The first P is Perspective. To start, you need to have a perspective that a very long and healthy life is possible, that you want it and that you are willing to take whatever actions as are necessary to have it.
The second P is Participation. Participate actively in managing your health and creating your longevity. This involves being knowledgeable about your own conditions and the options available to you and seeking out and taking advantage of resources needed for your wellbeing and longevity. These could include securing good foods, companionship, intellectual challenges, exercise, dietary supplements and knowledgeable medical assistance, to start the list.
The third P is Proactivity. Simply put, go out there and create your own health and longevity. And keep creating it. It won’t happen automatically.
The fourth P is Prevention. There are multiple ways to avoid diseases and slow or stop aging processes outlined in my Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise. Take advantage of them while you are healthy. Once you have a cancer, a serious cardiovascular problem, diabetes or senile dementia, your options will be much narrower and not necessarily very good ones.
The fifth P is Perplexity. Yes, perplexity! The processes required for health and longevity are very complex and many are still poorly understood. You have to do a lot of things to keep healthy and make it to a very old age. The roadmaps are relatively poor and frequently change. There are many options and blind alleys, phony nostrums and cures that can take you off course. Be prepared to be perplexed and confused along the way. If you take on your longevity as a serious problem to be solved and grapple with it, this will just by itself enhance your neurogenesis and help you keep going longer. (See the previous blog entry Tough learning and neuron survivability).
The sixth P is Personalization. Your health and possible longevity is a highly personalized matter, different than anyone else’s. This means you need to get to know and monitor your own body’s health parameters. To start, get regular lipid and and C-reactive protein profiles. Monitor your heart rate and blood pressure if appropriate. If you have a blood glucose level issue, you can monitor that daily too. And take appropriate actions. If your CRP is off-scale and indicative of inflammation you can increase your use of anti-inflammatory supplements, for example. And pay special attention for incipient disease conditions like mild arthritis, trigger finger or carpal tunnel syndrome. These too indicate inflammatory conditions. If you are getting frequent colds or suffering from minor infections, these could indicate a weakened immune condition. You might need more rest or to take immune system strengthening supplements. If you are gaining weight or feeling lethargic you might want to exercise more, etc. And as the availability of gene-chip profiling for susceptibility to disease conditions increases, be prepared to take advantage of this technology for knowing yourself too.
The seventh P is perserverence. You need to persevere with your good eating habits, avoiding junk or bad food, non-smoking, daily exercise and taking your supplements, paying attention to all the factors impacting on your health and lonngevity. Otherwise you might not live long or healthily enough to take advantage of new longevity breakthroughs from molecular biology or nanomedicine as they come along.
