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November 2, 2007

Staying Young

I had a hole in my afternoon yesterday, so after I watered my plants and set them outside for some fresh air and sunshine, I got sucked into the TV back in the break room in the common area behind my office. Oprah Winfrey show had a guest speaker on named Dr Oz who has a book out called You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet C. Oz.

They had props from The Body Exhibit which they used to describe the mechanism of stress and how it is communicated in the body. From the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus, a cascade of chemicals communicates with the adrenal glands that look like "dunce caps on top of the kidneys" to release stress hormones such as epinephrine and norepinephrine. The vagus nerve is the antagonist to this fight or flight system and it's easy to engage this system when you are under stress. This is important, because, according to the authors, stress is the number one aging mechanism in the body along with obesity, lack of exercise and excess sun exposure. What better way to reduce aging than get a massage and reduce to reduce stress.

You can go on-line to the Oprah website and take a quiz about the age of your body, read up on the thing you can do to reverse your biological age. I scored a 70-79, but in all fairness, some of the questions did not apply to me such as airing out my dry cleaning (I don't dry clean my clothes) and the question of flossing and dental visits had too many joke answers. I know I could do better about cardiovascular exercise and eating more vegetables (a lot of my vege servings get mixed in with other things like Chili and I don't necessarily count them). But like all of us, there is room for improvement.

tags: massage massagetherapy wellness massage therapy bodywork health

Posted by linda at November 2, 2007 7:36 AM