Reverse Aging (Part 2 of 5)

Last month I started a series of articles on minor lifestyle changes to reverse or slow down aging. We discussed stress and anxiety. This month we will delf into the pros and cons of extreme heat and cold and the response the body has toward each, and the ability to overcome shock. Our whole lives we have heard extreme heat and cold cause harmful effects on our bodies. We know that heat kills and cold kills cells and can cause hyperthermia. These are all true but let’s look at simple lifestyle changes incorporating a couple effects that will increase your quality of life. Keep in mind I am not a doctor, nutritionist, or physical fitness expert and take what I share with caution and at your own risk. I’m not planning drastic changes but slight modifications to your lifestyle. The biggest things that we must combat are the common comforts that we have learned to enjoy even though they can be to our detriment. Air-conditioning and heat in our homes and cars has made us used to the steady comfortable levels of heat and cold. You must prepare for the extreme heat and cold to live but, in moderation the health benefits are extreme.

Cold, research now believes that learning to tame our reaction to the cold will have a prolonged benefit to our health as we age down the road. “Inflammaging”, is the process that as we age the body gets a little more trigger happy when it releases surges of immune fighting cells that cause collateral damage when there is no true enemy to fight. Our body senses our aging and lack of strength to fight off infections and is sometimes way to quick to react when it does not need to, clinically it is a sterile low-grade inflammation that develops with advanced age, in the absence of overt infection, and may contribute to clinical manifestations of other age-related pathologies. It will fuel the two biggest health risks for older people, heart diseases and diabetes. Now we see health shops that offer cryotherapy. This is catching on from everywhere from helping heal sports injuries to resetting our bodies from situations like long covid and others. Cold moves rapid amounts of blood to the rest of the body to warm up and prevent cell destruction from freezing, remember cells are mostly water and very susceptible to the cold as such. But short-term rapid chilling like a polar plunge Ice bath or a cryo-freeze session allows your body to flirt with the extremes in a safe way helping the immune system keep a normal level prolonging the effects of “Inflammaging” further down the road.

Heat can be deadly and extreme hydration is always necessary when dealing with any kind of heat, your body is mostly water and uses it as a cooling mechanism. Like the popping up of cryo-clinics there are facilities popping up that allow you to work out in extreme heat to use the beneficial effects on the body. People have been using saunas for years to increase the blood flow and flush out toxins from the body. Our body builds up many cells that are useless. As we age and don’t clean out our “cellular closet” of these cells they build up causing problems like cancer, heart disease, and dementia. Think about this, calories are a measurement of heat. A calorie is a measurement of the heat it takes to raise the temperature one degree of a cell. When we give the body calories working in an elevated heat atmosphere for a minimum time this helps the body to produce “heat shock proteins” these proteins clean up the useless unwanted cells in the body like fat and others.

So, when we use these two methods together, we clean up the excess waist giving us more storage for the good immune fighting cells to work in moderation and not at a quick triggered heighten sense that causes excess. Intelligently using these methods also strengthens the mind, like last month using our calming of stress and anxiety methods, it also helps us understand that it can be mind over matter with our reaction to the extremes of the heat and cold. So next time you find yourself out in the extremes make sure you are well hydrated and or insulated and think of the positive effects we are having on the body.

Minor changes, deliberately controlling your bodies temperature, and convincing your mind it’s not in danger will improve your overall health. This is not drastic, but this must be deliberate. Start by taking the time daily to adjust the temperature in your showers do at least three minutes of as hot as you can stand it and end the shower with three minutes as cold as it gets, this will create a habit and a healthy response to your nervous system and cellular wellbeing, helping you live longer with a better quality of life. Next month we will discuss the benefits of nutrition and fasting.