Gene Pool: Sink or Swim?
“Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”
The unfortunate effects of aging, like lower energy levels, physical discomforts, waistline increase, and grumpiness, are normal. Right? That's what we're told, and it seems like these things are inevitable. After all, older people who manage to avoid the worst of these seem few and far between; we tend to think of them as lucky ducks who inherited gold-standard genes. But recent discoveries are showing us that we actually have far more power to affect our own gene expression than we've been taught. Bruce Lipton’s book, The Biology of Belief, examines how cells function in relation to their environment, and explains how genes are turned on and off by environmental factors; he also touches on how many areas of scientific study, including biology, are woefully behind the times because the discoveries of quantum physics have never been accepted and incorporated into their thinking. The book is a fascinating explanation of how much power we have to affect the way our bodies function, and about how much of the body’s functioning happens at the non-material, energetic level. Dr. Lipton is one of the pioneers of the new field of epigenetics, which delves into the mechanisms behind how environment (everything but gene sequence) affects physical functions. Dawson Church’s Genie in Your Genes is also chock-full of interesting data about how our environments and actions affect life span and quality of life. For example, he writes that according to James W. Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, identical twins, who may lead very different lives and develop different habits, die an average of ten years apart! They have the same genes. Environment, physical and mental/emotional, seems to be what makes the difference.
The idea that stress adversely affects our health in myriad ways may be familiar to you. That's been borne out in numerous studies over decades now, and you may have observed in your own life that when you're stressed out and worn down, that's when you're most likely to get sick. I know that this seems to be true for me. Learning to change one’s mindset to better cope with upsets, then, is an obvious way to decrease wear and tear on our bodies. In The Tapping Solution for Pain Relief, Nick Ortner writes about the surprising fact that pain is not an inevitability even when physical condition would suggest it should be, and vice versa: “Studies show that many people whose X-rays reveal a herniated disc have no pain, while others whose X-rays reveal no herniated disc (or any other abnormalities) report excruciating pain.” There is clearly something going on here that’s not purely physical. The placebo effect, which is widely acknowledged in the medical community, allows people to improve in health only because they think they will; the nocebo effect is the opposite, and causes a person to decline in health only because they think they must. I find it heartening knowing that these effects operate with such regularity. That means I have the power to affect my own health with the choices I make every day.
In fact, in my own work, I've found it amazing how lightening the load of one's long-standing emotional buildup can relieve both physical discomforts and the negative beliefs and thought loops that feed dissatisfaction. As we move through life, it's inevitable that we will encounter disappointments and difficulties large and small. If we don't have healthy ways to release the confusion, resentments and bitterness that often result, these will begin to affect us in ways that are profound, but often remain hidden. Tension mounts, whether we are aware of it or not, and I believe that this is a primary cause of the collection of symptoms that we ascribe to the process of aging. When someone uses EFT/Tapping (or other effective techniques that combine physical, emotional, and mental elements) for a physical issue, he can take care of the portion of the cause that may have been emotional in nature, and effects may be noticeable immediately. However, there are also many accounts of people using EFT and finding that it didn't seem to work, only to notice a few days or even weeks later that the problem they addressed with EFT is suddenly gone. When this happens, it seems to me to demonstrate that when we can get ourselves out of the way mentally and emotionally, the body can do its thing and heal itself with much greater efficiency.
I love that there are so many brilliant people now studying the complicated, holistic functioning of the human form, and I enjoy reading about what these people are learning every day. But I still find that what’s most exciting to me is having tools at my fingertips that make it possible for me to make progress of my own each day in a way that’s safe and satisfying. EFT fits that bill for me, helping me to make change toward a calm, peaceful inner life every time I use it, and to leverage a more buoyant perspective over time. While nothing will solve all your problems at once, and there will always be a place for professional medical help and advice, there are many wonderful techniques you can learn to support your health and happiness. I hope knowing that what you think about and how you feel contributes meaningfully to your body’s health as well will inspire you to learn and use some of these helpful techniques sooner rather than later. Old age need not require an inevitable decline. The sooner you build your tool box for supporting your own daily rebalancing, the sooner you can start discovering benefits and building your confidence in your own resourcefulness.