The Brain’s Influence on Age

Recently, my son Marcus gave me a little pamphlet entitled “1944 Remember When: A Nostalgic Look Back in Time”. It’s a great look at 1944 which was the year I was born. I was blown away as I turned the pages and especially when I read about prices in 1944.

A new house was a little bit under $3500, with the average income at only $2378 for an entire year. A new car was only $975, a gallon of gas was just 15 cents, and the average rent came in at about $50 a month. Wow, have things changed since then!

The years since 1944, for me, seemed to have past so fast, and now I’m less than 2 years from the big 80! But the good news is I don’t feel a day older than when I turned 40 or maybe even 30. Yes, I am very careful about what I eat, and I work out my body, including having a daily goal of 20,000 steps. There is a lot of research showing that people who keep moving as they age live much longer and are healthier than the average person.

The older I get, the more I see how our thinking can also make a big difference in our lives. If you think you are going to live a long and healthy life, your body will do everything it can to fulfill those beliefs. Those brain thoughts really do influence your body.  

I’ve quoted before from the book Disrupt Aging: A Bold New Path to Living Your Best Life at Every Age by Jo Ann Jenkins, but much of what she writes needs to be repeated and given a lot of thought and action. Such things include focusing on health and wealth, developing a sense purpose, going from mindless activity to mindful living, and feeling good about where you are age wise.

For instance, don’t ever put yourself down by saying, “Oh, I’m an old man or woman.” Instead, say things like, “Yes, I’m almost 80, but I feel young, like I’m 30.” Also, try new things, take chances, don’t live in fear of aging, and set goals aimed at living past 100 or more.

We all need to realize that our daily choices when it comes to our health, mental fitness, and outlook are very important. Yes, a lot of aging advice focuses on good diet and exercise habits, which are very important, but never forget that your brain and what you think about aging also has a great influence on your health as well as how long, and how well, you live.

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.

Big Challenges on the Brain

Have you ever met someone who has made it to the 29,020-foot summit of Mt. Everest? Yes, I know, most of us think they’re crazy, but maybe they’re not as crazy as we think because their high satisfaction level seems to last for a lifetime! Years ago, I wrote the following.

Again, the tough challenges and hard work over a period of time, equals long-lasting satisfaction and contentment.  One of the big and growing problems in today’s world is that too few people believe or know this simple principle

Or maybe they used to know it and they’ve forgotten it.

We all should never forget the great zen saying, “To know and not to do is not yet to know.” Many people, for example, think they want a ton of money—and fast—so they can sit back and relax and really live. They think they want to sit around the pool and drinking a Mai Tai or watch movies all day. They think that will bring them satisfaction and contentment.

Our very retirement system even promotes that idea. That’s one reason we have so many mid-lifers and beyond who are downright miserable, and it doesn’t seem to matter whether they have a huge net worth or not. With too much of a slowdown, there’s an inevitable letdown, and as you’ve probably noticed, good old Fred or Mary retire at age 65 and pass away at age 67 or 70.

The bottom line is, if you stop challenging yourself, you’ll start dying. It’s almost a one-to-one correlation and all of that usually starts inside your mind. But if you “take a trip inside your mind,” you’ll find there are plenty of ways to program your brain so you’ll avoid the trap that snares so many people.

Next week I want to tell you the great story of Erik Weihenmayer who push himself to climb Mt. Everest. He did it even though he was totally blind – he was the first blind man ever to accomplish that super human feat!  Talk about giving oneself a huge challenge! Wow.  How long did his satisfaction and contentment last?

So, are you and I pushing ourselves and putting big enough challenges in our minds and then going after them to enhance and make our life more exciting and fulfilling? I can’t speak for you but I know now, at age 74, I need to challenge myself much more than I’ve been doing lately. But I really do have to ask you—-do you need to challenge yourself a bit more or maybe even a lot more?  Only you can answer that question.