A Pill-less Placebo

You’ve heard of the placebo effect, right? It’s that brain-body connection in which the brain is tricked into believing that a simple sugar pill can relieve pain or cure certain illnesses by simply telling the person that the pill they are taking is genuine medicine. That’s how powerful our brains really are!

There’s a book I’ve talked about many times before called Super Brain by Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi, which points out that, if we so chose, we could set up or create our own placebo effect at any time and without any kind of pill.

“Where did the patient’s relief come from?” the authors ask in regard to the results of placebo effect studies. They then answer, “It came from the mind telling the body to get well.” Your mind can and does control healing of all kinds including pain, disease, and wounds that our bodies deal with from time to time.

“In serious illness, doubts and fears play a marked role, which is why a practice like meditation or going to group counseling has been shown to help,” the authors write.

But this effect isn’t just for serious illness. We can do this to relieve of heal all kinds of pain, injury and disease, if you truly believe in it.

The authors suggest that there is a specific method that will allow anyone at any time to turn on the pill-less placebo effect. It requires the same conditions as in a classic placebo response:
1. You trust what is happening.
2. You set aside doubt and fear.
3. You don’t send conflicting messages that negate each other.
4. You open the channels of your mind-body communication.
5. You let go and allow the healing system to do its work.

That last item is a big one. Our bodies have an amazing ability to heal themselves, but we need to truly believe in that. When we get a cut on our finger or knee, we slap on a band-aid and know that it will heal itself. In doing that, we’ve just let our brain send a positive message to our cells to do their job, right? Shouldn’t that faith in our body to heal itself in such a small matter be equally effective when it comes to more serious issues?

The problem is, when we are faced with a serious illness, we let our minds jump in with all kinds of worry and negative thoughts, which pretty much does the opposite of the things listed above.

If we are going to benefit from our own built-in placebo effect, then we’ve got to, at a minimum, follow the list of the five conditions above. If you can do that, you are supporting your body’s ability to take care of you, as it is supposed to do. Believe in that ability, and talk positively, both out loud and in your mind, about how well your body can heal itself, and you’ll see the results for yourself.

Good Mood is in Your Food

Depression. it’s something none of us humans like but, at certain stages of life and under various circumstances, many of us have been hit by the big, bad D word.

In 2020, there were about just under 15 million cases of major depression in the United States. Not surprisingly, when Covid it, there was a 25% increase in depression cases. It’s also interesting to note that more people get depressed on Sunday than any other day of the week. Perhaps it’s because, both during pandemic restrictions and on Sundays, we have less structure in our lives. During those times, we may have gone without goals or plans and, certainly during the pandemic lockdown, routines were often thrown out the window.

Certainly, having a set routine and goals for the day can help a lot with depression, but there are several other methods for avoiding or getting rid of depression if you get hit with it. There is even one surprisingly simple way to reduce the likelihood of depression. Would you believe that simple thing is the foods that you eat?

I’ve read a lot about this and, from what I’ve found, I have been able to create a list of some of the most helpful foods for getting you out of a depressed state of mind. Here are some that I focus on:

• Nuts, especially almonds
• Fresh strawberries
• Yogurt
• Whole grain bread
• Celery
• Bananas
• Beans
• Peanut butter
• Ginger tea
• Foods rich in vitamin B, C, D, E, and zinc such as avocado, peas, spinach

There are certain vitamins and supplements that help a lot as well:

• B vitamins, especially B12 and Folate
• Vitamin C, D, E
• Ginkgo biloba extract
• St. John’s wort
• DHEA
• 5 HTP
• Turmeric
• Folic acid
• DHA
• Folic acid
• L-tyrosine
• Magnesium

You also want to drink lots of water and drink very little or no alcohol.

I eat and take most of the above and it has helped me big time. There are a lot more foods and supplements that help reduce or eliminate depression though. So, if you are struggling, or someone close to you needs help in that part of their life, look up options on the internet and, most importantly, talk to your doctor about changes to your diet and supplement regimen.

