Six Aging Myths We Need to Stop Believing

By Deepak Chopra, M.D., Grandparents.com, February 13, 2014

You’ve probably heard a thousand times that as you age, your body and mind begin to “go”—you can no longer move the way you used to and your health deteriorates. But those “facts” couldn’t be further from the truth. Aging doesn’t have to mean decline, in fact, just the opposite. Below are six myths and why each is not true.

Myth No. 1: Your genes predetermine how healthy you are. Why it’s not true: Although the gene sequence you were born with is fixed, gene expression depends on how you live your life. Simply put, we are beginning to learn that your thoughts, emotions, levels of stress, sleep, exercise, breathing, and mind-body coordination can affect your gene expression.

This means that you can turn on or dial up the good genes and turn off or dial down the bad genes. The idea that we can influence our genes is the new science of epigenetics. What we may find with epigenetics is that we each have much more control over the cellular biology of aging.

Myth No. 2: Getting older means feeling older. Why it’s not true: We each have a chronological age and a biological age. Your chronological age is the age on your birth certificate and answers the question, “How many times have you, in this body, revolved around the sun?”

Your biological age basically reflects how well your body is functioning. Biological age is based on everything from your blood pressure and body fat, to your bone density and cholesterol levels. It is determined by several factors and does not have to match your chronological age.

How you perceive the process of aging, your expectations and beliefs; how you experience time and how energetic you feel actually determine the biology of aging. Think about it this way: A 50-year-old who takes good care of herself can have the biology of a 35-year-old. Alternatively, a 50-year-old who has let himself go may have the biology of someone many years older. You can be much younger biologically than what your birth certificate says.

Myth No. 3: Your body gets frail as you age. Why it’s not true: Your body doesn’t have to get frail when you get older. You can increase both the strength and mass of your muscles and even improve bone density through exercises and weight-training. Within six weeks of beginning to exercise, studies show, there’s a 100 to 200 percent increase in strength in men aged 60 to 70. And walking for 30 minutes, five days a week, can add more than seven years to your life, according to a recent Harvard University study.

Myth No. 4: Your brain is destined to deteriorate over time. Why it’s not true: If you think you lose brain cells as you get older, and those cells are gone forever, think again. Research shows that some areas of the brain involved with memory and learning continue to produce new nerve cells every day. So while you do lose brain cells every day, you also are constantly replacing brain cells.

The best thing you can do to build new brain cells is to keep your brain active with new activities and learning. And one of the best things you can do for your brain later in life, research shows, is learn a new language. (Though learning anything new is good for your brain.)

One more thing about your brain: Only 3 to 4 percent of disease-related gene mutations, including mutations for Alzheimer’s disease, are genetically determined. Most disease-related gene mutations are influenced by lifestyle—including emotions, quality of sleep, diet and stress levels. You don’t have to get Alzheimer’s disease or lose mental alertness as you grow old.

Myth No. 5: Your energy decreases as you get older. Why it’s not true: Energy levels in the body don’t depend on age. They depend on your attitude and are influenced by the quality of your life. Meditation, restful sleep and exercise are the best ways to experience a joyful and energetic body.

Myth No. 6: The older you are, the more unhappy you are. Why it’s not true: Happiness has nothing to do with aging. In fact, the later years can be the best time of your life. Many studies have shown that people get happier as they age.

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11 Ways To Create More Time To Think

Paul B. Brown, Forbes, Feb. 9, 2014

It could be just a coincidence, but I don’t think so.

In the course of the last 10 days or so, I’ve had three in-depth conversations with businesspeople that I truly respect. The theme: Carving out more time to think.

All three people–two men and a woman–had been searching for ways to do it.

The three don’t know one another, but why they had this quest in common is easy to understand.

You need new ideas if you are going to stay ahead of the competition. And it is awfully hard to come up with those ideas if you don’t have any time to think.

And so those three people were looking for ways to create “white space” in their lives that they could fill with new ideas.

Let me share with you the things they are trying.

1. Breakfast could be the most important meal of the day. One of the men has taken to getting up earlier and is in his local coffee shop by 5 a.m. He says he always buys a newspaper, “so I won’t look even more weird than I am,” but he spends virtually all of his time just staring into space. “The key, I find, is not to distract myself with things like checking email or voice mail, or making to do lists. I just sit and think.”

2. First things first. Intriguingly, the other two people I talked to also tried to carve out thinking time early in the day. But they did it before breakfast. Typically, they said, the first they used to do was check email and skim the headlines. Now, they are putting that off, until they have spent some time thinking about their most important objectives.

