The Science Behind the Law of Attraction Magazine Oct. 2016 | Page 20

W hy Negat i ve Th ou gh t s M ak e You Age Fast er
By El l en Wood, Feat u r ed Col u m n i st
Is your biological age older than your chronological
age? Probably not since you?re reading this article.
Most likely your biological age, determined by
physiological factors like a strong, fit body and
psychological factors like a healthy mind and`
emotions, is lower than the number of birthdays
you?ve celebrated.
But others may be aging faster than the candles on
their birthday cakes suggest, especially if they
frequently entertain negative thoughts. That?s
because stress is the number one aging factor.
I know a lot about stress. In fact, I could have been a
poster woman for that condition, having suffered the
depths of depression more than once. Even scarier, I
began experiencing dreadful mental deterioration
five years after my mother died of Alzheimer?s.
Then 12 years ago I realized I could give myself over
to decline and infirmity, accepting it as unavoidable ?
or I could do everything in my power to find an
alternate route through later life. I chose the road less
traveled and threw myself into the work of growing
younger until I had developed a complete personal
program of body/ mind/ spirit techniques. With daily
practice my results were extraordinary ? literally age
reversing.
Today my mind is much clearer and sharper and my
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body is far stronger and more flexible than before I
began my program in 2004. The stresses that life
presents no longer knock me off my center and leave
me reeling. That is, as long as I don?t think I can again
take myself off my medication.
It wasn?t easy though. Besides staying on a strict
schedule for my medication, my mind seemed to want
to stick with those negative thoughts that make us
age faster. So I decided to find out why positive
experiences seem to fade away quickly while
negative ones keep us weighed down for hours ?
sometimes even for days and longer.
For the answer, let?s go back in time to the days of our
caveman ancestors. Neuroscientists tell us that an
inherent draw to the negative is a function of the
most primitive parts of the human brain. As the
primitive brain developed, people acutely aware of
danger were more likely to stick around long enough
to procreate. Back then we needed a strong
fear-response to be alert to real and immediate
dangers, like the threat of being a lion?s lunch.
?Your brain evolved a negativity bias that makes it
like Velcro® for negative experiences and Teflon®
for positive ones,? says neuroscientist Rick Hanson. In
his book, Buddha?s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of
Happiness, Love and Wisdom, Hanson states, ?Much as
your body is built from the foods you eat, your mind is
built from the experiences you have. The flow of