The answer to the ‘How old are you?’ question is based on the amount of time we have spent on this earth. However, the age of our bodies might be different than this chronological age of ours. So, here is a biological test to find how old are you inside.
Chronological Age Versus Biological Age
Biological age
This refers to how old a person seems. Biological age also refers to physiological age and involves many lifestyle factors such as exercise, diet, and sleep pattern. How we age affect our body cells and aging is beyond our control. Although genetics play a great role in aging, there are other external factors like stress, exercise, smoking that influence aging. Chronic stress accelerates premature aging.
This biological age can be calculated by identifying the length of a person’s telomeres, the protective ends of a chromosome that protect the DNA information from being damaged. Telomeres dictate how quickly cells age and die. According to the founder and medical director of the Grossman Wellness Center in Denver, Dr. Terry Grossman, a telomere bead falls off every time a cell divides. So, the longer we live i.e. the greater our chronological age is, the shorter will be the length of our telomeres.
Studies show that people with shorter telomeres are highly likely to have an early death or develop a disease or neurodegenerative disorder. Stress shortens your DNA telomeres and increases the risk for a compromised immune system and many chronic diseases.
By maintaining a healthy lifestyle, we can actually reverse aging by lengthening telomeres. Scientists are investigating if DNA methylation can help in determining the age of human tissues and cell types. One study found that some body parts age faster than others. Even healthy breast tissue can be as much as three years older than the rest of a woman’s body. A healthy breast tissue near a cancerous tissue is on an average 12 years older.
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Chronological Age
Chronological age measures the time we have spent on earth, from the day of our birth. It means the number of years a person has been alive. Chronological age is the age in terms of years, months, days, and is the most primary way of defining age. Chronological aging is a primary risk factor for chronic diseases, mortality, and hearing, and memory impairments. Unlike biological age, chronological age cannot be changed with lifestyle changes.
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Biological Age Test
By calculating your biological age, you will know the speed at which your body is aging. You will better understand if your current diet and lifestyle choices are impacting healthy aging. You will be able to able identify how much aging and damage has occurred inside your body over the course of your lifetime.
“Any measure of biological age must be better than chronological age at predicting mortality.” – Jazwinski & Kim, 2017
Are you ready to know how old are you, really?
Here is a simpler exercise you can do yourself at home which will help you calculate the biological age of your body.
- First do some warm-up, like stretching, slow jumping before the test.
- Now that you are ready, stand straight, your feet together, and bend at the hips.
- To identify your biological age, you need to see how far you can reach.
Here are the answers:
1) If you could touch the floor with your hands with your legs straight, your body is 20-25 yrs old.
2) If you could touch the floor with the tips of your finger and legs straight or bent, you are around 35-38 years old.
3) If you could touch your toes with your knees bent, your body is that of a person who is between 38-50 years old.
4) If you couldn’t touch your feet at all and in order to do that, you had to bend your knees, then the age of your body is of someone who is over 50.
Is your biological age more than your chronological age? You need to change your health strategies to improve your biological age. Here’s what to do.
Tips to improve your biological age:
1.Engage in physical activity for at least 20 minutes a day. Not only cardio, even brisk walking as a daily practice can make a significant difference.
2.Try intermittent fasting (6:18 or 4:20) or practice calorie restrictions at regular intervals. This will help in cleaning of body cells, remove toxins and prevent abnormal cell behavior.
3.Opt for heat therapy, such as using the sauna.
4.Lower your exposure to EMF radiation – keep phones and laptops off your body, turn off your home WIFI before sleep, switch off cellphones before bed, stop wearing electronics to bed and avoid using microwaves whenever possible.
5.Lower exposure to environmental toxins – Buy safe skincare products, don’t smoke, use perfume and cologne made of natural essential oils, avoid plug-in scents in the home and car, grow indoor plants that filter air, and maintain proper ventilation in the house.
6.Lower your stress
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You can’t control your chronological age but your biological age depends on you, your lifestyle. Leading a healthy lifestyle can give you a biological age of 20 even if your chronological age is over 50!
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