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YOU WILL AGE AT A GENETICALLY DIRECTED RATE |
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You can exert significant influence over your future. Everyone has an individual biological rhythm or pace for aging, a pace that is directed by those biological units of inheritance called genes. There are some families whose members have unusually long lifespans and others who are characterised by relatively early deaths. What these people with long lives illustrate is a slower rate of aging than the general population. They often continue to look much younger than their chronological age, primarily because they are the 'heirs' of the slower aging rate than that of their peers.
Genes play a major role in determining our maximal potential lifespans and aging rates. But as important as genes and family heritage are, the course of the aging process is by no means inevitable. In fact, it strongly suggests that by taking certain preventive measures and monitoring your health closely, you can actually prolong your life expectancy. When proper care and attention are given priority, the maximum average age for people living today in the world's most advanced nations should be at least ninety years. And as further advances are made against various diseases, that maximum age could significantly increase in the near future.
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At every age, the human body is incredibly resilient and thoroughly programmed for self-preservation and self-repair. At any age, our bodies are far stronger and possess greater potential for good health and recovery from illness than we often anticipate.
When you injure yourself the blood clotting mechanisms and other healing forces immediately rush to repair the wound. When disease strikes, antibodies and cells of the immune system rush to the site of invasion and set up defense mechanism against the harmful intruder. When you age, your physical and emotional powers gradually decline, and your body proceeds to play out its genetic potential.
As far as aging is concerned, neglect or abuse of the body can sometimes hasten or aggravate unwanted change. Fortunately, however, there are also some concrete steps you can take to enhance your body's natural resilience. You can actually slow down physical deterioration and reduce health problems that are often confused with aging.
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Change is the essence of aging. Throughout your life, you have experienced many changes, some welcome and some not, and have probably dealt with most of them successfully. Marriage, childbirth, raising children, economic depression, war, inflation, grandchildren, retirement, illness — an endless list that bring about drastic changes in your life. You survived these and many other changes because of your ability to accept and adapt to new situations.
Some changes can be more threatening than others. Grey hair and wrinkles may worry you, but this is because you believe in fallacies and misunderstandings rather than the truth. Getting old does not mean you will become miserable, ineffective, useless, senile and unattractive. What it does mean is that changes occur as you grow older. If you are forearmed with knowledge and healthy habits, you can disprove the myths and avoid the stereotypes by meeting the challenge of aging positively. There is no single cause for the changes that occur in aging, and each person's biological timetable is different.
Through all the research done on the aging process, there has been one definite conclusion: Aging is inevitable. Unlike many species which reproduce and then die shortly after, humans continue to live after passing on their genes from one generation to the next. And while that is good news for most of us, it comes with the proviso that everyone must learn to adapt to the effects of aging. To accomplish this, we must first understand them as normal. Then we can begin to make the necessary changes.
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