Three pillars of life

Three pillars of life

Monday, July 27, 2015

Ageing and Anti-Ageing - 2 of the most popular words in cosmetics advertising.

I am always striving towards financial wellbeing, emotional wellbeing and physical wellbeing, sometimes I do like to do some charity too. As per my experience and knowledge, these 3 are interrelated things, we have to balance all three so as to live a happy life. We will get to how they are interconnected slowly, or rather if you keep reading this blog, you will come to know. So this blog also revolves around the same things.

Today's topic is related to physical well-being, and trust me physical well-being also brings with it emotional well-being.

Todays post is inspired by a number of things coming together, (yes I am a lazy person and needs this much of inspirations coming together to make me write a post ๐Ÿ˜)

No. 1 Just saw a movie named Bajrangi Bhaijaan starring Salman Khan. Well Salman Khan is a Bollywood actor, he is what Arnold Schwarzenegger is to the Hollywood. The film Bajrangi Bhaijaan is making record earnings in India as well as Pakistan. And it is great to watch.

No. 2 Harley Davidson motor cycles companies' Fat Boy recently became 25 years old. The bike is starred in Terminator 2, which is my all time favourite movie, I still have a poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger riding the Fat Boy in my bedroom. The bike is fat in every respect that's why the name.

No. 3 The movie Terminator 2 also became almost 25 years old.

No. 4 They did a photo shoot of Arnold Schwarzenegger with the 2015 Harley Davidson Fat Boy. Which I saw on the internet. Both man and machine looks made for each other. ๐Ÿ˜Š

NO. 5 Fat boy is also starred in latest instalment of Terminator movie which is still in the movie theatres.

And the last one...

No. 6 An advertisement of anti-ageing cream.
(Apply our cream twice daily and look up to 20 years younger in 3 weeks.. Huh!!!!)

We hear these advertisements such as if you are seeing the signs of ageing like wrinkles on your facial skin, dark circles etc. take our anti-ageing medicine or apply our anti-ageing cream so as to reverse the age and look up to 20 years younger.

There is a paradox in first 5 inspirations and the 6th inspiration. On one hand we have these aged actors still having young body and soul, inspiring us to build health and fitness and on the other hand we have poor civilians, who lack health and can easily be made target by such advertisements.

So my brain started working the usual question and answers way..

Why do they make such advertisements?
Because they must be working.

How does these advertisements work?
They make people think that there is an opportunity to look young.

Who doesn't want to look younger??
Well, children may be..

But apart from children majority of adults want to look younger than they are. But to understand why looking younger is so much in demand, we must understand -

What is AGEING?

Let's see first what happens in our body from birth to natural death -

First when we are bourn our body contains fat cells, muscle cells, bones, blood etc. The proportion of fats to bone and muscles changes as per our age. The bones and muscles works together so they are either both strong or both weak. (There are other things too such as cartilages, ligaments, tendons etc. which works along with muscles and bones, but to make the basics easy to understand let's ignore them for a while) That is why both bones and muscles are on one side and fat is on the other side as far as ageing is concerned.

So back to our topic, as we grow towards the age of say 25 to 30, (the values of age I am going to tell are rough averages, they may change as per person to person because of genetic factors, environmental factors, habits etc. the numbers are just for understanding purpose), so as we grow towards the age of 25 to 30, the ratio of fats to muscle ➕ bones remains low. Our body looks lean, more muscular, then as we go past the age of 25 to 30 the ratio of fats starts increasing, we also start gaining weight, our digestive power starts declining our strength and stamina starts declining etc. And after the age of 80 everything including fats starts declining rapidly.

(So being young is perceived as being healthy, full of power and stamina. This may be the reason for want of being or looking young.)

This is what happens as far as biology is concerned.

This mentioned process is the biological ageing process.

Fats are neutral things which do not do any functions of the body unless they are burnt, they do not give strength to the body. Therefore as we age, our skin develops wrinkles as the muscle giving them strength are losing their strength.

Whenever I say muscles, read it muscle ➕ bones, because in most of the cases they are interdependent. Bones act as levers and muscle provide the force, together they make us able to do various movements. So the lever must be as strong as the force which is going to be applied on it. Or the opposite is also true, i.e. the bones can't be stronger than the muscle they work with because our body slowly discards useless things except fats may be.๐Ÿ˜Š This is because fats are our bodies' reserved energy, which is kept for emergencies, which never happen in todays world, and to the people reading this blog.

The primary sign of ageing is loss of muscles and increase in fat accumulation. Secondary signs are wrinkles.

In todays world because of lack of body movements this process of ageing has become very fast. We don't generally walk, we use vehicles, we don't climb stairways, we simply take the elevator, our jobs generally involve sitting in front of computer for hours. We eat a lot of junk food. (The problem with the junk food is generally that, it is high in fats, oils but low in proteins and other nutrients which are necessary for the maintenance and growth of muscles. Therefore junk food aids in ageing.)

All these activities or rather inactivity result in muscle loss and fat accumulation. The muscle loss is because muscles are not used up to needed degree so body considers it as excess and reduces them to reduce the maintenance requirement.

So now a days many people are biologically much older than there calendar age.

Do you think application of a cream can reduce this process?

If you are still thinking application of a cream can reverse this ageing process then stop reading my blog right now. This blog is not for you.

For those who understand now that application of cream can't reverse the ageing process can read further.

So what can reverse this process of ageing?

There is an answer in the science. A simple one-

OUR BODY BUILDS WHAT IS NEEDED AND DISCARDS WHAT IS NOT NEEDED.

This is the basis of exercise.

We have to tell our body in a language it can understand that muscles and bones are needed very much. Then only our body will build more muscles and bones, there by reversing the ageing process. And this language is the language of exercise.

If you yourself do not understand this language of exercise then you can't convey this message to your body. Even if you consult very intelligent dietician or fitness trainer, it won't work for long. As a result you can't achieve the result of reversing the process of ageing. (though I say reversing the process of ageing, it doesn't mean reversing it indefinitely, but up to some extent like you can expect looking a little younger or more younger depending on your understanding and efforts towards the subject).

It's your body and no one can understand it better than you. And trust me it is not that difficult. Just take it easy.

I hope I have contributed something towards your knowledge of the concept of ageing. So that now you are not vulnerable to the advertisements of anti ageing creams or medicines.

In the next post we will learn more about the language of exercise.

Till then have a nice day..


Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

No comments:

Post a Comment