Backward Aging 3.10 Changing Habits

Changing is hard, difficult, and tough to do! If you want to change something— anything in your habits and your life— you will have to use all your unique resources. But first, do you know what your unique resources really are?

The traditional way to look at situations you want to change is to try improving on weaknesses. Modern science shows that it is much more efficient to make better use of your own strengths. A great way to learn what your unique character strengths are is to take the VIA test. Go to viacharacter.org and spend a few minutes learning your own positive forces. It’s free, scientific, and can be life-changing.

You can tap into your strengths to make life long changes. You’ll also need to find more tools to help you improve your life. Discover which behaviors are life-enhancing, and which ones accelerate aging. Information is all over the place now. In fact, we even experience information overload. Learn how to sort out all this accumulation of ideas, and experiment on yourself. By optimizing the length, quality, and meaning of your life, you won’t miss out on the wonderful life you can create for yourself and your loved ones.

Beliefs and habits are at the core of your existence. Constantly validate and update them. It is not because your ancestors or parents acted a certain way that it is good or bad for your health. Beliefs are just that, beliefs. Just check out your own beliefs to be sure they serve your best interest!

From the time of your birth, you have been programmed with other people’s beliefs. Your parents, then society’s in general. Most of what you have been told is negative: “You can’t do this, you can’t do that, You’re too small, you’re too young, you’re insufficient!“ and on and on. Slowly you have been drilled to integrate these beliefs into your own belief system. You consider them as being the truth.

Whatever your age it is time to ask yourself a few questions: Where do my beliefs come from? Do they really work for me? Can I change them? How can I change them to get better results and better adapt to the world I’m living in? And even maybe change the world for the better.

If you believe that you can never change, then you won’t. How do you know you won’t? Where does that belief come from? How does it help you? If it doesn’t help you, can you let go of it or change it? Maybe change a part of it?

Self-Talk is one the most powerful tools you can use to build and consolidate your belief system. Self-Talk is either conscious or unconscious. It is what you tell your selves when you start doing something or when you explain what happened, like “I need to stop at the grocery store” or “I am no good at math”.

Neuroscientists have established that everybody carries on an ongoing dialog, or Self-Talk, of between 150 and 300 words a minute or an average of 50 000 thoughts a day. The ongoing negative reinforcement created by habitual negative Self-Talk results in limiting beliefs that end up as self-fulfilling prophecies.

Negative as well as positive beliefs are literally etched into your nervous system in the form of neural pathways, a combination of hormones and neurotransmitters ready to be fired in an instant.

Self-Talk is the powerful tool you use to make lasting adjustments to your programming. It’s the workout of your left brain hemisphere. Repetition is what matters here. Have you ever forgotten to water your garden during the dry season? Have you noticed how fast flowers can die? What a waste! All the work you did so far, just lost. And yet if you sow a tree, you know that after the initial tutoring and care, the tree grows by himself and produces wonderful fruits.

What is even more wonderful is that in your internal world, the world of your mind, the more you believe in something the more you will accept similar ideas. Each one reinforcing the others. The brain always tries to tie any new thing to something you already believe.

Here is how you can use your Self-Talk to change anything in your life. Initially, you need to repeat and repeat until a certain point when the thought comes to maturity and stays implanted for the rest of your life bringing you a new strong belief system. You have successfully used the Mind-Building technique and modified the biochemical and electrical structure of the left part of your brain. Think of your muscles. When you want to grow them the only way is to make reps after reps after reps.

At the turn of the century, Emile Coue, a modest French doctor invented a healing method using Self-Talk that literally made miracles. Although the medical establishment of the time tried to ridicule his method, Dr. Coue healed thousands of patients with a few simple suggestions like “Every day in all aspects of my life I am getting better and better”.

The patients would repeat this sentence again and again without any special procedure, but simply imagining that it was true, and miracle cures occurred. Mind over matter. Today affirmations are regularly used by professional athletes and successful business people.

