Definitely preaching to the choir on the whole stress thing. I tell everyone there’s literally nothing worse than chronic stress, when it comes to the human body. I mean I’m sure there’s worse things, but it’s up there, and people usually have no idea how negatively stress affects the human body. I don’t think anyone truly understands all the negative things it does, including me. Don’t think we’ll ever figure out all the mechanisms by which stress affects the body negatively. All I know is that it’s absolutely one of the worst things, and if we made a list of all the things it negatively affects, while ur in a state of stress, I guarantee the list would be so much longer than anyone could ever imagine. I’ve heard one doctor say that stress basically makes most of the actions in the body work improperly. Kind of makes sense. Cuz stress most likely puts the body in a low grade form of being in fight or flight, and we know that while we’re in fight or flight mode, the body sacrifices normal every day functions, in order to put its resources into things that we temporarily might need, in order to survive. That state is fine, if we’re quickly in and out of it, but being in that state for long periods of time, is going to ultimately cause a host of issues.You have a fair point as well. But lets not forget that even doing all the supplement regime and cardio regime there are other things that influence like stress. And some of us can't mitigate current stress for various different reasons and then no matter what you do things won't get better doing the generic protocols and strategies implemented. We can argue both points into the ground but the fact that stress is a major key player will stay. If supplements, cardio regimes and all don't work then def meditation is the way to go or at least to give it a fair try. It's not about this, or maybe it is? The best CFS and Adrenal fatigue docs in the USA swear that meditation is 50% or even more of success plus 1 main supplement and a few other simple ones. So like I said, if implementing your strategies, shit don't work, it's time to be a bit more open minded and do what you don't want to do as meditating 3x/day sounds funny af, but trust me it works wonders and everyone who is into it knows the deal. Simple YT beach sounds 20-30mins 3x day with eyes closed, earbuds on and in comfy position. It goes way beyond what an average person would imagine
I’ve watched so many things on longevity, whether it’s interviews, or documentaries, etc, and have even done little interviews on my own, while working in healthcare. I’ve sat down with many patients that were over 100, and asked them a bunch of questions, to figure out if there was some things that they all had in common, that I couldn’t take away and implement myself. And the main thing that I’ve gotten out of all that, as far as what people that live a long time have in common, other than food genetics obv, is stress management. Seems like most people that are healthy into their very later years, handle stress very well. They seem to be able to have bad/ stressful/ sad things happen to them, but are able to process and get over them relatively quickly, and get back to a state of focusing on the things in there life that bring them happiness. I knew one lady that lived until like 107, and for the last 30 years of her life, drank a bottle of wine per day. I truly think that probably benefited her, due to it keeping her in a state of low stress/ low worry, a lot of the day. Anyways, I’m a firm believer that keeping stress low, is one of the best ways to stay in optimal health, and increase longevity. That with an optimal diet, are my top one and two things, that I think someone can do, as far as feeling/ functioning optimally and increasing longevity goes
But again, like u said, for some people that’s absolutely easier said than done. Even in my life currently, it’s much easier said than done, and very few people understand how negatively stress affects the body, more than me. Or very few people, other than me, believe that it affects the body so negatively, I should say.