The published article can be found here Aviation Life Magazine

We all desire to live healthier, longer.

Music conductors are one of the longest living professions, successfully living well into the eighties and nineties.  Travelling frequently, globally, working late into the night, one would imagine this lifestyle creates stress that would accelerate ageing. Instead, their lifespan is increased. 

Why?  Their arms are in constant motion.  

We were built to move and movement and exercise is a major factor to living longer.  Yet movement and fast paced living are very different things to our biology.  In a high-energy lifestyle, the velocity of our lives turns to chronic stress; with stress we are in over drive and signs of ageing show up faster - inflammation, poor energy, stiffness and illness. 

It’s helpful to understand that our genes have not developed much beyond what they were some 50,000 years ago - yet our lifestyle and environment is radically different.

You might have heard of the axiom, Genetics load the gun and the environment pulls the trigger.  This is the science of epigenetics.  Disease isn’t always hardwired into our DNA, it is much more malleable than that.  Our genes actually respond to our lifestyle, environment and our daily choices. 

Current thinking suggests that around 80% of our health is within our control, with the remainder hardwired into our genetic code.  Short of choosing our parents as one of the best way of ensuring a longer life, the way we eat, how we exercise and sleep, connection to others, our stress levels, our environment, all provide cues to our body to switch on and off key genes that play into our health and longevity. 

With this knowledge in hand, where do we put our focus?  We start by cleaning up our environment.  We make changes to our daily lifestyle.  We get to know our biology so we know how to manipulate it.  And we eat a rainbow.

Eating a rainbow

When we age it’s like our bodies collect rust, the result of accumulated stress, poor diet and lifestyle choices as well as the environment we live in and move through.

This rust creates cellular damage that accelerates the ageing process and so we need to offset this by what we put on our fork.

This is why 6-11 servings of fruit and vegetables a day is recommended, as fruit and veg are rich in compounds that provide the antidote, antioxidants and other compounds, to this internal combustion and cellular rust. 

If we are frequently stressed and frequently travelling, our need for antioxidant protection is greater.

The best way to get our antioxidants is by eating a rainbow of plant based fruits and vegetables, with 80% of our plate being plant based, perfectly reflecting that we are in control of 80% of our health.

Richly coloured fruits and vegetables contain pigments in the food that help fight ill health, such as lycopene in red foods, well known for its properties in fighting cancer.  There are thousands of compounds within food, just as there are thousands of compounds in our body.  How these compounds interact within a food let alone with our body we are only just beginning to understand.  

What we do understand is that plant based food is necessary for health and the more diverse our plant food, the better our health. 

Calorie restriction could buy you time

There are five ‘blue zones’ in the world including places such as Okinawa, Japan and Ikaria, Greece where people live long into their golden years often becoming centenarians.    The people in these regions have been studied for having fewer diseases, a healthy diet, a close social network and an active lifestyle.  They all practice the art of eating fewer calories.

Eating less is known to slow down the ageing process. When we fast intermittently we turn on the longevity gene SIRT1.  Sirtuin genes are switched on to help us survive in times of stress with extracurricular activities such as eating and mating paused for another day.  This mechanism in the body was actually built for survival, but the net result is longevity.

A regular fast of 14 hours twice a week helps the SIRT1 gene rev up our mighty mitochondria.  Mitochondria are our energy producing factories inside every cell that take food and oxygen and turn it into fuel.  The longer we live, and the less we live well, the more housekeeping required to help keep our mitochondria in top shape. 

Saunas, hot tubs and steam rooms

It’s all about getting hot and with top business hotels offering a spa service, this is an easy fit into a travelling life.

Sitting in a sauna activates the longevity gene FOXO3, and this then turns on genes that help in stress resilience, DNA repair, antioxidant production, tumour suppression and the manufacturer of hormones and neurotransmitters in your body. When you make more FOXO3 research suggests you actually triple your chances of getting to a hundred.

Saunas and fasting excel in helping our bodies outperform the challenges of modern living.  Yet neither of these will work well unless you are getting a regular 7-9 hours of quality sleep every night. 

Fixing your sleep

Sleep deprivation changes the expression of 1 in every 3 genes.  We all know that shift work, jet lag, stress, caffeine and blue light all disrupt our ability to sleep.  Yet many of us still believe short sleep is heroic with the average adult in the US and UK getting about 6 ½ hours a night.  This means there is a huge swathe below that average!

Only 3% of the population have the short-sleep gene known as DEC2, one of several genes we have that are in control of our circadian rhythm. The rest of us (97%, that includes you and me) need the recommended 7-9 hours sleep a night.   Yet when we are wired and tired, how do we begin to fix our sleep? 

Blue light is the light of dawn, the light that fires up our biology in the morning, resets our body clock, releasing hormones, beginning digestion and getting our bodies ready for the day.  The same spectrum of light is emitted from our cell phones, lap-tops and I-pads.  Blue light at the wrong time of day is a major disruptor to our biology.

Avoiding blue light from cellular devices 90 minutes before bed-time will help ensure better quality sleep.  Waking in the morning to the blue light of dawn will help reset our biological clock.  This is all the more essential when we are jet lagged and on the wrong time zone, as blue light will help shift our body clock faster.

Slow down your heart rate

By learning how to slow your resting heart rate and smooth an erratic rhythm, we balance our nervous systems, taking our foot off the accelerator of life and protecting us in times of stress. 

Tools like Emwave and Heartmath are highly effective feedback systems that help us understand our own biology and track the coherency of our heart rhythm, it in order for us to change the outcome. 

Meditation, tai chi, qi gong, deep breathing and long stride walking – all slow our heart rate.     

The corporate executive is so focused on improving the health and wellbeing of their company, with 15-hour days and arduous travelling, can forget to prioritise their own health.  Yet your health is your business.

We learn from the Ikarians and music conductors that in order to live well longer, our lifestyles must be coherent with our biology.   We now have the tools to understand why and can apply this to our own lives to slow down time.

Deborah McTaggart is a registered nutritionist practising in Barnes, South West London, and global via Zoom. She works with corporate nutrition and individuals on healthy eating, with a special interest in Men's Health, Shift Work Health, Travel Health and Avoiding Jet Lag. Contact me here for further information on nutrition plans.