We now know that deep relaxation increases the production of Alpha and Theta Brain Waves, which makes autosuggestion and visualization even more efficient. The keyword is repetition. Our subconscious does not evaluate the validity of the affirmation. It just memorizes by repetition; so that positive Self-Talk used consistently, and a great number of times, changes our belief system about ourselves and about the world.

The easiest way is to memorize a few sentences and repeat them over and over again silently or aloud. The most effective way is to write them down and read them, again and again, to combine the power of your visual memory with your auditory one. You can also record them on any recorder like your smartphone and play them back.

In my next letter, I’ll talk about other life-enhancing changes.

Stay tuned,

Boris Clair

PS: Discover a new free fascinating personal development experience by clicking.

Backward Aging 3.11 Nutrition

As you probably know, many calorie restricting diets aren’t successful. Some diet programs may be helpful in the short term. However, unless you make fundamental changes in your nutrition and lifestyle, after a while you’ll be back where you started, and sometimes even worse. We’re not talking about some cosmetic changes, but about a fundamental transformation of who you are—and believe me, that isn’t a piece of cake!

First, let me tell you about a killer condition. Modern science shows it’s the source of most chronic illnesses, those that accelerate aging and make life miserable: Obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, arthritis, even some cancers. I’m talking about silent inflammation. There are many ways to control it, but the two major ones are exercise and nutrition—major lifestyle changes. Whatever your health condition might be, it’s wise to learn more about silent inflammation.

To know more about health and hormone control in general click here. I don’t agree with all Dr. Sears’s choices, but in general he is right. There is one diet that will help you fight this mostly unknown disorder, the Zone diet. Give it a try!

If you believe you have no control over what you put into your mouth, this belief becomes your reality. You may lack self-restraint and become a victim of learned bad habits. You may follow the crowd eating factory-made stuff, instead of natural healthy food. You may ignore the kind of nutrition that is uniquely best for your body, and choose to eat standard marketed chemical-based products disguised as food.

If however you decide you’re in charge of who you want to become, what kind of body you want to create, what kind of food you decide to select and learn to appreciate (you can change your taste in weeks!) then you can start building a healthy vibrant you. Once you build a powerful mind, your self-image and self-love increase, and unhealthy foods will no longer belong in your life.

Since the beginning of humanity, our ancestors had a very physically active life. Only since the industrial revolution has humans depended on engines, electrical motors, and robots to avoid physical effort and make life more comfortable.

Our bodies were built to use around 4,000 calories a day by running to escape predators, carrying water for miles, cutting wood to keep warm, etc. Modern life with practically no physical activity only needs half the calories our ancestors required. Not to mention the chemical poisons like refined sugar that the food industry puts in its products to create or maintain addictions to unhealthy factory-made foods. White sugar is cheaper to produce than any natural food.

It’s your responsibility to either eat less or move more. Most people believe they have no power over the shape of their bodies. Obesity has become a major worldwide health problem. Unhealthy nutrition negatively impacts the quality of your life and your longevity. Have you ever seen an obese centenarian?

We are all different, and there are no one-size-fits-all in a matter of nutrition. It’s important to find healthy eating habits that make you feel your best. It may take some time to find the nutrition that helps you the most. Make this quest a fascinating experience. It might be more interesting than detective stories! After all, it’s about your life.

On the island of Okinawa at the beginning of a meal, it is usual to say: ”Stop eating when you feel 80% full!” Okinawa has one of the highest percentage of healthy centenarians. Could that ritual be one of the reasons Okinawans live so long in good shape?

In my next letter, I’ll talk about other life-enhancing changes.

Stay tuned,

Boris Clair

PS: Discover a new free fascinating personal development experience by clicking.

Backward Aging 3.12 Cyclic Fasting

What if you could create the ideal body you want, and still eat what you like? While easily losing the fat you don’t like—without awkward calorie restriction or following a fad diet? Interested?