3. Simplifying. Stress and needless distractions (“where the heck did I put that file”) detract from your ability to think. Each of the people I talked to said they were taking steps to become even more organized. One of the ideas I particularly liked: Creating an agenda for the following day–with all the necessary supporting materials at hand–before they turned off their computer at night.

4. Reinstating the lunch break. Unless you are meeting with a client, there is a natural tendency to work through lunch; you have a quick sandwich or salad at your desk while tackling yet another thing you have to do. One of the ideas that surfaced was walking away from your desk and finding some place where you could find 30 minutes to get away from everything.

5. Relaxing before taking a break. “I really am one of those guys who gets his best ideas in the shower,” one of the men told me. “But I noticed that the ideas only occur if I am not stressed. If I am worried about something, that’s all I concentrate on in the shower. Now, I try to be stress-free before I step into the tub. It doesn’t guarantee I will get a new idea, but it seems to increase my chances.”

6. Building in a break. Within a five minute drive of her house, one of the entrepreneurs told me, is a upscale gym and a place where “I can grab something healthy to eat. I have made it a point to budget an hour a day to take advantage of both places and I refuse to check email or voice mail during that time.”

7. Fly first class. It used to be people said they used their travel time up in the air to think. But with packed planes and smaller seats that option has become more difficult. One option: Fly first class whenever you can, said one of the men I talked to. “It’s about equivalent to what coach used to be about 30 years ago. I find it helps.”

8. Schedule it. I have my doubts, but one of the people swears by it. He blocks off 15 minutes every day–in the middle of the day–which is labeled “thinking” on his calendar.

9. Shake up your routine. I found this one interesting. One of the reasons people say you are able to generate more ideas in the shower is because the task of showering is so routine. Since you do it by rote, your mind is free to wander. No one I talked to disagreed with that theory, but they said they noticed that that they got more and different ideas when they were doing something out of the ordinary like seeing a movie in the middle of day or taking a break at an unexpected time.

10. In praise of dead cell phones. “I would have never believed this one, if it hadn’t happened to me,” one of the people told me. “I was driving to a client meeting four hours away and my cell phone battery died and I didn’t have a car charger. After about 20 minutes–20 long minutes of panic and withdrawal pain–I came to appreciate the fact that I was not about to be interrupted. I am still not great about turning off my phone for long stretches, but I try.”

11. The old ways still work. I was curious, so I asked about the idea of taking some time off–a long weekend perhaps–where you tried to do nothing but contemplate what’s important. All three endorsed the idea and then promptly said they can’t remember the last time they did no work over three consecutive days.

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Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus

Breakpoint, February 17, 2014

Did you know that there have been more large movements of Muslims coming to Christ in the last two decades than in the preceding fourteen hundred years combined? David Garrison has documented these movements in his book, “A Wind in the House of Islam.” He also tells how many Muslims are reporting dreams and visions about the truth of Christ.

And to hear first-hand what God has done in the life of one formerly devout Muslim in particular, you’ll want to go to BreakPoint.org and catch my “BreakPoint This Week” interview with my friend Nabeel Qureshi.

Nabeel grew up in a solid, and loving, Muslim family—and not just any Muslim family. A devout family that, though residing in America, was very serious about their faith. Nabeel’s grandfather and great-grandfather were even Muslim missionaries to Indonesia and Uganda.

As a young boy, Nabeel had memorized large chunks of the Qur’an. By the time he had reached middle school, Nabeel had learned how to challenge and stump Christians who tried to share the gospel with him by asking them, for example, to defend the reliability of the Bible or the doctrine of the Trinity.

“I found out,” he said, “from a very early age that Christians just did not have answers to these questions. Each time I had a conversation, it bolstered my Islamic faith,” he told me. Nabeel stayed secure in his Muslim beliefs and identity until college, when he met a sophomore named David Wood.

David was a Christian, but when Nabeel challenged him, something strange happened. “David didn’t react like other Christians I had challenged,” Nabeel said. “He did not waver in his witness, nor did he waver in his friendship with me. Far from it—he became more engaged, answering the questions he could respond to, investigating the questions he couldn’t respond to, and spending time with me through it all.”

That, my friends, is a model of witnessing that we can all follow: explaining our faith as best we can, admitting when we don’t know the answers, doing our homework, and remaining a friend. And let’s face it: A lot of us just don’t know why we believe what we believe. As a consequence, we’re not ready for those kinds of intellectual challenges. This dishonors Christ and shortchanges our faith. After all, the command is to love God also with all our minds.