Although diet is very important, don’t forget those other simple things you can do to get out, and stay out, of those depressive moods. Set agendas and routines for yourself, get outside, and try new things such as walking through new neighborhoods, meeting new people, or planning a vacation or weekend getaway to some place you’ve never been and know very little about.

Remember, the mind craves unique places, novel experiences, new friends, and interesting new people, and when we are not getting those things, increases our chances of falling into a depression. So, push yourself to find those new places and people as well as switching up your diet to support a healthy and positive mood.

Age is Not a Number

Last week I had said I’d planned to add to the list of things you can do to reset yourself and slow your aging. But life got a bit complicated, and I have to postpone creating that list until next week. But here is an update to a post I did some 8 years ago that addresses some of these same things.

On January 8th of 2014, I launched what I called my “90 Day Super Quest”. That quest was an ambitious goal to get myself into the best possible physical and mental shape of my entire life and I was starting that exactly 90 days before I turned 70!

Just one week into my super quest, I was right on schedule with my workouts which included tennis, weightlifting, sit-ups, push-ups, and stretching. I had also worked on the mental side of my quest by keeping up with reading, writing, making new friends, and spending lots of time with old friends and family. However, I noticed a problem right around the one-week mark. It was that old demon—that negative inner self-talk. I had become way too focused on the fact that I was getting older, with that number 70 dominating the chatterbox inside my head, and not in a positive way.

But then I just happened to pick up a book that I’ve read and written about many times, and it flipped open to page 55 where the word “aging” jumped out at me. The book was Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Beyond, her follow-up book to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. And, wow, does she have some great thoughts about aging and what your inner voice should NOT be saying about the subject, such as:

“I am getting older now. Aging is horrible. I wish my body was young again. Look at those wrinkles. Who could love a face that’s old? I hate it. Pretty soon, no one will want to be around me. When I was young, I could dance all night. Now I don’t have the energy. Why do people have to age? I wish I could be young forever.”

Then she goes on to discuss what we should be saying to ourselves:

“I love aging. My children are grown and now I’m free to do the things I put off doing. I’m glad I joined the gym. I don’t think I’ve ever been in such great shape. I’m going to learn all I can about keeping myself in the best of health. I have so much to look forward to. I learn and grow every day of my life. I wouldn’t want to go back one day. Why would I want to go back?”

Reading that, I realized that I needed to get rid of that number 70 that had become so set in my head. Instead, I started asking myself the question that I used to ask so often, something we all should probably ask ourselves whenever we think about aging: “How old would I say I am if I didn’t know?”.

Back then, when I asked myself this question, I could honestly say I felt 44. And for the rest of my 90 Day Super Quest, I thought to myself that, when I was done with this, I would be in the best physical and mental shape of my life as a 45-year-old! That outlook helped me push through the challenge and to this day, with some reminders here and there, I steer my mental chatter toward the positive and try to stay focused on the age I think I am, not just some number that has more to do with the calendar than what great things I have in my life.

Reset for Aging

I’ve been thinking a lot about this thing they call aging recently, especially since I am moving in on that big number 80. 

Last year my son gave me a book on my birthday called Successful Aging by Daniel J. Levitin that I’ve really enjoyed. Then the other day I came across two other aging articles. One was in the March issue of the AARP Bulletin titled, “The Answer to Age Related Weight Gain” and the other was titled “100 Ways to Live to 100” found on the website HuffPost, which I had read before. Combined, they really got me thinking.  

Since I have only 11 years before I hit 90 and, even worse, just 21 years until I come up on 100, I really studied those ideas and instructions that I thought would help me make the most of my life as well as those that would help me live the longest. It’s given me a lot of great things to focus on. 

I will never forget that French lady Jeanne Calmet who lived an active 122 years and 164 days, living on her own until 110. Or the Russian woman, Nanu Shaova, who lived to a record 127 years. These ladies prove that a long, meaningful life is possible. 

