How can your mind extend your lifespan by seven and a half years? What if I told you the greatest secret to living longer and feeling better has less to do with your diet or exercise and more to do with how you think and feel about ageing?
A Yale University study suggests that if you have positive beliefs about ageing, you can extend your life by seven and a half years, which even outweighs the longevity benefits of regular exercise, low blood pressure, and even quitting smoking. This is huge. Unlocking a healthier, more vibrant life sounds amazing, right?
But how do you get these magical positive beliefs? In this episode, I’m going to explore how priming your brain with supportive mindsets combined with my one true love, fascia release, could be the key to longer and happier years.
I’m Savannah Alalia and welcome to the latest episode of High Functioning Human podcast where you connect to yourself as a high functioning human.
I can hear you say, “Okay, people have been talking about the power of positivity for years, but extra years of life – really?” Well, the amazing thing with this study is that it’s about your perception, which thankfully is something you are in control of. And when I say perception, what I am talking about is your perception of ageing, that’s what’s important here.
So let’s look at what could be affecting that perception. Ageing is often viewed through the lens of time, obviously. Yet time itself is a construct, a fluid, subjective thing, which is why summer can feel like a lifetime and so can a long meeting. Your perception of time is flexible and highly personal. As you get older, for example, time may seem to speed up.
This can be because you tend to experience less new or novel things as you age, and so your perception of time can become less and less vivid. But if you “presence yourself”, that is to really ground yourself in your body so that you are aware of the feelings in your body as you go through life, your experiences of time passing change.
You reclaim your awareness of sensation, of movement and of life unfolding. And when you start to consciously change your discouraging thoughts for more encouraging ones, you’ll find your perception shifting and your body will respond to that shift.
I’ve spoken before about fascia release as “Turning Back Time The Fun Way,” and this is why. Because reconnecting with your body, mobilising your nervous system and stepping out of pain, you shift out of ageing as a slowdown process and into ageing as an opening up process.
Obviously, I’m just speaking for myself here, you may be different, but when you’re younger you think of adults or parents as a completely separate type of person, they are a grown up. Now that I’m in my 40s, I feel just as young at heart as I ever have. And my body is actually more mobile, in less pain than it was 10 years ago. So for me, this period is a very open and freeing time of my life.
This is part of why I’m so obsessed with sharing fascia release practices. Because I want you too to have the opportunity to experience that reawakening feeling. By turning on your connection with your body, by taking steps to move out of pain and reconnect your nervous system, you have the power to change that idea that ageing is a slowing down.
David Bowie said a lot of fabulous things, but one of my favourite ones being that “Ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.” I love that. For that to be true though, you need to be in your body for the process. You need to feel alive in yourself.
So if those scientists are right, which I believe they are, how are you getting these extra seven and a half years? What has to change when it comes to the difference between a negative perception and a positive perception?
What you’re really talking about is the repeated thoughts that you tell yourself. When you have underlying, discouraging thoughts, they can play on a loop and become stuck in your body in what I call “Thought Knots.” Think of Thought Knots like a bass tone that needs to be identified, otherwise they will undercut any attempt to bring in positive notes.
One of the discouraging thoughts, for example, that was expressed by people in the study I mentioned was, “As you get older, you are less useful.” Ouch. That really sucks. Do you see what I mean here about these thoughts acting like an underlying dull note? The words are so final, so harsh.
It’s these kinds of thoughts, these Thought Knots, that you need to watch out for. The ones that act like universal truths. Because you can imagine if you put that on repeat, that thought can really, really do some damage to your self worth.
Like any advice to change your mindset, I want to be careful to avoid being too blase about this for fear of sounding like a Peter Pan telling you to think happy thoughts and fly off to Neverland. When you’re talking about changing the underlying truths that you tell yourself, it’s much more than just a surface level thing, it is an in-body process. You can think about all the lovely thoughts you want, but until you address the Thought Knots in the background, you’re going to make things a lot, lot harder for yourself.
By that I mean that your fascia has to be with you in this process because if your fascia is bound in old feelings of that undercutting Thought Knot, it’s going to be getting in the way and holding that frequency and reinforcing that negative thought.
You need to remember that the thought that you give the emotion to makes the biggest impact. And I’m going to say that again, that thought you give the emotion to makes the biggest impact.
Why?
Because your fascia stores the physical imprint of your thoughts.
You need to actively open your Thought Knot and give it a new emotion and that needs to become part of your everyday reality, reinforcing these new shifts and emotions.
There are many ways to address this stuckness and you can begin in whatever way feels right. Obviously, I’m going to suggest my own program simply as a place for you to start because I want to make this process as accessible to as many people as possible because it really, truly can be life changing.
Your Face Symmetry 2 begins to integrate your body and the intention with which you touch your face. It’s a follow on from my Your Face Symmetry 1 program which is a seven day introduction to fascia release, helping you to build awareness of how your face and your body store tension and how to start releasing it.
This is where embracing the beauty of ageing lies. It’s so much more than your physical appearance and it’s also about changing how you feel inside your body as time moves forward.
And if you think about it, what are those extra seven and a half years really about? Instead of just more time on the clock, they are about more life inside your years where you find beauty in sensation and even in the mundane stuff.
I’d love to know what Thought Knot about ageing you are ready to let go of today. Share in the comments!
Remember, trust your body. Stay curious about sensation because the world needs your voice and the magic that it brings to us all.
Jump on my mailing list to stay reminded and connected with your intuition because I will share with you some special things in there that I’m only going to do in email.
I look forward to chatting with you next time on High Functioning Human Podcasts. Take care and talk soon.
As always, I remain a cheerleader for your inner self-worth,