David Wood hung in there while the back-and-forth went on for years. Eventually, Nabeel had to reluctantly conclude that the case for Christianity was very strong. And then David asked Nabeel to give the Qur’an the same sort of critical treatment that he had given the Bible. He did, and he was shocked to learn that the case for Islam was so weak.

Distraught, Nabeel asked God to guide him into the truth, and you might guess what happened. After one vision and three dreams, a continued study of Scripture, and the faithful witness of a friend, Nabeel was faced with an excruciating choice: Did he love Jesus more than his family?

Finally Nabeel knew what he had to do—come off the minaret, pick up his cross and follow Jesus, no matter what. When he told his family, his mother was crushed, saying, “Why have you betrayed me?”

They left Nabeel, but Jesus didn’t. Nabeel wanted to die, asking, “Why, God?” And then he felt Christ’s answer: “Because this is not about you.” Now, Nabeel is an itinerant evangelist with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, and his story has just been published in his book “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.”

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Loneliness is killing us

Philippa Perry, The Guardian, 17 February 2014

That loneliness is a health issue would not have been a surprise to Mother Teresa who once said: “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or cancer or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody.”

But now doctors have quantified the effects of the loneliness disease, warning that lonely people are nearly twice as likely to die prematurely as those who do not suffer feelings of isolation. Being lonely it seems, is a lot more worrying for your health than obesity.

In a report called Rewarding Social Connections Promote Successful Ageing that Professor John Cacioppo presented in Chicago at the weekend, the effect of satisfying relationships on the elderly was measured.

Cacioppo’s team found that friendships helped older people develop their resilience and ability to bounce back after adversity, as well as an ability to gain strength from stress rather than be diminished by it.

Not surprisingly, there is no corresponding good news for those less well connected to other people. Loneliness has dramatic consequences on health. Feeling isolated from others can disrupt sleep, raise blood pressure, lower immunity, increase depression, lower overall subjective wellbeing and increase the stress hormone cortisol (at sustained high levels, cortisol gradually wears your body down).

Older people can avoid the consequences of loneliness by staying in touch with former colleagues, taking part in family gatherings and sharing good times with family and friends, says Cacioppo. Moving away from an established community to retire to a seaside idyll could often be a mistake, but such good common sense probably doesn’t go far enough.

The Lonely Society, a 2010 report commissioned by The Mental Health Foundation, cited a link between our “individualistic society” and the increase in common mental health disorders in the last 50 years.

It also drew on research showing that mental health problems occur more frequently in unequal societies where vulnerable people are often left behind. By squandering “social capital” in the individualistic pursuit of greater wealth, or treating social networks as incidental, are we neglecting a part of life that makes us happy and keeps us healthy for longer?

Loneliness is often the core feeling that gives rise to emotions of anger, sadness, depression, worthlessness, resentment, emptiness, vulnerability and pessimism. Lonely people frequently feel that they are disliked, are often self-obsessed and lack empathy with others. They fear rejection and keep themselves at a distance, which feeds the loneliness.

People who are lonely often think that everyone else is doing OK while they are not. They think they are the only ones carrying a burden. I have had clients talk about putting their “game face” on rather than sharing truthfully about themselves. And it can be difficult to know when it is appropriate to make the move from the former to the latter.

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More Reflection, Less Action

by Tony Schwartz, NY Times, Feb. 14, 2014

Like a classic scene in “I Love Lucy,” we default to whatever feels most urgent in the moment.

Earlier this week, I found myself talking with the chief of staff to the chief executive at a large company. The two of them had been on the road together for four consecutive weeks. I asked how that felt. “It’s brutal,” he said. “But it’s typical. My boss essentially has no openings on his schedule for the next three months.”

Think about that for a moment: This executive had no times at work when he could just breathe deep and relax for a half hour, nor could he step back after a key meeting and quietly metabolize what had just happened or look forward and muse about strategy. He could not simply wander through his office, talking to people about what they’re doing, in order to energize and enrich them, and himself.

It’s not possible to move from one activity to the next at blinding speed and be reflective at the same time. The more complex and demanding the work we do, the wider, deeper and longer the perspective we require to do it well. It’s almost impossible to do that when we create no white space in our lives.

By wider, I mean taking into account the practical effect an action is likely to have on the full range of people affected by it. By deeper, I mean considering the emotional impact the action is likely to have. And by longer, I mean thinking not just about its immediate consequences, but also its implications over time.

Consider this observation from President Obama, caught on an open mike during a stroll with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain in 2008:

“The most important thing you need to do [in this job] is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you’re doing is thinking.”

