We do not all
age at the same pace: some age much faster than others, and some hardly age at
all. This is most evident in a class reunion after two or three decades, during
which many have not seen each other for some while. The speed of aging varies
considerably in different individuals.
We all want to slow
down our aging or stop our biological clock. But how?
Our chronological age is unalterable. Therefore, it has little significance on how you feel or experience. Chronological age is merely a number on one's lifespan. The only significance it has on the aging process is psychological: it is a subjective experience of how old you feel. For some people in their sixties, they report that they feel better than they did two decades ago; for others, they feel they are degenerating too fast, as if they were in their seventies or eighties. Chronological age is merely your subjective experience of how old you feel.
Our biological age is a measurement of how old we are according to our physiological performance. Your biological age is a true indication of how old you feel and look. Cosmetics and plastic surgeries may mask the ravages of time, but they cannot disguise the malfunctioning of your physiological systems. Your biological age is based on the average population of people who have the same chronological age that you have. In other words, it is a direct comparison of how you look and feel in reference to an average individual of the same age group.
How to stop biological aging?
Your biological clock is solely responsible for how old you feel and look. If it ticks faster, then you age faster, and vice-versa. It is just that simple. Therefore, if you are concerned about your aging, stop or at least slow down your biological clock. To stop biological aging, you have to understand the physiological actors responsible for the ticking of your biological clock.
Here are some of the physiological factors of biological aging.
Watch your numbers indicating your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. They may significantly affect your heart health. A healthy heart efficiently pumps blood into your body organs and tissues, providing them with oxygen and nutrients, and therefore responsible for their overall wellness. In addition, a healthy heart means a healthy brain, which controls your thoughts and actions, which influence your lifestyle. A healthy heart and a healthy mind play a pivotal role in biological aging.
In addition to brain and heart health, control and manage your body weight. An ideal body weight contributes to an ideal body shape. A distorted body shape has an adverse psychological impact on aging: it makes you not only look but also feel old. If you are obese, you don't feel like moving, and that affects your aerobic capacity, reducing in rapid loss of muscle mass and muscle strength, and thus forming a vicious circle of accelerated ticking of the biological clock. Regular exercise not only increases bone density but also regulates blood sugar and body metabolism rate. They help defer the aging process by avoiding immobility due to bone fracture and preventing the early onset of age-related diabetes.
Your body
reflects your biological age, and so does your mind, which controls your
perceptions, your actions and reactions—in sum, your life choices. Remember,
the body and the mind are interconnected: they affect and control positively or
negatively each other. They should always be in balance and harmony. More
importantly, they should be supervised by the soul, which provides a blueprint
for them. The alignment of the body, the mind, and the soul enables an
individual to live as if everything is a miracle.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
