Valerie Jay is a retired school teacher and a psychology enthusiast whose new book, Psychology for You and Me, draws on her years of study in fields as diverse as neuroscience, epigenetics and psychology. Here, Valerie shares tips she learned from the experts in staving off the negative effects of ageing.
Diaphragmatic breathing
We’re talking now of an amazing health practice with no cost and that takes very little time. It’s so simple and effective it seems too good to be true. Here’s a list from Harvard Medical School of some of the benefits possible from only a few minutes daily of deep diaphragmatic breathing.
It turns down the stress response. It reduces risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. It improves sleep, increases energy, lengthens cell life and slows ageing. Diaphragmatic breathing strengthens the immune system, elevates endorphins, improves mental activity and changes gene expression.
(This is an abbreviated list only. Research the Harvard Medical School website to see the physiological details as to how these and other benefits are attained.)
How to breathe diaphragmatically
We need to know how to do this before we go any further. But let’s call it by its simpler title—belly breathing. Why? This form of breathing is all about the belly. As you’ll see below, an intrusion by the chest and the shoulders is not wanted.
Step 1
Here’s an easy way to learn. Think about this: “Breath in, belly out; breathe out, belly in.” Send that message to your brain. Now try it, pushing your belly out gently as you breathe in and pulling it back in gently as you breathe out. See? Don’t involve the chest and shoulders. That’s a really important part of belly breathing to remember. Simple stuff—but critical to conquering successful diaphragmatic breathing, because that will be a permanent part of your future manner of breathing … and your ongoing wellness.
Step 2
Put your hands on your belly button to get the feeling of the rise and fall. Keep them there and gently and slowly breathe in through your nose, a little deeper than usual. Feel your abdominal area rise up and out. When that area expands naturally on a deep, slow in-breath like that, you are filling your lower lungs with oxygen. This is good. It will go throughout your entire body.
Pause brie y and then slowly, slowly breathe out through your pursed lips. Consciously make it a longer breath than you took in. You are breathing out carbon dioxide. As you gently return your belly to its normal flatter position you are helping the carbon dioxide to ow out. That’s good too.
Oxygen is necessary to give our cells energy. Carbon dioxide is the by-product of the process. It needs to be breathed out for oxygen to be renewed. But they must be in balance. Don’t make a big deal of it. It shouldn’t be forced. It will eventually happen without your noticing it.
Well done! You have just taken yourself through the basics of slow deep breathing.
Dancing
There is evidence to show that dancing regularly enhances cognitive sharpness. It stimulates the speed of thinking and might even be holding dementia at bay. A 21-year study into ageing of seniors over 75, supervised by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and summarised online by dance historian Richard Powers, monitored dementia rates including Alzheimer’s disease.
The Einstein College was looking to see if being involved in recreational activities would invigorate the elderly brain and make it more alert and active. The findings were interesting in that they showed some activities had clear beneficial effects while others had none. Some of the activities studied and their results are summarised below.
Cognitive: doing crossword puzzles, reading books, playing cards, writing for pleasure and playing musical instruments.
Physical: playing tennis or golf, swimming, cycling, walking for exercise, doing housework and dancing.
You might be surprised to know that almost none of the physical activities scored as being specifically protective against dementia. Certainly they are protective against cardiovascular disease, but as regards the brain and mind, no. There was one standout physical activity, however. Yes, you’ve guessed it. Dancing! But the proviso was— frequent dancing.
These are some scores.
Reading—35% reduced risk. Cycling and swimming—0%. Crossword puzzles at least four times a week—47%. Playing golf—0%. DANCING frequently—76%.
Dancing frequently was shown to be the best activity, both physically and cognitively, to ward off dementia.
Why is this so?
Does it mean all dancing has the same effect? No. Studies show that learning different types of dances at least once a week causes the thinking part of the brain (the cognitive part) to join with muscle memory (the movement part) and maximise brain function generally, which is how dementia is made less likely.
In other words, with some dances we have to think quick smart to keep our feet moving and stay in time with the steps. And the brain relishes that. It’s about change, which is basically necessary in anything we do to extend the brain’s cognitive capacity. That’s really obvious when we think about it. If we’re into academic pursuits, the brain would become very bored if we read the same sorts of books about the same topics and never ventured into any new area.
Similarly, if we stayed at the same level while learning a second language or playing a musical instrument there’d be no challenge either. Change is critical for extending ourselves to stimulate the brain in both physical and cognitive activities.
When learning a new dance where body and brain have to make instant and constant decisions as to how to move the feet to a new rhythm or pattern, the change is rapid and the learning process extremely challenging. The brain is energised with that challenge and gives intelligence a big boost.
We can see, then, that while doing the same dances (or any other activity) over and over might be pleasant and comforting, the brain has no inclination to lift our intelligence for effort. It wants an eager venturing into new fields, where we have to think quickly and move accordingly. And since it craves movement of all kinds (and note that means movement in thinking as well as activities) innovative, fast dancing fits both these requirements.