Judgment is grounded in discernment, subtlety and nuance. “I don’t do nuance,” George W. Bush once famously said about his approach to foreign policy. But would that he had. We might have avoided a costly and unnecessary war.

Instead, we too often view the opposite of “doing” as “not doing,” and then demonize inaction. In fact, good judgment grows out of reflection, and reflection requires the sort of quiet time that gets crowded out by the next demand.

There are occasions when our first intuitive judgment is the best one—or at least moves the ball forward—but even then it makes sense to revisit decisions as new facts arise. To reflect literally means to throw light back.

The folks at Google have made a mantra out of “iterating.” They push new products out, even when they know they’re imperfect, and then constantly improve them over time. Rethinking, reconsidering, and even reimagining are built into the process.

Regular reflection also provides the space in which to decide what not to do. At the companies I visit, no topic comes up more frequently than prioritizing. It’s as though we’ve all finally recognized that there is no way to accomplish everything we’ve got on our plates—but we still haven’t figured out how to take anything off them. Time to reflect is what makes it possible to prioritize.

Instead, we keep adding new tasks, defaulting to whatever feels most urgent in the moment, while unfinished business piles up. I can’t help thinking of the classic “I Love Lucy” episode in which Lucy and Ethel are overwhelmed trying to wrap the chocolates that just keep coming at them on an assembly line.

One of the most important vehicles I use to ensure that I both reflect and prioritize is an old-fashioned handwritten to-do list, with a twist. I use it to download everything that’s on my mind—not just calls to make and emails to send, but also ideas I want to explore, conflicts I haven’t resolved, and longer-term projects I intend to pursue.

When I can’t decide whether something is worth my time, I try to stop and answer two reflective questions—a task that ends up saving rather than costing time.

1. Could someone else do this just as well or better than I can? If so, I try to turn it over.

2. Is the time and energy I invest going to produce anything I’ll still consider worth having done a month from now?

We need less conventional wisdom and more genuine wisdom; less sheer output and more insights that add enduring value.

Tony Schwartz is the chief executive of the Energy Project and the author, most recently, of “Be Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys to Transforming the Way We Work and Live."

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Deus Tem Seus Motivos

Maria Fontaine


“Entre vocês há alguém que está doente? Que ele mande chamar os presbíteros da igreja, para que estes orem sobre ele e o unjam com óleo, em nome do Senhor. E a oração feita com fé curará o doente; o Senhor o levantará. E se houver cometido pecados, ele será perdoado.”—Tiago 5:14–15 NVI

O ministério de cura incorpora o amor e o poder de Deus na vida das pessoas tanto física como espiritualmente, e elas ficam muito agradecidas. Ser um canalizador desse amor é uma inspiração e até transforma a sua vida. Todos nós ficamos encorajados após ouvirmos testemunhos de como o Senhor curou.

Por mais maravilhoso que seja vivenciar a emoção de testemunhar uma cura milagrosa, um grande dilema para qualquer cristão sincero ao orar por cura, é a possibilidade de a pessoa não ser curada de imediato. Se isso acontecer quando você estiver orando por alguém, talvez se sinta sob condenação, achando que você falhou à pessoa. Às vezes a cura não acontece porque algumas condições não foram cumpridas, ou por faltade fé da sua parte ou da pessoa que estava recebendo a oração, ou ambas as coisas. Precisamos ter em mente que os caminhos de Deus estão acima dos nossos caminhos, e que Ele nem sempre age como esperamos, pedimos, ou achamos que Ele deveria.[1] Em algumas ocasiões Ele prefere não curar a pessoa fisicamente. Por quê? Só Deus sabe o motivo. Cada situação é única, específica das pessoas envolvidas e tem relação à maneira como o Senhor está agindo em suas vidas.

Muitos de nós sabemos, por experiência, que existem bons motivos para problemas ou perdas. É um fato evidente na vida de grandes cristãos como Fanny Crosby, Louis Braille, Helen Keller, John Milton, Amy Carmichael, Samuel Schereschewsky, e muitos outros. Se virmos como Deus usou grandemente muitos homens e mulheres cristãos e o fruto que eles deram apesar de seus problemas, é fácil entender por que Ele permitiu tais deficiências, tanto as temporárias como as permanentes. As dificuldades na vida de alguém, cristão ou não, tem o potencial para gerar compaixão, maturidade, e a compreensão que Jesus pode usar para abrir nossos corações para o Seu Espírito de amor.

