The secret of longevity

In harmony with the world

Alina Kuramshina, RIA Novosti

We all dream of living happily ever after. And as it turned out, one is the pledge of the other. These and other secrets of longevity were shared by the speaker of the forum "The Health of the nation is the basis of Russia's prosperity", Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, President of the Russian Association of Gerontologists and Geriatricians Vladimir Shabalin.

– How to delay aging?

– The dream of eternal youth accompanies a person for centuries. Recently, anti-aging societies have even emerged. But no one has ever been able to argue with nature. It must be understood that aging is the basis, the basis of life, it is a physiological unidirectional process.

Everything else is superstructures: our illnesses, misfortunes, sorrows.

– But how to achieve longevity?

– Solving the problem of longevity is a complex systemic process that should last for a lifetime.

People are extremely illogical. We do not expect that scientists will create a means to make any person a great athlete without his personal efforts. To achieve high results, you have to train a lot.

And with regard to longevity, most of us do not want to put up with much less hardships of the lifestyle, which eventually allow us to achieve longevity. They hope for some means, pills that will eliminate the pathological changes that have accumulated in the body as a result of laziness, abuse. Our lifestyle is reflected in the structure of tissues, primarily the brain.

– What specific tips can you give to stay in good shape for as long as possible?

– First of all, you need to find harmony with the world around you. It is necessary to create a feeling of happiness in your spiritual structure.

This is one of the foundations of the psychological processes that allow us to achieve longevity.

Many pin their hopes on diets. Of course, nutrition is very important. But different diets (separate, by hemocode, by blood type and many others) – these are all unfounded inventions. The body itself knows what it needs. There is such an expression: "We are made up of what we eat." In fact, this is not quite true – we consist of what our body accepts. Much of the food eaten passes through the digestive tract in transit.

Our body is an exceptionally complex system, including almost the entire periodic table, it requires a wide variety of nutrients. These requirements cannot be met by any single diet. Of course, there are special dietary tables prescribed for certain diseases. But by prescribing some special, unjustified diet to a healthy person, we risk our unreasonable interference to bring discomfort into his harmonious biological processes.

At the same time, there are general recommendations – a varied diet, mandatory dosing of food by volume, high-quality selection of products.

Most importantly, a person should listen to himself, to how he perceives certain foods. It is necessary to determine the menu based on general dietary principles and the sensations that a particular food causes in a person.

Of course, when choosing a diet, age recommendations should be taken into account: the older a person is, the more food choices he should shift towards plant foods, reducing animal products in his diet, limiting the intake of fats, salt, and sugars into the body.

– The secret of longevity is also in psychological happiness. Abroad, after retirement, they begin to travel around the world. Our retirement is comparable to the end of life, and there is a sharp physiological aging.

– Since the middle of the last century, a trend has developed in the public consciousness aimed at the fact that upon reaching retirement age, a person should go on a so-called well-deserved rest. However, this trend is based on an understanding of human age biology, which developed in the XVII-XIX centuries. Today we need to understand that in the XX century the average life expectancy has doubled. The biological age has also changed. If in the Middle Ages a 40-year–old man was already an old man, now the young age limit is 45 years.

Now 60-70-year-olds do not feel like old people. They are ready to work, continue their professional activities and further.

With a change in social status, upon retirement, a person finds himself in a completely different social situation. What makes a person meaningful? Its social relevance. If a person is needed by society, he is confident in himself, tries to maintain his physical and intellectual status, strives for further professional and general development.

Therefore, going on a well–deserved rest is the strongest psychological stress. A 55-year-old woman is stamped "old-age pension" in her pension book, and she is still in a flourishing age. Of course, it's not easy to survive.

It is believed that the retirement age is the age of incapacity for work. In fact, there is no disabled age, there is a disabled person. Moreover, you can lose your ability to work at the age of 40 for some reason, and at the age of 90 you can still be very efficient.

We have infirm people among pensioners – about 5%. Somewhere up to 15% need outside help from time to time. And 80% can work. And this huge contingent, for whose professional training huge public funds have been spent, is being pushed to the sidelines of life by some incomprehensible principles.

We trumpet everywhere that we don't have any age restrictions, but in fact we do. For example, at the age of 65, you cannot be the director of an institute or the head of a department, the head of a laboratory. I understand that young people need to be given a way, but it is necessary to look for opportunities so that both young people are arranged and the potential of an elderly person is used wisely.

– Can this be changed?

– Of course you can. The wisdom of state leaders is to create inter-age professional harmony. This is a legal, not a medical problem. It is necessary to create various flexible conditions for a person's retirement. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the wishes of the person himself by retirement age and create an appropriate flexible financial interest when choosing retirement conditions.

Sooner or later, a person still retires, retires from professional activity. In order not to get lost at all, he must find some kind of niche for employment. A person should not go into idleness, because work is the most powerful geroprotector. Not chemical pills, but only work, both physical and mental, ensures a stable biological and social state of a person. It is this condition that determines the longevity of a person with a high quality of life.

– The basis of longevity is happiness, work and?..

– Everyone knows that hardening is necessary. But not everyone takes a cold shower in the morning, and it needs to be done. Body hygiene, sleep hygiene, and soul hygiene are all necessary conditions for achieving longevity.

You can't abuse anything. The Golden Rule: "Everything is fine in moderation."

And most importantly, a person should be responsible for his own health. Medicine should help him in a difficult moment. But a person must constantly feel personally responsible for maintaining and strengthening their health.

– What is being done at the state level in order to prolong the life of citizens?

– It is important for the state that the population lives long and efficiently. There is no higher goal than this. All our multifaceted actions should be aimed at the most important goal – to ensure that a person lives beautifully and in good health.

In August 2014, a meeting of the Presidium of the State Council was held, at which the current problems of the older generation were considered. As a result, President Vladimir Putin instructed the Government of the Russian Federation to prepare documents to address the main issues related to demographic aging.

This strategy was released in 2016. The document contains a number of interesting points. At the same time, I am not very impressed with the fact that the benchmarks are not aimed at a strategic solution to the problem, but at current, tactical moments – for example, the increase in specialized beds, the construction of homes with conditions for the disabled and elderly, the introduction of specialized transport. I think that such indicators will not provide an increase in the quality of life and will not increase its duration.

Effective strategic directions in solving the problems of demographic aging are currently being actively developed by public organizations. I think that we should look for a rational grain in them.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  24.04.2017