There are dancers who look forward to being tested regularly in this way and love acquiring a repertoire of difficult new items. Good on them! Many of these people would be professionals. Others would be simply challenging themselves.
Then there are the millions of everyday devotees who just love to dance. They’re not especially interested in any cognitive advantage. They’re happy to get that stimulation somewhere else. They just want to lose themselves in the bliss of moving to music, whether the dances are well known or new.
Remember, it’s the frequency that is important, so whatever your motivation for being a dancer, try to do it regularly to gain the most benefits. The bottom line is dancing of any sort is great exercise and exercise brings tremendous benefits to body and mind. Be assured you have every chance of living a long and healthy life … with any worries firmly under your control and hopefully, staving off dementia.
For non-dancers
There are plenty of other challenges that need cognitive quick changes, which will help your brain hone your intelligence. The thing is not to get into a safe, dull, repetitive rut with whatever you like to do. Choose one, or two or more activities to suit you that demand constant original and different ideas on your part.
Learning to play an instrument or speak a new language are great intellectual challenges. Have you thought of giving your brain a stimulating wake-up by trying everyday things unexpectedly and differently? It can be as simple as deliberately changing to your other hand for writing something. Or using your usual fork-holding hand to cut your food. Make a game of attempting to become ambidextrous.
It’s surprising and interesting how quickly our competence with opposite legs, arms and hands will improve if we utilise them in ways we never thought of before. For example, a sudden change from a normal walking gait to a heel-toe one, then backwards via toe-heel, can give the brain a sudden jolt to please it. Great for balance improvements too.
There are unlimited ways to step out of our routine safely with using our bodies differently. The brain will be eager to pursue these new movements. The more you provoke it with unexpectedness, the more it will sharpen your intelligence.
In a different way, then, you can be as smart and innovative as those fleet-of-footers!
Altered States of Consciousness
We need to know that when we let the mind/body slip below our normal level of attention as we do with relaxation/meditation there is a powerful effect on the brain. Daydreaming, sleeping, becoming lost in a book, watching a play, taking drugs, hypnosis … for innumerable other ways, we can move ourselves, or be moved by a situation, or person, into an altered state of consciousness.
That means our full awareness has shifted. We’re no longer in that stable state of focusing intently on some current experience or emotion. We have drifted willingly, or been shaken uncomfortably, or even violently sometimes as with an accident, into another level of cognitive experience.
For example, as you read this you are fully conscious of concentrating on the words and meanings. But if you look away and shift your attention to something else outside the window, say, maybe to think more deeply about what you’ve read, or perhaps to have a break from the intensity of it, you have altered your previously fully attentive consciousness into another brain state of being.
Our consciousness is constantly shifting from one position to another and therefore creating different states of awareness (and emotions) sometimes without our intending to do so. However, we’ve been learning all through this book to take control of our thinking.
Practising the relaxation response (RR) to control the stress response (SR) is a great example of controlled thinking. As we lose our conscious awareness of the world around us by ignoring intruding thoughts and focusing solely on whatever it is we’ve chosen, we drift deeply into a still and quiet altered state (with relaxed bodily functioning) because we’ve quietened the SR. It follows that the longer we’re able to relax, the deeper we slip into an altered state.
If you want to send a message to your receptive brain at this time (peace of mind, physical wellness, an accomplishment as with passing an exam, etc.) you need to plan that beforehand so the suitable words can be your sole focus during deep relaxation. You will then lay down the appropriate pathways for your brain to help you in whatever endeavour you’re pursuing. If you prefer, of course, you can just drift deeper and deeper with words (or feelings) as simple as “let go” and enjoy therapeutically your quietening and healing altered state.
There are tremendous wellness benefits that come from dampening down the SR. Such accomplishments have recently moved into deeper self-management areas of health and stability, especially relating to epigenetics, where we can utilise our thinking, our minds and our lifestyles to actually affect the expression of our genes.
Dr Herbert Benson measured the activity of 50,000 genes to assess the effects of stress on each of them. The results showed relaxation having a strongly positive influence on those groups of genes responsible for immunity, ageing and many other positive clusters for a healthy life. This is an area of mind/body study that is only in its infancy.
The shifting of power to our minds via our thinking is at the basis of our future gene management. It’s inevitable our knowledge of the new and challenging biology of epigenetics will increase. We are intimately involved with that biology. Where will that connection take us in the future? Almost certainly further options for mind/body healing will open up for us. But it is still unknown gene-manipulating territory we’re entering. We don’t know what awaits us there.
But what we can be sure of is that Hippocrates, the father of all human healing, would merely smile at our uncertainty and tell us: “You are doing well with your discoveries and you will do even better with those to come, but remember, ‘it’s natural forces within us that are the true healers of disease’”. And that is always comforting to know!
© Valerie Jay, 2017
Extracted from Psychology for You and Me by Valerie Jay (onsale now, $29.99pb, $9.99 ebook)
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