If you want to grow old but maintain a youthful energy, an agile, strong body and a happy and healthy mind, you need to seek out struggle; purposeful challenge. It is my opinion that rather than searching for a fountain of youth, we need to climb the mountain of youth. The passive path to health and longevity seems doomed to produce half measures at best. Drugs like Ozempic, “slimming” teas (laxatives), statins, most supplements, certain surgeries and even some uses of insulin only act as temporary or illusory band-aids , The easy path, as it seems, is laden with issues and does nothing to actually bolster the body from decay. Contrary to what you may think though, our minds and bodies respond very favourably to stress (the right kind and within reason of course) and so If you make intermittent discomfort a priority, it’s possible you can stave off chronic illness and mental strife.
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihaly a state of Flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that they will continue to do it…for the sheer sake of doing it.”
The golden rule in finding flow is to balance personal ability with adequate level of challenge from the activity. If you are a master chess player and you only play beginner level players then you are unlikely to find flow. You might win every game but without personal challenge, any joy you take out of always winning will fade quickly.
The right level of challenge pulls our full attention into a task. Within tuned focus we forget our problems, we forget our to-do lists we lose ourselves….we lose our self. It is akin to active meditation. This kind of focus can be achieved with chess, tennis, writing, sailing a boat or even cleaning that same boat! It may take a more trained mind to find pure, unadulterated joy in cleaning a deck of a boat (a poop deck for bigger boats) but it is possible.
For people who seek it out regularly, this state of flow, this pure joy is said to reverberate throughout the day, even throughout the week. The incidence of depresiion and anxiety is much lower in these people.
You may have experienced flow for yourself. Maybe you did a hike with a friend and it turned out to be more challenging than expected, It took a couple hours longer and it was a little bit of a steeper climb than you thought but you loved being in nature and being quiet in your mind. You huffed and puffed through the trees but still managed to keep pace and when you returned home you felt the high of accomplishment for the rest of the day. If you had a beer or glass of wine after, I bet it was the best one you ever had. Any harder and it might not be a story of triumph but this was a good day and you prevailed over the unexpected challenge. You most likely glimpsed what is called flow, even if it was not a constant. And now you have a story, if even just to tell yourself – a story of surpassing a challenge. We can build or rebuild our identities around these kinds of stories: an identity of ability.
Finding joy in activity is wonderful in itself but whats more impressive is that there is mounting evidence that suggests long term health benefits are also just beyond moments of struggle.
Much of current research on longevity practices focus on things that stress our bodies’ systems. The technical word for this is Hormesis or the hormetic effect. Hormesis is a biological process in which a low to moderate dose of something considered taxing or even toxic, produces a favourable response. A very popular version of this is the cold plunge. The mild stressor of being cold within a short time frame may have long term benefits such as reducing muscle soreness, reducing inflammation, improving glucose and lipid metabolism, etc.. Other stressors like Heat, fasting and exercise all have potential long term benefits. To put it simply, a strong enough dose of stress, signals certain pathways in your body that are responsible for turning up the intensity of repair, clean up or energy transfer. Cells begin to work harder in order to prepare for the possibility that this stressor is going to keep going. For example, cold therapy and exercise – both separately and when combined -have a positive effect on mitochondrial proliferation (1)
Why is this good? The more mitochondria you have the better your cells produce energy, so your muscles and other tissues work better while also increasing your metabolic function. This in turn can improve liver health and educe the risk of metabolic disease, cancers, cardiovascular disease and others. Improving mitochondrial biogenisis is one of the best ways to live longer and healthier.
As a trainer I try to get my clients to focus in on the exercises that challenge them the most. Because no matter how hard the exercise feels to them, they know I wouldn’t give them something too difficult. So this is a very important learning window.
Be aware of your movements, try and do it as well as you can, The repetitions that are the hardest are the ones with the most potential. Potential for growth in parameters such as strength or endurance but also in flow and perceived ability. Recognizing the challenge and that you overcame it is a very important lesson. When that happens, the neuronal connections that exist in your brain related to self belief thicken. Literally. The myelin sheath around these neurons get stronger. You are acquiring the skill of self belief and to a degree, of self motivation. These are skills and they need to be practiced. Why not practice them while doing challenging exercises that will help keep your bones strong, build muscle strength, improve your posture and stability. Nothing moves the needle of longevity more than regular, varied exercise.
Now, I’m not going to pretend that this is all it takes. Self belief, self motivation; these are complex notions. It takes more than being in the moment every time you do a pushup to get to a place where you have consistent control over your behaviours. But the more you add these kinds of challenges to your day and the more you are aware of your ability to meet them, the closer to flow you will be.
Another aspect of health that I have been thinking is related to this is meditation. I know very few people who think meditation is easy. Not even the few people I know who are long time, hour (or more) a day practitioners. But almost every person I know who practices regularly finds joy amidst the fractal chaos of trying to quiet the mind.
I’ve never experienced so much repeated frustration within a ten minute period as I have when starting to meditate. But once you lean into acceptance and the frustrations fall into something more closely related to awareness, even the hiccups hold rewards. The challenge level is always up to you when meditating, no matter your level of ability and so after a while the balance of flow is found, even if for but an instant. But that instant has lasting effects. The awareness you find during meditation is something that can echo throughout your day. It might not be as pure as it was that brief moment during practice but you can more easily find its neighbours; peace and compassion . I can’t express how important this has been for myself over the last few years, even though my practice has been spotty at best. The impact is significant. It is a struggle every day and yet i do it, as Mihaly Csikszentmihaly described – for the sheer sake of doing it. Science is beginning to show that regular meditation lowers blood pressure, moderates immune function, increases telomere length (longevity markers at the chromosomal level) and reduces oxidative stress.
My best advice is to try and climb the mountain every day. It can be any kind of challenge; a tough workout, a cold shower, a game of chess or a 5 minute meditation. Whatever it is, it will build upon itself and make you happier and healthier.