When people talk about longevity, they don’t mean living a long but sick life. Longevity is a holistic term involving improved and extended quality of life and good health. That’s why ancient Taoist knowledge is attractive.
Taoists have always looked and functioned like they were at least 20 years younger. Taoist Master Mantak Chia says people can live up to 120 years. Taoists cultivated a positive environment and passionate living through regular Taoist meditations like Qigong, Microcosmic Orbit, Inner Smile, and breathing exercises. Living a healthier, stronger life helps us and benefits society and our families.
Some people don’t want to live a very long life because society has taught them they have limitations at certain ages. We already have limited time here and will die sooner or later. Living healthy, happy, and enthusiastic ways could be good for the human experience.
Overview
- Wanting to live a healthier, longer, and better life is not greedy. It’s humble to invest in long-term strategies that sacrifice short-term rewards like alcohol, excess sugar, and drugs. The healthier and stronger you become, the more you can help and inspire others and change the world positively.
- Living a long, healthy life allows you to build more wisdom and experience and spend more time with your families and loved ones. Avoid cognitive distortions like “you can’t control your biology.”
- As we learn more about mitochondria cells, SIRT genes, and telomeres, we become more effective in fighting aging. With good strategies, we have a tenfold advantage over our ancestors.
What you seek is seeking you
Rumi
Is Living or Desiring Long Life is Bad Thing?
Society teaches us that long life is greedy, but I can’t entirely agree. Living an unhealthy and short life is more dangerous for sociology, biology, and finance. People make excuses about their health or age because they think they don’t have control. Yes, some aspects of health are beyond our control, like genetics, accidents, and injuries.
But that doesn’t mean we should neglect what we can control and take responsibility for our health and well-being. We can exercise, fast, meditate, practice daily gratitude, take cold showers, do Wim Hof breathing, Qigong, and other things to optimize our biological age and well-being. We don’t know our limits yet, and society teaches us we have limitations.
“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.”
– Lao Tzu
How Does Society Affect Our Perception Of Aging?
Society can affect our perception of aging in several ways:
- Society’s view of aging can vary from culture to culture and change over time within any given community.
- Society’s economy can influence how the elderly are viewed. When older people are wealthy, they have more social influence. When they are poorer, they have less influence 1.
- Society’s notion of ‘aging well’ can influence our thoughts and experiences around aging. In many Western cultures, ‘aging well’ means independence and active contributions, while in other societies, older adults are encouraged to disengage and be looked after
In summary, society can affect our perception of aging through cultural and historical differences, economic factors, and notions of ‘aging well.’ As we discover more about genes, biohacking, and cells, we become more effective in fighting aging.
Don’t Always Follow Your Physical & Mental Craving
Our brain tends to be “lazy” and prefers short-term rewards over long-term sacrifice for positive brain chemicals. For example, sexuality can reach the deepest part of the brain, the Nucleus Accumbens, and trigger dopamine production through pornography, smoking, drugs, weed, and other types of entertainment. But these can also stimulate negativity and affect our cells and genome.
The more you expose yourself to these things, the more you will experience addiction. Your reward system will become insensitive, and you will want more. But addiction makes you a slave, living a chronic life instead of your own. Your habits live within you, and there’s a reason you don’t want to live more.
It would be best if you took control of yourself. Addiction shrinks your brain and decreases gray matter, which is responsible for logical thoughts, emotions, and brain control. If you can’t control your thoughts, you will lose emotional strength, and clarity, and experience boredom in your life.
Taking Control of Your Mental Health
- Read About East and West Philosophy, Epicurus, Rumi, Lao-Tzu, and others.
- Try to Implement Meditation: Daily 10 minutes for eight weeks is okay. A 2019 study of 72 adults showed mindfulness practice time was significantly associated with reduced IL-6 levels.
- Avoid Pornography: One of the main reasons people tend to get addicted to porn movies is compulsively consuming their content – they cause a sensation of “euphoria” the brain receives by flooding it with dopamine. Our dopamine levels rise when we receive a visual sexual reward, but this causes us to seek novelty constantly. That’s why it’s important to remember that desensitization is not good and should be avoided at all costs.
- Optimize Biology With Fasting, Ketones, And Sleep: Fasting can help you give distant foods and you. This will power and increase ketones production, which helps to better cognition and well-being.
- Regular Exercise: One of the best methods for longevity and emotional well-being. In my experience, exercise should be enjoyable, not a duty. So, martial arts are great for this.
- Melatonin: Melatonin is a hormone, and hormones are chemical messengers through the body. They travel in your bloodstream to tissues or organs; melatonin’s effect is far stronger than vitamins and minerals for Mental Health.
Our biological life largely depends on our proper energy level. If we deplete our energy functions through bad habits, we won’t have any energy to optimize the outside environment, our life, body, and soul.
Related: Why Is Melatonin Important For Well-Being, Anxiety, And Depression?
If You Reach High Energy, You Will Enjoy Life And Want To “Live”
If you can control your life and optimize all aspects, you will want to live longer, right?
Here are at least five benefits of living a healthy and strong life:
- Helping society: By living a healthy and powerful life, you can contribute more to the community through work, volunteering, and other activities.
- Reducing illness-related costs: By staying healthy, you can reduce the costs associated with illness for yourself and society.
- Helping others: When you are healthy and robust, you have more energy and resources to help others, whether it’s through caregiving, mentoring, or simply being there for friends and family.
- More energetic life: Living a healthy and strong life means having more energy to pursue your passions and interests.
