Ten Steps to Reverse Aging, Part 2

Grow Younger, Live Longer
by Deepak Chopra, M.D.

(Page 2 of 2)

A spiritual approach means that we expand our awareness, even while focusing our attention and intention locally.

The reason we perform any action is in the hope that it will bring us satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness. Embracing the spiritual domain, which is the source and goal of all desires in life, creates the possibility for satisfaction, happiness, and fulfillment independent of the inevitably changing situations, circumstances, and people that surround us. Those fortunate ones who dwell in this domain have achieved what is often called enlightenment.

Viewing your choices from a spiritual perspective means asking the big questions: Who are you? Why are you here? What do you really want? How can you best serve? Although at first glance these questions may seem irrelevant to slowing the aging process, they are actually essential to renewal. Shifting your internal reference point from an egocentric being, whose sense of worth depends upon the positions and possessions one has accumulated, to a network of conscious energy, woven from the threads of universal intelligence, has a profound effect on your mind and body. When you become clear that the reason you want to live to a hundred or more years is so you can express your full creative potential, you change your chemistry and physiology. When you identify your unique talents and commit to using them in the service of others, you strengthen your immune system. When you decide that exercising regularly or preparing a balanced meal is an enjoyable experience, you improve your circulatory health and lower your blood pressure. Your perceptions, interpretations, and expectations influence every aspect of your mental and physical health. Shifting your perspective and making new choices provide you with powerful tools to change your life.

The Window to Renewal

One of the ways science makes major advances is by studying situations, circumstances, and events that are the exception to the usual way things work. These are sometimes called anomalies, or exceptions to the rule. Most scientists ignore anomalies, but in fact, these are the very things we should be studying. If something breaks the rule, no matter what it is, no matter how infrequent it is, no matter how remote the probability, it means that a new possibility has arisen. And if a new possibility has presented itself, there must be a mechanism. Even if only one person out of ten million cures himself of cancer or of AIDS, we have to pay attention. Most scientists tend to disregard events that are so rare they do not regularly infringe upon the prevailing view of the world. They may dismiss an anomaly by saying that it is so rare-one in ten million-what's the point of investigating it?

The point is that it doesn't matter if something happens only once in ten million, because if it has happened even once, there must be some mechanism to account for its occurrence. And if there is a mechanism, then as scientists we want to know what that mechanism is, because once we understand the mechanism, we may be able to reproduce the phenomenon.

Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein are examples of scientists who questioned the prevailing assumptions of their time and expanded their view to include phenomena that had previously been ignored. These and other great scientists paid attention to anomalies and sought to understand the mechanism that explains them. When something doesn't fit the paradigm, doesn't fit the pattern, doesn't fit the theory, it forces us to examine the model we are using. It compels us to expand or change the theory to incorporate the exceptional situation.

A good example of this is a friend of ours who was diagnosed with AIDS over fifteen years ago. He was close to death when he made the choice to change his life. He started meditating, began eating a healthy diet, and made the commitment to eliminate toxins from his life. Fifteen years later he is feeling completely well and has undetectable levels of the HIV virus in his blood. When we first met him, he was an anomaly, but now we know many more people like him. Our theory of consciousness predicts that if we reach a critical mass of people who have the same experience, then it will become true for everyone.

We believe that these same principles apply to human aging. If we look at recent historical times we see that the average life expectancy has shifted remarkably. The average life span of a human being during the Roman Empire was twenty-eight years. The average life span of a human being born in the Western world at the beginning of the twentieth century was forty-nine years. Although in the past, high rates of infant mortality influenced human life expectancy, the fastest-growing segment of the American population today is over the age of ninety years.

A baby girl born in America today is expected to live just less than eighty years; an infant boy has a life expectancy of almost seventy-four. Historically, there are many people who have lived to ripe old ages and have made major contributions to civilization. Leonardo da Vinci was drawing sketches in his sixties, Leo Tolstoy was writing novels into his seventies, and Michelangelo was sculpting in his eighties. Winston Churchill, with his fondness for cigars and Scotch, was active and productive until his death at age ninety. As our collective consciousness embraces the belief that we can have the biology of youth with the wisdom of experience, it will become the pervasive experience.

The Science of Aging

Recognizing that human beings do not age at the same rate, scientists have described three different ways to characterize a person's age. The first is chronological age, which is what your birth certificate says. Your chronological age measures the number of rotations Earth has performed on its axis and around the sun since you left your mother's womb. Your chronological age cannot be altered through mind/body approaches, but it has the least relevance to how you feel or function.

Biological age is a measurement of how well your physiological systems are functioning. It is the most important component of the aging process. Your biological age is calculated in reference to an average population of people who have the same chronological age that you have. Values for almost every biochemical and physiological process can be determined for different age groups. Known as the biological markers, or biomarkers, of aging, these include blood pressure, amount of body fat, auditory and visual thresholds, hormonal levels, immune function, temperature regulation, bone density, skin thickness, cholesterol levels, blood sugar tolerance, aerobic capacity, and metabolic rate (see the table on page 18). Once you know your results, you can compare them with the group average and see if your biomarkers are older or younger than your chronological peers. Your biological age can be very different from your chronological age. A fifty-year-old who takes good care of herself can have the biology of a thirty-five-year-old. Alternatively, a fifty-year-old who has not been attentive to his health may have the biology of men many years older. Whatever your biological age is today, we believe we can alter it by implementing the changes recommended in this book.

Copyright © 2001 by Deepak Chopra, M.D., and David Simon, M.D.. Excerpted by permission of Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Deepak Chopra is one of the world's bestselling spiritual authors and the founder of the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California. If you would like to become part of a global community of conscious peace makers, please visit www.chopra.com and click under "News from Deepak."