Well, there is an easier way, and it’s called intermittent fasting. This is not an arduous day-long challenging fast. You will just stop overfeeding your body for a few hours a week. It works wonders and this is why. The following are extracts from this site:

“When you fast, human growth hormone levels go up and insulin levels go down. Your body’s cells also change the expression of genes and initiate important cellular repair processes.

Intermittent fasting may boost metabolism slightly, while helping you eat fewer calories. It is a very effective way to lose weight and belly fat.

Intermittent fasting can have many benefits for your body and brain. It can cause weight loss, and may protect against type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. It may also help you live longer.

One of the major benefits of intermittent fasting is that it makes healthy eating simpler. There are fewer meals that you need to prepare, cook and clean up after.

The most common side effect of intermittent fasting is hunger. People with certain medical conditions should not fast without consulting with a doctor first”.

Intermittent fasting is a term for an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. It does not say anything about which foods you should eat, but rather when you should eat them. Common intermittent fasting methods involve daily 16-hour fasts, or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week. For details on the basics of Intermittent Fasting click here.

Over time, I’ve tested many different kinds of diets. Not that I needed to lose weight, but I just wanted to optimize the health and possibly the look of my body. After I started running and swimming regularly at age 50, over the course of thirty years, I absorbed tons of calories to build muscles instead of fat.

But, I see lots of my friends repeatedly lose the battle against being overweight. That’s why I also tested intermittent fasting, and love it. I now suggest anyone, except people who have anorexia, bulimia or other compromising health conditions, give it a try. It’s a fabulous life change that gives not only incredible results but also a feeling of mastering your life.

At first, I was told it was too hard to fast. Most people told me that they could never go so many hours without eating. It is currently popular to have 6 meals a day.

Having fasted up to seven days with only water, I wasn’t sure what they were talking about—not being able to go so long without eating. When my body at the beginning of a long term fast is crying for food, I give it water and it stops the feeling of hunger. I use pure water, tea or gingered water.

Gingered water is my favorite and most helpful trick. I have a small, electric coffee mill I use for seeds (flax, sunflower, squash, and others). I now use it to make a ginger mash from organic roots. When I’m thirsty, I put a teaspoon of the ginger in a mug and add hot water. It’s delicious, refreshing, and anti-inflammatory. It can also lower blood sugar and bad cholesterol levels, improves various heart disease risk factors, can prevent some cancers, and even protect against or lessen Alzheimer’s disease.

I’ve also found that some organic seaweed instant broth can replace a whole meal. It may not be too tasty, but it’s healthy. Seaweed is called an ancient superfood and was our ancestor’s secret to health and longevity. As you can see, there are multiple ways to replace solid food with just liquid. This gives the digestive tract enough time to recoup and rest for a few hours, enough to clean up the mess, regrow new cells, and avoid overfeeding.

Intermittent fasting is basically the opposite of what we do with multiple meals during the day. Applying overfeeding to ducks is what produces foie gras. Not really what we want to do to our own liver!

Scientists have long known that restricting calories is a way of lengthening life. From a logical standpoint, this makes sense. When you’re starving, your body finds ways to extend your life. Intermittent fasting activates many of the same mechanisms for extending life as does calorie restriction. In other words, you get the benefits of a longer life without the hassle of starving.

Note: Be sure to consult with a holistic or medical expert if you have any pre-existing conditions before trying this program. 

In my next letter, I’ll talk about other life-enhancing changes.

Stay tuned,

Boris Clair

PS: Discover a new free fascinating personal development experience by clicking.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1. Anonymous says:

   November 26, 2018 at 10:54 PM

   This design is wicked! You most certainly know how
   to keep a reader entertained. Between your wit and your videos, I was
   almost moved to start my own blog (well, almost…HaHa!) Great
   job. I really loved what you had to say, and more
   than that, how you presented it. Too cool!

   Reply to this Comment