- Positive outlook: When you care for your health, you feel better physically and mentally, leading to a more positive outlook.
You would like to stay here more and be grateful for what you see or will see. You could experience more than ten or even 20 years in this world.
You could travel, learn a new language, find new love, dance, kiss, rock-n-roll, or do whatever you want.
Beat Your Depression And Anxiety First
Before thinking about living longer, focus on beating anxiety and depression. Try cognitive behavioral therapy and observe yourself. People with anxiety may fear the future and worry about things they can’t control. You may believe that you can’t control your health, but challenge your thoughts and start searching for people who have overcome similar challenges.
- Mantak Chia
- Wim Hof
- Siim Land
- Dr. Joseph Mercola
- Dr. Mark Hyman
And other types of role models who have a healthy lifestyle. Some of them optimize their breathing, and some of them optimize their diet more. Whatever you can optimize, optimize it.
Related: Anxiety 101: The Essential Guide to Lower Your Anxiety
Life Isn’t Just Exercise
Many people want to be in better shape, which is great for emotional and physical health. But don’t forget the wisdom of ancient times. Not only should you exercise your muscles, but also your mind and philosophy by reading books on sociology, philosophy, and literature.
A strong body alone won’t lead to a completely fulfilled life. Without proper perspective, philosophy, and curiosity about nature, energy, and existence, you might become a healthy “Homo Erectus” with a strong body and immunity but not much wisdom. Higher and deeper thinking helps you solve problems in your life and control your environment by choosing healthy ways.
When will you begin that long journey into yourself?
Rumi
Living Long-Life Doesn’t Need To Become Expensive
Living a long life doesn’t have to be expensive. You may wonder how to afford organic foods, vitamins, and other things to optimize your health. Not everyone can afford organic or grass-fed meat, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything about it.
For example:
- Wim Hof Breathing: The research shows that wim hof breathing can help lower pro-inflammatory IL-1beta, IL-6, and TNF alpha. These are important because they lead to protect your mitochondrial health.
- Intermittent Fasting: The modest oxidative stress caused by Fasting triggers the production of protective sirtuin proteins. Yet, according to research, Fasting may increase these messengers, promoting mitochondrial biogenesis and improving mitochondrial function. Intermittent Fasting is free. For better, you can try Dry Fasting for further Detoxification.
- Cold Shower: A one-minute cold shower in the morning is generally enough to initiate cold thermogenesis. (Cold exposure also stimulates PCG-1 alpha production—this is how cold thermogenesis helps create new mitochondria.)Your body will become less inflammatory, your mitochondria will strengthen, and you may have an even better mood for the rest of the day.
- Black Tea: Black tea, like coffee, is a popular beverage that contributes significantly to global polyphenol intake. High levels of polyphenol intake are associated with longevity, anti-aging, and mitochondrial health.
I wrote an article for “Free Alternative For Optimizing Mitochondria, And Longevity,” If you are interested, I would highly recommend it.
What Are Some Affordable Ways To Eat Healthy?
- Intermittent fasting: Intermittent fasting can be a great way to improve your health without spending extra money.
- Fruits and local foods: Eating locally grown fruits and vegetables can be an affordable way to eat healthily.
- Nuts: Some nuts, like almonds, peanuts, and walnuts, can be an affordable source of healthy fats and protein.
- High-quality carbs: If you can’t afford expensive carb sources like basmati rice, regular rice is still a good source of carbs – better than gluten.
- Kefir: Kefir is an affordable source of probiotics that can improve gut health. Why? Because you can do your OWN.
Even if you can’t afford organic foods, eating vegetables and some protein sources is still a great way to eat healthily.
What Are Some Natural Ways To Optimize Biological Age?
There are several natural ways to optimize biological age, including:
- Mitochondria and NAD+ optimization: Exercise and fasting can help boost NAD+ levels, which are important for mitochondrial function. Supplements such as niacinamide, glycine, creatine, high-quality magnesium, and B1 can also support mitochondrial health.
- Melatonin optimization: Melatonin is a hormone that regulates sleep and circadian rhythms. It can be optimized through good sleep hygiene, exposure to natural light during the day, and avoiding blue light at night.
- Iron levels: Maintaining proper iron levels is vital for overall health. If your iron levels are too high, you can try to lower them through dietary changes or donating blood.
- Well-balanced diet: Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, lean protein, low-mercury fish and healthy fats can support longevity.
- Physical activity: Regular exercise or physical activity can improve overall health and support healthy aging.
- Stress reduction: Reducing stress through meditation, mindfulness, nature therapy, and red light therapy can improve biological age.
- Perspective on life: Changing your outlook through practices like reading about Sufism can help reduce stress and support healthy aging.
Here’s a short, direct, and specific summary: To optimize your biological age, focus on mitochondrial and NAD+ optimization through exercise, fasting, and supplements. Optimize melatonin levels and maintain proper iron levels. Eat a well-balanced diet, exercise regularly, reduce stress through meditation and nature therapy, and change your perspective on life through practices such as reading about Sufism.
Final Thoughts
Desiring a long life is not a bad thing. Focusing on living a healthy, happy, and fulfilling life is important. Taoist practices such as meditation, Qigong, and breathing exercises can help cultivate a positive environment and passionate living. Investing in long-term strategies prioritizing health and well-being is not greedy but rather humble.
We can take responsibility for our health by exercising, fasting, meditating, practicing gratitude, and other practices that optimize our biological age and well-being.
Society may teach us that we have limitations, but it’s important to challenge these beliefs and strive for a long, healthy life.