I had the very great pleasure of interviewing Dr Elissa Epel a few evenings ago. As you may recall she is the co-author of the book “The Telomere Effect” along with Elizabeth Blackburn. Blackburn was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2009 for her work on telomeres and telomerase.
My conversation with Dr Epel will be available to you shortly but I wanted to give you a brief low down on some of what we covered. As a clinical psychologist with an interest in stress and its effects on behavior and health, there is a wealth of great advice on how to deal with it, both in the book and on the telecon recording. Naturally there is nothing better than getting if from the mouth of the author but of course it’s not possible to take several hundred pages and condense them into a one hour interview.
One amusing analogy came out in the discussion. We spoke about rumination and ruminants. You may know that cows are ruminants because the chew cud, or regurgitate stuff up from their bellies and chew it again and again for digestive purposes.
Well it occurred to me that humans are “cognitive ruminants” because we chew and re chew on our thoughts. Something like 95+ percent of our thoughts are “rethought” over and over again. If they are happy and joyful thoughts this may not be a problem, but if they are problem or task oriented it does us no good and perhaps harm. Frankly I noticed this patter in my own thinking in the past and have tried to effectively deal with it. Rethinking a process or answer to a problem rarely adds anything but anxiety once you’ve come up with a plan.
Dr. Epel reviewed some great meditation tips as well to break the cycle of the daily “fight or flight” response and get you out of the limbic mind.
Speaking of giants and minds, my friend Matt Furey recently made a comment about Tai Chi, stating that one of the main goals of Tai Chi was to help you relax! Now that has movement associated with it but he followed it up with a comment about releasing people from the limbic mind.
It was so very fascinating to me that 2 people from 2 dissimilar backgrounds both of whom are among the most self-actualized people I know, came up with the same observations and statements about the limbic mind- often referred to as the “lizard brain” because it does not involve thought, only reflexive action. This is also one of the key brain areas for panic, fight or flight and other actions that while really useful when needed, are not where we are meant to spend hours a day.
Now in terms of longevity and health there are a lot of reasons why you will want to control your limbic mind and stop thought ruminations. One the direct damaging effects of these mental processes is on your telomeres, the biologic time clocks of your cells.
Essential point, stay tuned for when we are going to air this interview!
I also want to remind you that TA-65 now has published studies showing a positive effect on your telomeres and that we are again selling* that product. I have been on it nonstop since 2009!
I also want to remind you do EVERYTHING you can to keep those telomeres healthy- this about lifestyle not just pills potions and lotions. If you have been paying attention over the past 8 years, you have seen the numerous emails and blogs I’ve written about diet, exercise, meditation, etc. and their potential effects on your longevity and telomere health!
Things are revving up here and we’ll soon have more products for you that I think will help but we should all be grateful for the Giants in our lives who teach us, shape us and spoon feed us their knowledge. Now stop rumination and start doing!
Best,
Dr. Dave
*Neither Dr Epel nor any of my guest super stars in ANY Field endorse me, my products, what I sell or what I say and do. They appear out of kindness and mutually shared scientific interest and to share their Knowledge with YOU!!!