Health, Men's Health, Mental Health, Women's Health
In our family everyone was ok, all of the time, in every way. We didn’t argue – ever. Appearances were very firmly “kept up”.
As a teenager, I started to question, think my own thoughts, and see things differently. I noticed that we had a cupboard full of bent saucepans. My mother would go down the bottom of the garden, and, hidden behind the beech hedge, bash the unsuspecting household items together to give expression to the constant pressure she felt inside her, the pressure of keeping up the facade.
The seed was sown within me to find out what happens to us as a result of all the denial, suppression, guilt, shame and blame that surround feelings. After all, it seemed to me, aren’t emotions the things that make us human? And yet, where and when are we taught the skills to become emotionally literate?
What I have seen over many years of working with people, as a medical doctor, in personal development, and as a mindfulness coach, is that the inability to deal with our feelings, recognise them, manage them and express them effectively, is a major, if not THE source of ill-health, both mental and physical these days. Not knowing how to manage your emotions and the thoughts that come along with them causes STRESS.
I’m a pretty pragmatic person, with Yorkshire grit and Venezuelan passion in my blood, so I like to deal in facts. Over the last ten to fifteen years, I’ve delved deep into the scientific research that explains how mind, mood and body are intimately intertwined. In other words, what we think and feel has a profound effect on our physical as well as our mental wellbeing. That’s why I created Mind Mood Mastery, the eight week courses to teach mindfulness and emotional literacy. This latter, also known as EQ, means the ability to feel comfortable and effective in the world of feelings, our own and other people’s.
Now here’s a really interesting piece of information that needs to be spread far and wide, especially among those of us, privileged enough to have reached a “certain age”. Stress accelerate the ageing process. It goes like this:
Chromosomes are the strings of material in very cell in our body. They are made up of DNA that acts as templates for the creation of new protein. Proteins are the building blocks of our body. Imagine each string or chromosome is like a shoe lace, the old fashioned kind with little metal or plastic bits at the end to stop them fraying. This end bit of a chromosome is called a telomere. It acts to protect the whole string from fraying and sticking to other ones, which would alter your genetic information. Over time, this end bit or telomere gets shorter. This contributes to ageing, disease formation and even cancer.
We now know that mental-emotional stress, patterns of thought and feeling that cause us distress, speed up the rate of shortening of telomeres and therefore causes faster ageing. Inflammation inside the body, which in itself is related to stress, also effects telomere length. Inflammation causes the production of more “free radicals”, as the energy factories of our cells, mitochondria, work less efficiently. Free radicals accelerate telomere shortening.
A study in 2004 looked at a group of women who were care-givers. Those who had an optimistic, generous attitude to their role, were less stressed and had an average telomere length of 3,660 units, whilst in those who experienced their role as highly stressful the average length was 3,110 units.
Emotions like anger, hostility, resentment, and bitterness trigger inflammation in the body, suppress the immune system and hasten telomere shortening. Underlying all stress is the inability to deal with emotions intelligently. Stress shortens telomeres. Shorter telomeres equals accelerated ageing.
What can we do? Buy more expensive anti-wrinkle creams? Or tackle the problem at source i.e. learn how to improve our EQ, alter our approach to life, and reduce stress? What goes on inside us, in your thoughts and feelings, has a profound if not seminal impact on our health and wellbeing. This is what I call the Inner Game of Health.
How do you play the Inner Game of Health to win? How do you slow down telomere lengthening?
Mindfulness is one powerful easy way. Generosity is another. People who are optimistic and generous (the two often go hand in hand) live on average 7.5 years longer than pessimists. At which point you might say, “That’s all very well, but I’m a born pessimist”.
Not so. Evidence shows that practising skills like mindfulness alters the way your brain is wired, increase your sense of wellbeing, and most importantly reduce stress. When people learn and practise mindfulness, the parts of the brain that have us be more generous, optimistic and empathetic actually get bigger.
As you become less stressed, your emotional intelligence increases. Improving your ability to deal with your emotions in itself means you get less stressed. Less stress means less telomere shortening.
You can’t buy peace of mind in a jar, but you can learn and cultivate skills that will last you a lifetime, lengthen and improve the quality of your life, and reduce stress.