Eu já ouvi falar de evangelistas com ministérios maravilhosos curando as pessoas, mas eles próprios sofriam de enfermidades graves. Eles oraram repetidamente por cura, mas nunca foram curados. Às vezes, o Senhor, na Sua misericórdia, usa esse tipo de situação para ajudar a contrabalançar a inclinação que essas pessoas têm ao orgulho devido à fama e ao louvor que recebem. Ou pode usar para ser uma demonstração ainda maior da grande fé e confiança que tais evangelistas possuem, como no caso de Jó, que disse: “Ainda que Ele me mate, nEle confiarei”.[2] Até o apóstolo Paulo afirmou ter orado várias vezes para ser libertado do seu “espinho na carne”, e aparentemente não foi atendido.[3]Ele afirmou: “Portanto, eu me gloriarei ainda mais alegremente em minhas fraquezas, para que o poder de Cristo repouse em mim.”

Faz-me lembrar da história de um jovem gago. Ele era um testemunho incrível para o Senhor, mas queria muito ser libertado desse problema que tantos constrangimentos lhe causava, e pelo qual ele tinha orado muitas vezes. Mas ele não recebeu o milagre que esperava e desejava. Pelo contrário, descobriu algo mais valioso. Ele explicou: “Acho que o Senhor quer usar a minha gagueira para a Sua glória, porque quando testemunho, as pessoas sentem tanta pena de mim, que sempre prestam atenção!” Apesar de não ter sido libertado do problema, ele aprendeu a usá-lo positivamente e para a glória de Deus. Percebeu que, no seu caso, o que ele considerava um empecilho, na verdade era uma ferramenta de testificação.

Outro caso é o de Nick Vujicic, que nasceu sem membros inferiores e superiores, no entanto conduz um ministério incrível, e viaja pelo mundo inteiro testemunhando a muitos. A sua deficiência tem servido para ele encorajar milhões de pessoas que se sentiram atraídas pela sua fé e amor por Jesus, bem como sua perseverança e atitude positiva mesmo com essa deficiência.

A lista é bem longa. Eu acho que, se pararmos para pensar, encontraremos motivos muito importantes por que o Senhor permite problemas na vida dos Seus filhos e não os liberta imediatamente e nem nesta vida.

A fé não é uma questão de confiar quando tudo dá certo. Mas quando as coisas dão errado é que a fé entra em cena. E nós deveríamos ter uma reação de confiança quando as coisas não acontecem como esperávamos ou pedimos. A nossa confiança de que o Senhor sabe mais do que nós, mostra às pessoas que servimos a um Deus magnífico, que é digno da nossa confiança e serviço. Graças a Deus Ele sabe mais do que nós, e graças a Deus Ele faz o que sabe que é melhor!

Nós não somos responsáveis por decidir quem é curado ou não. Mas é nossa responsabilidade ter amor suficiente para arriscar sermos considerados uns fracassos contanto obedeçamos ao Senhor e ajamos segundo o Seu conselho. Se estivermos orando pela cura de alguém porque desejamos glorificar ao Senhor, por um amor puro por Ele e pelos outros, não vamos ficar muito preocupados com o nosso aparente “sucesso”. Poderemos confiar nEle quer as coisas ocorram como esperamos, quer não.

Se você orar, Deus responderá da maneira que a pessoa mais precisa, e no melhor momento. Só que Ele nem sempre atende às nossas orações da maneira como esperamos ou desejamos. Mas precisamos confiar nEle. Deus nos chamou para ministrar o Seu amor a outros, inclusive orar em fé pela cura das pessoas quando Ele nos conduz nesse sentido. Se o fizermos, poderemos então depositar a nossa confiança nEle, acreditando que Ele vai responder na Sua hora e à Sua maneira—curando a mente, o coração, o espírito, ou o corpo.


“Eu acredito em um Deus que tudo pode. Mas se Ele preferir não me dar armas e braços, eu sei que é por um bom motive. Posso não entender, mas só preciso saber que Ele vai me ajudar e que isso tem um propósito.

“Nós não podemos nem devemos comprar o sofrimento das pessoas. Nós nos reunimos como uma família de Deus, de mãos dadas. E juntos nos firmamos nas promessas de Deus, sabendo que, não importa quem somos, não importa a situação pela qual estamos passando, Deus está ciente, está ao nosso lado, e vai nos ajudar a superar.

“Os desafios da vida servem para fortalecer nossas convicções, e não para nos atropelar.”—Nick Vujicic



Publicado originalmente em março 2011. Adaptado e republicado em agosto 2013. Tradução Hebe Rondon Flandoli.


[1] Isaias 55:8–9.

[2] Jó 13:15 NVI.

[3] 2 Coríntios 12:7–10 NVI.

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