The UK’s top holistic youth guru on how our thoughts and feelings affect our biological age
The UK’s top holistic youth guru on how our thoughts and feelings affect our biological age
in his field and meeting him,was for me (a confirmed geek), a bit like meeting Elvis, I kid you not. However, what impressed me most about Dr Sabatino’s approach to health was his overriding emphasis on compassion and how incredibly important it is to treat oneself with kindness.In fact, Dr Sabatino is, himself, an incredibly compassionate soul and an inspiration to all -he really walks his talk and has great integrity.
So, how do kindness and compassion relate to natural anti-ageing ? Well, you may remember that a while ago I wrote about the research study that looked at the telomere length of women who were caring for very sick children. The women who had been carers for the longest amount of time had the shortest telomeres, making them as much as 10 years older –biologically. Similar findings have been seen in carers of people with alzheimer’s disease (to recap,telomeres are a bit like that bito f plastic on the ends of shoelaces which stops them from unravelling –telomeres sit on the ends of our chromosomes and stop them from degenerating.
Telomeres shorten as we get older and telomere length is believed to be a reliable indication of biological age).So, stress causes accelerated ageing , this much we know, however, what can be done to help prevent our telomeres from unravelling and is it possible to even regrow them?
Positive emotional states
New research in the fields of mindfulness meditation , and two closely associated approaches; loving kindness meditation (LKM) and compassion meditation (CM) show great promise:These meditation techniques use exercises which are designed to enhance unconditional,positive emotional states of kindness and compassion towards oneself and others. The research suggests that LKM leads to increased levels of positive emotions and a decrease in negative thought sand emotions. Initial neuroendocrine studies suggest that CM may reduce stress-induced subjective distress and positively support immune response. Furthermore,neuro-imaging studies (brain scans) suggest that both LKM and CM may activate brain areas that help us to process emotions and develop empathy. Last but by no means least, the researchs hows that LKM and CM can be used to great effect in helping people who are currently undergoing (or have experienced) a variety of different psychological problems that involvei nterpersonal processes, such as depression, social anxiety, marital problems , anger,and coping with the strains of long-term care-giving.
Find out more
The Mental Health Foundation is acharity that offers mindfulness meditation courses: mentalhealth.org.uk
Find a variety of meditation courses onThe Complementary Medical Associationwebsite: the-cma.org.uk
Learn a variety of mindfulness meditation techniques through books, online and CDs. Look for recordings by Sharon Salzberg,books by Professor Ellen Langer and of course YouTube always has a huge amount to offer.
Article by
Jayney Goddard
President of the Complementary Medical Association
is the president of the Complementary Medical Association
Discover more
Article by
Jayney Goddard
President of the Complementary Medical Association
is the president of the Complementary Medical Association
Discover more
By Jayney Goddard