A new book, The Whole Body Reset by AARP, Stephen Perrine, and Heidi Skolnik, has a lot of great advice about how to preserve muscle at age 50 and above, such as…

• Eat at least 30 grams of protein at every meal
• Eat colorful fruits and vegetables
• Try strength training

That’s just a few of the great suggestions in this book that have to do with successful aging and living a better life. 

And here are just a few of the “100 Ways to Live to 100″ from that HuffPost article I came across again recently: 

1. Find a purpose for life

2. Walk a lot

3. Be happy

4. Do unto others 

5. Practice yoga

6. Be optimistic

7, Go meatless

8. Eat your fiber

9. Make healthy changes in your life starting today

10. Don’t dread getting older

There’s a lot of food for thought here. I’ll add to that list next week as well, but in the meantime, work with some of these suggestions. You can never start too early to improve your chances of a long, meaningful life. 

Never Stop Asking

Here’s a great question that all of us should ask ourselves: What do I really want out of life?

If you seriously want to improve your life, spend some intense time thinking and meditating on what your life has been in the past and what you want it to be in the future. Doing so can, and will, lift your mind and body to a new and higher level. This will raise the success and satisfaction in your life over and above any material success or other success you derive from going after your goals.

Hinduism tells us that every human being wants four things:

1. Pleasure

2. Success.

3. Responsible discharge of duty.

4. Liberation.

It’s up to you to determine what each of these things means in your life, but you do want to ask yourself if you’re achieving some version of these in a way that adds to the happiness and quality of your life.

Regularly examining our life helps us keep on track and reevaluate what we’re presently doing. Here is a great list of questions that we all should all ask ourselves on a regular basis.

1. Do you want your life to be just another life?

2. Do you want to be average?

3. Do you want to make a difference in this world?

4. Does accomplishment mean a lot to you?

5. Do you want to become a better you, a better person?

6. Do you want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health your entire life?

7. Do you want to live a very long, active life?

8. Do you want to make a fortune—a million or ten million or even 100 million dollars?

9. Do you want your own fortune so you’d have more choices in your life?

10. Do you want to leave the world a better place than you found it?

11. Do you want to help others as you help yourself?

12. Do you want to travel and experience the entire world and its cultures?

13. Do you want to substantially raise your level of contentment and fulfillment?

Going over this list and thinking of all I could do if I just focused on what I truly wanted raised my mind and feelings to a new high level. I hope that it does the same for you!!

More Reasons for Living in the Right-Now

Doesn’t life seem to change quite a bit as you get older? It sure does for me. Our bodies are certainly not the same at 70 or 80 as they were when we were teenagers or even at 30 or 40.

I had lunch the other day with an old friend that I’ve known for many, many years. I’ll call him Jerry. We have had so many great years together. Recently, I called him up to ask if we could meet for lunch at a restaurant or my country club. Jerry said he’d love to, but we would have to have lunch at his house since he was not very mobile. I was quite surprised to hear this since Jerry is only about a year older than me and the last time I saw him, he seemed to be just fine and had always been in good health.

We met up a few days later at Jerry’s house and I brought him lunch. I was surprised to see him with a 4-wheel walker and, on top of that, he shocked me with the news that he had bone cancer and, even worse, the cancer was also now in his brain.

Wow, that was such bad news, and I really felt sorry for my dear, long-time friend. Aside from all that bad news, I was very happy to find, after talking to him for a while, that his thinking was in excellent shape. He told me about a trip that he just got back from. In spite of his physical shape and health problems, he said he had a wonderful get away to Europe. As we talked about some trips we had taken together in the past, I was amazed that Jerry remembered so many details of our trips, many that I have a hard time recalling myself. He really impressed me!

