There’s an incredibly important distinction you can make in your mind right now that is life-changing if applied :

You are not your body.

You have a body.

You can have a body the same way you have a puppy...

And of course, having a puppy means you have to look after the puppy.

Which is a fairly simple thing to do, if you know how to take care of dogs.

You take it for walks, feed it healthy foods, play with it and give it somewhere comfortable to sleep.

You do what is best for that little puppy.

Sure a dog can coax you into a few extra snacks, but you probably only indulge them within reason.

So why is it so difficult for us to care for ourselves this way?

It all boils down to the way we collapse ourselves with our hominid body

Saying things such as ‘I’ am hungry, or ‘I’ am tired.

Feelings then become “my” feelings, and feelings take precedence over what’s best for the body.

For example, our puppy's feelings might be considered, but only to a certain extent.

If they beg for an extra snack you might indulge a little, but within reason.

However, when your feelings prod at you, the mind jumps in to justify behaviors that might not be in the best interest of this body of yours.

Now if you hadn't collapsed yourself ‘as’ your body, you might be able to objectively care for your body by giving it what it needed to thrive and nothing more.

The same way you maintain the role of responsible caretaker for your canine friend.

So what do you do now?

This question is a complex subject that the market tries to simplify…

It says things like:

“Just eat well, then you’re fine.”

“Exercise like this, then you’re fine.”

“Hack your biology, then you’re fine.”

The market tries to tell you that focusing on a single part is all you need to do.

But in reality, you need to focus on all of them.

And the most important part of all is your mental and emotional state…

…Which can be endured, reasoned with, and controlled much more easily once we make that language shift in our minds, and practice it consistently.

Because after all it's your thoughts and emotions that are really driving you.

Let’s say someone wants to fast to induce autophagy (the natural process in which cells break down and recycle old or unnecessary parts).

…But they’re dealing with some familiar feelings of anxiety.

And in order to quell the anxiety, they’ve been eating pizza.

Everyone faces a similar dilemma at some point.

Being drawn in one direction while needing to white knuckle it in the other direction, the one you know you need to go.

You need to understand that your body will have the thoughts and feelings of “I’m going to feel hungry, lonely, scared, and even more anxious without the pizza.”

But you are the responsible caretaker of a hominid body and won’t be seduced by their fleeting emotions.

Here’s where we need to detach the “I” from our thinking.

We need to tell ourselves that “my body, my hominid, might go through a period of discomfort…”

“…But, I need to do what’s best for my body because once through, I will have clarity and feel re-energized.”

You need to go through the perception of discomfort in order to achieve clarity.

And the more often you become present to the fact you are the caretaker of a human body, and you act in alignment with that, the more your body strengthens its homeostatic capacity (the capacity to maintain homeostasis).

Let me explain:

When you get too hot, you sweat.

When you get too cold, you shiver.

Homeostasis is the process by which the body monitors and decides how much heat or cold it takes before it sweats or shivers, and does the same for other corrective measures.

When something goes out of balance, the body works to regain homeostasis.

This process protects us and keeps us alive.

Homeostatic capacity is how far the body can go from homeostasis, and still be able to return to homeostasis.

Now, if you put yourself in cold water, your core temperature is moving away from its homeostatic baseline.

But, the more you put yourself in cold water, and the longer you put yourself in cold water each time…

The more efficiently your body improves its ability to return to homeostasis.

You might not want to get into cold water but you know it’s good for the body.

Naturally, this process of strengthening and quickening homeostasis makes you more robust.

It makes you stronger.

And the exact same thing applies to mental and emotional processes.

Now, here’s where things get really interesting…

Our cells are coded to age.

But recently science has been figuring out ways to slow it down.

To keep cells healthier for longer.

This has been done before with stem cells.

But there’s something else I’ve observed recently within myself.

A couple weeks ago, when I was lifting something heavy off the ground, I noticed myself groan as if I was in pain…

But then I realized that I had more than enough strength to pick it up, and I wasn’t in any pain.

Why did I make that sound?

It’s almost like it was coded into my DNA to start acting old.

I had a similar experience with reading books.

My whole family has been getting bad eyesight once they hit age 40.

And around that age, I noticed myself leaning away from books as I was reading them.

But I questioned it.

I asked myself why I was doing it.

I told myself I didn’t need to do it.

And then I started to relax, and I read the book at a normal distance as if my eyesight was fine.

Now, seven years later, yes, my vision has deteriorated but very slightly…

Not nearly at the rate it was initially deteriorating before I made these mental statements and denied the age-inducing behavior.

Of course aging is a natural process but I believe we can have an effect on the rate of aging by maintaining a youthful attitude.

Think about it this way.

If you want to fix a hole in your sweater, it’s easier to take it off to sew it than to sew it while you’re still wearing it.

We need that separation between the aware (I) and the physical body.

So next time you’re having trouble with impulse control, mentally and linguistically separate yourself (I) from your hominid (body).

And catch yourself acting old.

Pay attention.

Simply deny the early aging-related behaviors, in each situation ask what’s best for my hominid and you can rewrite the code of your own DNA.

Warmly,

Paul Vincent