue and desire to assist others.The student who seeks out and studies these teachings Furthers the evolution of humankind as well as her own spiritual unfolding.The student who ignores them hinders the development of all beings.”

You might think it’s just the sun that causes premature wrinkles and ages your body, but a growing body of research shows your own anxiety levels can take years off your life.

“Stress is the greatest ager of all and it’s the only thing we know that causes an increase in arterial aging, heart disease, strokes, memory loss & immune aging, infections and cancer,” said anti-aging guru Dr. Michael F. Roizen.

So how does stress attack your body? That’s exactly what Ronald Glaser and his wife, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, have been studying for 25 years. Their research actually began as a marital disagreement. Janice, a psychiatrist, believed stress harms the body; Ronald, a molecular virologist, did not.

“There were a lot of skeptics, and I was one of them,” he admitted.

And what better subjects to test for stress than med students taking exams?

Early on in their research, the Glasers exposed their subject to microbes via a vaccination.

“We found immune changes associated with them taking the exams, and quite frankly, I was absolutely blown away with that,” Ronald Glaser said.

More than two decades later, the couple is studying whether the stress of fighting with your spouse would slow the body’s healing. The researchers created blisters on the volunteers’ forearms and then stressed the couples by making them talk about their pet peeves. All the while, the researchers analyzed their blood and tissues samples.

“We found that even a minor stress can really slow how fast you heal,” said Janice Kiecolt-Glaser. She also noted that when couples argued, they took longer to heal.

Surprisingly, not all types of stress actually damage the human body. Ironically, it’s those nagging tasks that you put off that’ll drive you nuts and age you.

“For one nagging unfinished task, it puts on about eight years on your life. So if you’re 30, it makes you 38,” said Roizen.

According to surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, the stress of a specific event - like blowing out a car tire on the road - is “not as damaging as one that’s a nagging unfinished task.”

Stresses of day-to-day life - like a demanding boss or pressing deadlines - aren’t particularly damaging either.

But major life stressors, like losing a spouse or a job can have a significant aging impact.

“They really are hugely aging. The great news is there are easy things each of us can do to ameliorate or modify it,” Roizen said.

Oz and Roizen say there are some simple ways to de-stress and reduce your risk of major illness - just by simply bending, breathing and laughing.

Roizen also said friendships offer great anti-aging, health-boosting benefits.

“One important element of staying connected to the world is to maintain friendships,” he said. “And we actually have numbers on this. People who see six friends a month actually do better long term. So, if you’re gonna put a number in the back of your mind, try to reach out to six folks that you care about every month.”

I used this term in a recent conversation about our emotions and how we can work with them and it generated a lot of interest so I thought it might be good to share it here.

Firstly though, I believe (that is I live my life as if) emotions are a natural part of what it is to be human. They are neither good nor bad. They just are.

In no way I am suggesting we suppress or ignore emotions. However I think it is worth pointing out that many of us do not have emotions, they have us!

We come to believe we are our emotions and we have not control over them, when in fact they are just a source of information.

Let me see if this example works. If I touch a hot radiator and I feel pain there are two learning or actions steps that can follow. Firstly I have some choice about how I deal with the pain - suck my fingers, put them under my arm, run under cold water etc.

I also have the opportunity to learn what caused the pain and what I will do differently in the future to avoid it. This is pretty simple with a radiator!

Now suppose I find myself in a particular situation and the pain I feel is anger (or frustration, or sadness or, or , or ). What stops us using the same process as above?

I might not realise it but I do have some choices about how I respond to the anger I feel. I  can choose to laugh, to ask for information, to leave, or whatever. Shouting, violence or crying might be thought of as a reaction rather than a response - an automatic pattern we find ourselves in whenever we meet this stimulus.

The second level of learning is a little more challenging than the radiator though. If I really want to stop feeling angry in these situations then I need to explore within what is the source of the anger. I need to dig back through the layers of my emotional history (archeology) and try to find the earliest example I can of this reaction, feel the original pain again (believe me our memory still holds it), breathe love into the wound and heal it.

This is easy to write about and difficult in practice. If you are going to practice, start with a small one. Don’t take your greatest emotional reactions and tackle them first off.

And finally, you have to be very benevolent and caring to the self. If you have a powerful Judge or Victim energy, take care!  It helps if you believe you are on this life journey to learn and grow. Then all your experiences to date are perfect. They are there to help us develop, if we choose to take the teaching.

You may not be as young as you feel, but research has found that a positive attitude may delay the ageing process. The University of Texas found people with an upbeat view of life were less likely than pessimists to show signs of frailty. The researchers say their findings suggest psychosocial factors - as well as genes and physical health - play a role in how quickly we age.  

Their work is published in the journal Psychology and Aging.

The Texas team carried out tests on 1,558 older people from the Mexican American community to examine whether there was a link between positive emotions and the onset of frailty.

At the start of the seven year study all the volunteers were in relatively robust good health.

The researchers assessed the development of frailty during the study by measuring the participants’ weight loss, exhaustion, walking speed and grip strength.

They found that those people who had a positive outlook on life were significantly less likely to become frail.

The researchers said more research is required to pin down why there should be a link.

But they speculate that positive emotions may directly affect health by altering the chemical balance of the body.

Alternatively, it may that an upbeat attitude helps to boost a person’s health by making it more likely they will be successful in life.

Lead researcher Dr Glenn Ostir told BBC News Online: “I believe that there is a connection between mind and body - and that our thoughts and attitudes/emotions affect physical functioning, and over all health, whether through direct mechanisms, such as immune function, or indirect mechanisms, such as social support networks.”

Stereotypes

A second study, published in the same journal, also suggests that physical performance can be influenced by mental attitude.

A team from North Carolina State University asked 153 people of different ages to carry out memory tests after being exposed to positive and negative words to describe stereotypes about ageing.

Negative words included: confused, cranky, feeble, and senile, while positive words included: accomplished, active, dignified and distinguished.

The results showed that memory performance in older adults was lower when they were primed with negative stereotypes.

In contrast, there was much less difference in performance between young and older adults primed with positive stereotypes.

The researchers say their findings suggest that if older people are treated like they are competent, productive members of society, then they perform that way too.

Lead researcher Professor Thomas Hess told BBC News Online: “There may be social situational factors that can have a very strong impact on older adult memory performance.

“It may be very subtle. People may pick up on negative cues in their environment which suggest they are not up to it, and as a result will not perform well.

“It may be that if people can suppress these negative thoughts that they will do much better, and that a positive attitude can promote effective functioning.”