http://www.care2.com/greenliving/are-you-old-or-young.html
Are You Old or Young?
The typical American way of handling the polarity of old and young is to fixate on being young forever. But the image of America as the land of eternal youth is grossly at odds with reality.
If we look beyond the false duality of “old” and “young,” what we find is a different reality: The body is a network of messages constantly being transmitted and received. Some of these messages nourish and sustain us, while others lead to disorder and breakdown.
Life-nourishing experiences go far beyond cell biology. The tenderness of a mother watching her toddler walk for the first time feeds the baby’s body (witness how a baby languishes when motherly love is withdrawn, even for a day). To a growing child, the sensitive encouragement of a teacher is as important as a hot lunch. What makes for a straighter spine, vitamin-D milk or self-esteem?
Once we reach adulthood, gaining the wholehearted respect of co-workers wards off heart disease as effectively (and much more naturally) as counting milligrams of cholesterol. Respect makes the heart feel trusting and confident, two ingredients that belong inside any healthy body. The decisions we make in terms of our basic happiness and fulfillment are therefore exactly the ones that determine how we age.
It has dawned on medicine that nurturing is immensely valuable physiologically. If newborns are touched and caressed, their levels of growth hormones increase, and the protective coating of the motor nerves, myelin, becomes thicker. A mother’s loving urge to cuddle her baby translates directly into life-sustaining biochemical reactions.
Babies deprived of loving attention can become emotionally stunted or dysfunctional. The instinct for emotional nourishment proves more powerful than does that for physical nourishment.
Adapted from Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, by Deepak Chopra (Three Rivers Press, 1998).
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17 comments
add your comment »thanks for the article! actually, i don't think age is a problem. young people may not be happier. i think if we always keep our mind young, try more new things and keep our mind in peace, even though a 80-year-old granny can be as happy as a teen.
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thanks.i kinda understand this.
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This really helped me make a decision. I have been on the fence about staying at my second job. It is nice to have the extra money but they lack respect for me and it is not a nurturing environment. It has been stressful to go there and I have been dreading it. Now I understand why. I have changed the rest of my life recently so that I get what my body needs. Cutting off this job is the last step I need to really nourish my body and mind. Thank you!
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well I'm 27 turning 28 in in less then 2 weeks so i guess i say im old but still young at heart thanx to my daughter without her i would feel older then i do for sure lol
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i feel ancient
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I am far older that my seasons suggest
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Mamta, I'm assuming that the D stands for dear; you are SO right. The thing is that after a certain point it becomes fairly impossible to be touched by another human unless amongst an affectionate family. Being very tactile myself I depend on my cats and after having gotten over that they were not human and accepted their affectionate caress as not less though other I find that we are quite content. My mother was a nurse and she told me about how if an infant wasn't held it would die from the lack of our most primal bonding, the concrete assurance that the soul is where it's meant to be. It's very strange since she didn't like to be touched too much and then when she was quite old complained that no one really wanted to touch her. I once had a lover who complained because I need to touch; not necessarily intimately though affectionately, much as our animal friends will brush against us casually walking by, I see no point in a mate that would not allow this and he told me " get a cat " so I did, and truly they are my salvation in this world. When I say my prayers I ask that we ( the cats and me) will recognize each other in whatever form we are in and thus forever continue together through all the adventures of manifestation.
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Touch therapy always works .It is a great healing magic.
Even doctors have admitted - Miracles do happen.
This is My personal experience .
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In a sense, I'm both. :-)
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I'm always asked my age, and my answer is always:
I am as young as a newborn babe and as old as the first
light of wisdom born ;)
Still in awe of the little things, "like a butterfly that lands on my
finger," or the song of rain falling on the roof.
I experience life;" the good, bad and the ugly," not just living
through it. Life is a circle, a beginning flowing to the end, yet,
never ending. How you experience the journey and handle all
experiences is what life is all about. I don't just live, I embrace experiencing life to learn and there for am able to teach.
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