Will Aging Become Optional?

As you read this, I’m likely roaming around the Himalayas in Bhutan. But I’m writing this in Bangkok, sitting next to the pool. It’s 91 degrees!

I’ve collected a fair amount of good content over the last week or so, and a clear theme showed up — namely, aging. As in, do we have to do it?

That may seem like a silly question. After all, aging is simply part of life, right?

Maybe not.

According to Harvard professor David Sinclair, aging is optional. Or it will be soon:

The oldest-known living person is Kane Tanaka, a Japanese woman who is a mind-boggling 116 years old. But if you ask David Sinclair, he’d argue that 116 is just middle age. At least, he thinks it should be.

Right now, we call our 40s to 50s “middle age,” and given that the average life expectancy for Americans is 77.6 years, even that’s a stretch. And yet, we may be the first generation to live a lot longer than that, if we take care of ourselves now.

There’s plenty of research to suggest that exercise, cold exposure, and calorie reduction all help slow down the side effects of aging and stave off diseases associated with getting older.

Explore Sinclair’s ideas in the article below. And if you’re intrigued, check out his book Lifespan in this week’s Further book pick.

This Scientist Believes Aging Is Optional

Dr. George Church and team at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University took a different approach towards cracking the aging problem.

They combined three gene therapies, each linked to a health problem associated with aging, into a single injection and gave it to ailing mice. It worked. Trials on dogs are next, then humans.

How Much Can We Delay Aging? A Gene Therapy Trial Is About to Find Out

All of this research is encouraging for those of us at the current definition of middle age. But as the sandwich generation, we also have to currently look out for our parents while raising our kids, no matter how long we end up living.

Helping your parents with their finances before a crisis erupts is smart, yet tricky. Here are some strategies that work:

How to (Gently) Help Your Aging Parents Manage Their Money

As for the kids, everyone is trying to do everything they can to give their offspring the keys to success in an uncertain future. But maybe that’s not what we should be doing.

Maybe we should be teaching them to be kind:

Stop Trying to Raise Successful Kids

There’s more down below. In addition to the featured book, Trudi explores boundaries, and how to both set and honor them.

That’s it for now. Next week’s issue will likely come to you from an epic plane ride back to Colorado. That’ll be fun.

Keep going-

Brian Clark

P.S. Did someone forward this issue of Further to you? We’d love to have you join us by signing up here.

further: books

Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To

What if everything we’ve been taught to believe about aging is wrong? What if we could choose our lifespan? In this groundbreaking book, Dr. David Sinclair, leading world authority on genetics and longevity, reveals a bold new theory for why we age. As he writes: “Aging is a disease, and that disease is treatable.”

When you buy a book through Further, we get a small store credit to buy more books. Thank you!

Better living through better boundaries

By Trudi Roth

Nowadays, when you read about “self-care,” right up there with CBD and sound baths are good old-fashioned boundaries.

When drawn effectively, they’re like the ultimate Jedi mind trick, shielding you from violation and harm. Without appropriate boundaries, you risk burnout, resentment, and frustration — among other issues.

In this age of unprecedented self-expression, compounded by a stage of life where kids, parents, coworkers, clients, pets, and seemingly everyone in between needs our attention, it truly is all about setting limits.

Not to mention knowing what they are in the first place.

Defining boundaries

Typically when we think about boundaries, it’s about physical touch. But equally as important is holding space for your emotional and mental well-being.

Safeguarding your values, feelings, and beliefs is a powerful way to maintain your privacy, but according to psychology researcher Mariana Bockarova, it can lead to conflict when others step over your personal lines.

We think about boundaries as a self-oriented concept: This is my boundary. But it’s not just a matter of what you’re willing or not willing to say, it’s also what you’re willing to let in.

This is where things get tricky. Keep your boundaries too rigid for ironclad self-protection, and you’ll find yourself unable to open up enough to have meaningful, connected personal and professional relationships. Allow them to be too porous, and then you’re that oversharer that nobody trusts — and everyone walks all over.

Know your limits

It’s a delicate balance between comfortably sharing your thoughts, saying no in a firm but kind way, and tactfully dealing with disagreement over your boundaries. And it takes an equal mix of awareness and flexibility to set limits that work for you and the people in your life.

If you’re not quite sure of your own boundaries, start by paying attention to your feelings in a given situation. Discomfort, anger, guilt, resentment, and shame are all strong indicators that someone or something has gone too far, and it’s time to speak up.

And when it comes to being conscious of someone else’s personal boundaries, Bockarova recommends making gradual “bids of trust.” When you overstep, you’ll notice a lack of reciprocity.

Once you’ve got a handle on your limits, then it’s on you to not fly off the handle. When someone crosses your boundaries, clearly and calmly state what works from you — from your perspective.

And then be open to hearing the other person’s point of view, too. You might not like the push-back, but then again, agreeing to disagree is a fair boundary.

The Power of Boundaries (Psychology Today)