By Dan Tomasulo, Ph.D.
The tip of a shoelace or drawstring around your shorts is called an aglet. If you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of having the aglet disintegrate or come off, you’ll notice that the shoelace or drawstring unravels. Understanding how vital this aglet is in keeping the string together helps us understand the fundamental issue taking place when we age. We don’t have shoelaces inside our bodies, but we do have DNA strands that copy themselves in the aging process. At the ends of these strands are telomeres. They protect our chromosomes the same way the aglet protects our shoelace.
As we age, these telomeres shorten and eventually become ineffective in holding the cells together. This is when the signs of aging occur. As telomere length shortens, the cells can’t do their job, we age, and then contract diseases.
In 2009, the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak “for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.” The research seems very clear that the decomposition of telomere length in each of our cells causes the aging process.
Since not everyone ages at the same rate, it implies that some of us are doing something to maintain the length of their telomeres. What is it that they do to slow the aging of their cells? Scientists are continually comparing those with preserved telomere length to those whose length keeps deteriorating.
Researchers specifically identify the harmful effects of stress and rumination on telomere length. They make a convincing point that our cells are listening to our thoughts. Recent research compared long-term mindfulness meditators to a control group of nonmeditators on DNA methylation, another aspect involved in telomere maintenance.
The 17 long-term male and female meditators had to have at least 10 years of daily 60-minute meditation sessions under their belt to be included in the study. They were matched and compared to controls who had no meditation experience at all. In this cross-sectional study (measuring participants at their different ages at the time of the research), it was demonstrated that the controls showed the expected inverse relationship between their age and telomere length. However, the researchers made a powerful discovery. “Notably, age showed no association with telomere length in the group of long-term meditators.”
Meditation, the practice of monitoring our thought process, lessened aging. The meditators also scored high on satisfaction with life, happiness, resilience and lower on such measures as avoidance, anxiety and depression. The direct management of their thought process through mindfully suspending self-judgment and increasing curiosity about their mind improved their well-being – directly slowing their cellular aging.
We can activate hope for a better life physically and mentally by curbing ruminating thoughts of anxiety and negativity. Through nonjudgmental kind and curious thinking, the long-term meditators in this study show us the best way to affect our cells and our overall physical and mental well-being may come from managing our thoughts.
But we don’t have to meditate an hour a day for 10 years to get results. In studying high hope people, I’ve found that they see possibilities, whereas low hope individuals ruminate about what is wrong. You have choice and control over your thoughts. Every time you can catch yourself thinking, ask if these thoughts are for your mental health and well-being. If they are, keep them. If not, remember, your telomeres are listening.
Dan Tomasulo is a core faculty member at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute (SMBI), Teachers College, Columbia University, and holds a Ph.D. in psychology, MFA in writing, and Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Honored by Sharecare as one of the top ten online influencers on the issue of depression, his next book is “Learned Hopefulness, The Power of Positivity To Overcome Depression.” DanTomasulo.com.
The article originally appeared in the August 6 – 12, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