When most of us were young, we might have thought life was an easy ride, and we figured we would live to 100 and have plenty of time to do all the things we want to do. We might also have hoped that maybe, by the time we’d reach old age, they will have invented a medicine or procedure to extend our lives by many, many more years and maybe even close to forever (I’ll hold on to that far out dream!) But even if we could live forever, we still have to deal with our older our brains and bodies not working near as well as in our younger years.

Since we most likely won’t live to be a 100 or more, we need to wrap our minds around living in the Right-Now Moment. It is true that we can’t continuously live in the present if we want to plan a big, fun getaway trip, since that takes future thinking. However, I certainly have found that as I think about going to Europe or Japan or any new place, it lifts my spirits.

Traveling to new places and seeing new things excites my mind and, I believe, it makes me healthier. It could even push off the day that I check out of life by many more years. I sure hope so!

Signs and Habits for Longevity

Recently, I was going through some old files, and I came across notes I wrote about living a very long life. I wrote it in 2008, but as I reread what I’m calling the “12 Signs and Habits for Longevity”, I was re-motivated to pay more attention to those 12 signs.

I thought I’d share them with you as well and I hope that they are as helpful to you as they were, and still are, to me.

1. Drink 2 cups of green or white tea every day.

2. Take 30 minutes each day to walk, bike, or run.

3. Don’t drink a lot of soda.

4. Work out your lower body and legs to give you more strength.

5. Eat more blueberries and red grapes as well as having a little of red wine here and there to reduce the risk of heart disease and Alzheimer.

6. Eat little or no beef to reduce your risk of colorectal cancer.

7. Get a college education if you can. Statistically, it increases your life expectancy by 18 months or more.

8. Reduce or try to eliminate chronic stress as it weakens the immune system and increases cellular aging, shorting life expectancy by 4 to 8 years.

9. Hang out with more healthy people.

10. Work on keeping your weight down. Don’t use housekeepers or gardeners to maintain your house, but do it yourself to burn more calories and help control your weight.

11. Work on having a very positive outlook and sense of purpose.

12. Give yourself over to helping other people, not just your family, but old friends and new friends as well.

If there are things on this list, you can do or change in your life to live better and longer, now is the time to do it!

Focus on Flexibility

I’ve always been impressed by people who are very, very flexible, probably because I’m not flexible at all! I did a little research and discovered that some flexibility is inherited. I know I’m not one of those people. Even as a kid, I was quite stiff and, to this day, I still have a hard time touching my toes. My wife, on the other hand, is super flexible and, yes, I am always asking her to pick up things that I have dropped, and she helps me put on my socks every morning.

The good news is, I can work on that. It helps that I have constant reminders, much of them from myself, because anything I write about—especially self-improvement stuff—helps me big time. When I wrote about how important it is to have a routine, I noticed that I began setting more routines for myself. It is so interesting to me that when I preach or advise people, I see that I start doing more of whatever I’ve been preaching about. So, let’s talk about flexibility so that I can help you, and myself, improve.

Even though I was a good pole vaulter in my younger years and even played basketball for my high school and a little in college, that wasn’t enough to gain a ton of flexibility. But not too long ago, I decided I needed to do something about my lack of flexibility. I got a book called The Genius of Flexibility by Bob Cooley and, wow, that was a great move on my part.

The author gives excellent advice on what to stretch, how to do it, and how often. One of his big points is that when you stretch, you should use your muscles to resist a bit to the stretch you are doing. That never occurred to me and, I think, that might be news for a lot of people.

This book has lots of pictures showing how to stretch different parts of your body with resistance stretching. This kind of stretching is so much more beneficial for the body than standard methods. Quoting from his great book, Cooley says, “Anyone who has ever tried Resistance Stretching continues… they NEVER stop. They continue not only because they see immediate improvements in their flexibility but also because as time goes on, they discover the other benefits that come from feeling, looking, and behaving like the person they were intended to be!”

If you are interested in becoming more flexible, I would highly recommend Cooley’s book, The Genius of Flexibility. Even if you don’t think you need it now, you want to be careful not to lose your flexibility as you get older. It happens to almost everyone, but there are things, like this book, that can help you maintain your flexibility as your age.

