On the eve of one of the holidays, I decided to get rid of old items. It’s easier to breathe around the house when you throw away something. So I attacked the holy of holies and started sorting out the deposits to send to the cottage… You understand me, it’s a shame to throw it away.
The old shoes caught my attention. All old shoes that are a pity to throw away, of course, look shabby. They can only be worn at the cottage, where there are no requirements for appearance. But you can wear them! With the loss of a neat appearance, these things have not lost their main feature – they are still boots. The base has not fallen off and all other important elements required for use are in place. Shoes that were too broken to be worn were already left in the landfill.
Of course, people become miserable and worn out like this when they reach the age of 50. But while some people live to be 90, limping and coughing, others don’t live to be 50 because their heart or other vital organs have failed. I’m not talking about those with genetic or hereditary diseases here. A large number of people who are completely healthy from birth try to die before they retire. And only modern medicine can work wonders to help them survive for a while.
What is the diffrence? Why is the time difference between people so striking, given approximately equal starting conditions and material quality of life?
Strangely enough, we get the answer from old boots, worn out but not falling apart: manufacturers designed their strength taking into account realistic loads.
Let’s try to develop longevity rules for humans based on this formula.
It is not possible to “produce” humans by adding biological “power” to them. Despite the current level of development of medicine, we receive the body we receive the moment we are born. God or nature, whatever you call it, gives everyone the biological power he deems necessary. We cannot influence this.
You cannot significantly improve your health by exercising in the morning, getting enough sleep and eating right, but you can maintain the level we have. This is already too much!
But you can strengthen a person’s psyche by helping him cope with emotional stress. Here it is appropriate to translate the word “load” into English and obtain the word “stress”. Stress is a burden that wears out a person’s nervous system, but from which everyone can be protected if the right education is given. Moreover, it does not have to be at the stage of growth and personal development. Everyone can develop stress resistance independently and at any age.
To do this, it is important to remember that stress is not an event, but a response to it. Unfortunately, most people forget this and call their lives, that is, the situations they are in, stressful. However, it is not always possible to eliminate traffic jams, rude neighbors, grumpy spouses and unfair bosses from our lives. Of course, you can try to escape from all this to another home, family, workplace or another country. But, as experience shows, a change in geography leads to the understanding that “where we are not is good.”
However, it is quite possible to change your reactions to events. All I do as a psychologist is to help people become calmer and more resourceful in the same life situations in which they were previously tense, overloading their nervous system with negative emotions and therefore worsening their health.
Here are simple rules that will help you be calmer and not follow the doctor’s words that all diseases arise from nerves:
- Take responsibility for your experiences. As long as you think that emotions are a derivative of life events, you will continue to be an emotional victim of circumstances. “If everything happens like this in life, I can’t help but worry,” they say. You can do! You can choose what emotions you experience in many situations. And you can almost always control the intensity of your experiences.
- Having fewer negative experiences, Stop equating two different concepts in terms of meaning: “not what I want” and “bad”. Repeat, or better yet, write the following statement by hand: “It’s different than I want, it’s different. But different and bad are not the same thing!”
- Give yourself permission to explore options and scenarios you didn’t plan for. Life, the world, other people and you do not have to comply with your plans, even partially. And when you demand from yourself and others that you strictly adhere to your plans, you become nervous. Remember that a plan is a guess, a theory, a fantasy about what might happen. This theory has been tested in real life.
In fact, you should try the role of scientific researcher to be less nervous. And then you will be able to do the same thing that real scientists do, refuting their own hypotheses, writing a scientific article on this topic and receiving prizes and bonuses for a new word in science.
Then even in the inevitable old age you will be quite strong, albeit a little worn out, because you have not worn out your body with unnecessary negative experiences.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.