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Mindfulness Yoga and Youthfulness
Telomeres are caps at the end of each chromosome,
a bit like the plastic ends on shoelaces. Telomeres play a key role
in the ageing of cells, acting like a clock that limits their lifespan.
Every time a cell divides, its telomeres get shorter, unless an enzyme
called Telomerase builds them back up. When telomeres get too short,
a cell can no longer replicate, and ultimately dies. It's not just an
abstract concept. People with shorter telomeres are at greater risk
of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, depression and degenerative diseases
such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. And they die younger. Researchers
collaborating with Elizabeth Blackburn, who shared the 2009 Nobel Physiology
& Medicine prize for her work on telomeres, have investigated whether
telomeres are affected by psychological factors. So far the research
has shown many expected psychological and cognitive changes as a result
of mindfulness practices, such as improvements in perception of wellbeing.
But one result in particular has potentially stunning implications;
it seems that by protecting caps called telomeres on the ends of our
chromosomes, mindfulness practices seem to help delay the ageing process.
Mindfulness increases the bodys production of Telomerase by around 30%.
The cosmetic industry will be furious – you don’t need expensive
useless creams, surgery or even botox, if you practice mindfulness you’ll
stay younger for longer. In the UK recent legislation has allowed adding
Telomerase to dog food to increase the lifespan of our pets!!
Adapted from The Guardian & Live Life and Live Now.
Everything
we buy, use and throw away has an impact somewhere on the ecological
continuum and nowadays the most bullish western consumers' consciences
are regularly punctured by shards of eco-worry. We also increasingly
realise that working ever harder for more possesions, more options,
more stuff, doesn't tend to make us content. Instead it can cause
anxiety, stress and depression. Lifestyle pundits blame 'society'
or the Government. Some say it's like a sickness. But still our
culture strives to produce and consume more. The question is 'why?'
Breakthroughs in brain-scanning science and evolutionary psychology
suggest the real culprit is us - or rather the way we play fast
and loose with our primitive instinctive brains. Our basic evolutionary
wiring got us down from the trees and across the world, through
Ice Ages, plagues, famines and disasters, right into our age of
bounty. This uprecidented success was built upon a voracious strategy
of 'get more of everything whenever possible'. Now however, that
strategy is set to dump us on the cosmic ash-heap. In the rich world
we have gone from millennia of scarcity to uprecidented abundance.
Materially we have everything we need to be content. Except for
a stop-button. An 'enough' button.