Slowing Down Time

I don’t know about you, but I am so amazed by how quickly 2021 went by. It was gone in a flash. And now we are almost a quarter of the way through 2022. Why does time seem to go at warp speed these days? Well, there are actually very specific answers to that question and your age has a lot to do with how quickly or slowly time passes for you, but it’s not the whole story.

The speed of time is, for one, perceived quite differently by kids and young people compared to older folks. When we are young, time seemed to go so slowly. Do you remember when you were 15 years old but just months away from turning 16 when you could then drive by yourself? Wow, the time then seemed to slow down so much it almost stopped.

But have you noticed that now, being older time seems to have sped up? I just turned 78 last week, but it seems so much less than one year ago that I cerebrated my 77th birthday. That was a really fast year.

The reason for this has a lot to do with how many new experiences we have. Our brain encodes new experiences differently than familiar ones and our subjective experience of time is tied to the number of new memories we create. The more new experiences we have, the more memories we are storing and the slower time will seem to pass. That does make sense to my brain as I get older and pay attention to my thinking and my life and the speed of our human existence.

In BBC’s Science Focus magazine, Dr. Kit Yates, author of The Math of Life and Death, writes that, “The greater our acquaintance with the routines of everyday life, the quicker we perceive time to pass and, generally, as we age, this familiarity increases.”  

He goes on to say that this theory, “suggests that, in order to make our time last longer, we should fill our lives with new and varied experiences, eschewing the time-sapping routine of the everyday.” I’d like to add that seeking out new and novel experiences is also really great for the health of your brain. It’s even been suggested that the desire to have novel experiences can be a predictor of a healthier, happier, and maybe even longer life.

If you are interested in these challenging ideas that we face as we age, I encourage you to search the internet and find out more about why time passes quicker as we age as well as ideas for adding new experiences to your life so you can slow time down and benefit from a happier and healthier brain.

Keys to a Fit Brain

The human brain really is a very powerful instrument and is used for the most wonderful things, but it also can be very harmful, depending on what you put in it.   

For instance, we can read books that help move us towards our goals in life or that comfort us. Alternately, we could read garbage online that skews what we think or discourages us from even trying to make our dreams a reality. We can choose to be friends with very smart people, allowing us to learn from them and grow from that knowledge. Or we can surround ourselves with people that are vindictive, derogatory, or pessimistic. Which do you think would help your brain and improve your life? That’s easy to figure out.

But even if we read great books and keep the best and most positive people around us, we also need to keep our brains fit and ready to take in all that good stuff that helps us greatly improve our lives. Here’s a few ideas that might be just what you need to keep your brain in great shape.

1. Think about thinking. This is sometimes called metacognition, and it makes you aware of how you learn so you can improve your learning and problem-solving skills.

2. Read books about improving the brain. Just search my blog under the keyword “brain” for my many recommendations.

3. Associate with intelligent people so that you are constantly learning.

4. Look into food and supplements that can help the brain, like gingko biloba or DHEA. Be sure to read up on dosage and side effects as even natural supplements can be dangerous in certain situations. For instance, gingko is a blood thinner which could be a problem if you take a blood thinning medication. Other good supplements include B-complex vitamins, vitamins C, D, and E, magnesium, choline, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids.

5. Meditate. It can help improve your concentration and memory, reduce stress and anxiety and help preserve your brain function as you age.

6. Exercise. Blood flow to the brain is a huge brain helper and exercise increases that blood flow. Running can be great, but if you don’t like running, walking is also tremendously helpful.

Speaking of walking, I have a daily 20,000 step goal and I almost always hit that thanks to the Fit Bit I keep in my pocket. I challenge you to set some walking goals to make you feel better, help your brain and most likely increase your life expectancy! That, along with the stuff listed above, will keep your brain fit and healthy for years to come, if not for the rest of your life!

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