Ageing

Ageing naturally

In my practice, I often find myself having conversations with people around ageing. One common reaction that I get from people when I am demonstrating deficiencies in their posture, their spine or their overall bodily function is that people simply put it down to getting older. Perhaps the most graphic example is when people look at their x-rays: “Well that’s just old age, isn’t it?”

So what is ageing? Well it would seem that the fundamental of ageing is cell division – our cells can only divide a certain number of times before we die. Think of it like photocopying a piece of paper. Every time you photocopy the photocopy, the details get a little less clear, until eventually the photocopy is useless. The same thing happens when your cells divide. So what this means is that there is a natural ageing process where these copies get gradually distorted over time.

For most people though, this process has been drastically accelerated due to their lifestyle – due to the physical, chemical and emotional stressors of our modern lives. When our bodies respond to stress the rate of our cell division actually accelerates. Hence when our lifestyle does not match our genetic requirements we age faster than we should. It is really obvious when I look at peoples x-rays – there will often be one region of the spine that is much more degenerated than another. I say to people, ‘How old are each of these areas?’ Of course, they are the same age, so how could these changes be simply due to ageing? The only reasonable answer is that one of these areas has been under more stress than the other, and has been functioning poorly over time.

So when it comes to ageing, there is no such thing as anti-ageing. Everyone ages and it is a perfectly natural, healthy process. There is, however, such thing as accelerated ageing and healthy ageing. Unfortunately there are no shortcuts to healthy ageing. The only way to age healthily is to eat move and think in the way that your body is designed to and to minimise your physical, chemical and emotional stressors.

“Your life should be like a candle: you burn brightly, then flicker once or twice and go out.”

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“I’m ageing very well thank you!”