Delaying Aging Must Begin in Middle Age

As the old saying goes: after sixty, each year is worse than the last; after seventy, each month is worse; after eighty, each day is worse. This folk saying vividly describes how, as people age, the speed of aging keeps accelerating. Aging and death are unavoidable for anyone, but delaying aging and extending lifespan are achievable.

For some people whose inborn genes are not so good, developing a certain disease is fated, and they are much to be pitied. For example, Hemingway and Churchill were destined to suffer depression, because depression is a hereditary disease in their families. Hemingway's father committed suicide because of depression, and Hemingway himself also committed suicide because of depression. Churchill's great-grandfather, grandfather and father were all depressive patients, and Churchill himself suffered deeply from depression.

About 10%–20% of cancer cases are caused by inherited genes. For certain families carrying a particular gene mutation, the lifetime probability of family members developing cancer is very high; in some inherited genes the cancer-causing rate is even 100%.

Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of people carry basically wild-type, not mutant, genes, so only a very small proportion of all human diseases are caused by inherited genes. Genetic diseases are frightening, but most people need not worry about their own genes being faulty.

Factors such as diet, lifestyle, psychological state and education have a far greater influence on human health than inherited genes; most diseases are caused by these factors. If a person can maintain good habits, a reasonable diet, good psychological balance and broad knowledge, then his rate of aging will be much slower than ordinary people's, and the probability of being impoverished by illness or dying of disease will be much smaller.

Nowadays many elderly people are devoted to all kinds of health supplements, hoping to rely on them to delay aging. In reality, reliable anti-aging supplements basically do not exist; relying on supplements to delay aging is as unrealistic as Qin Shi Huang seeking an elixir of immortality.

Delaying aging should begin when one is young, but aging is still remote to most teenagers, so teenagers do not care much about the ways of preserving life. Only when a person reaches middle age does he gradually realize that youth is fleeting, because by then the body has already begun to show signs of aging: some lose their hair, some put on weight, some feel discomfort in joints all over, and some develop sleep disorders. But even with these problems, the middle-aged body is generally still robust, with physical and mental strength at its peak.

From this period onward one must begin to preserve health, and can no longer recklessly drink, smoke, stay up late, sit for long hours or gaze at screens for long periods. The most crucial thing, of course, is to exercise the brain; if the human brain ages too fast, self-care ability in old age will be much lower. The reason so many scam artists selling health supplements succeed again and again is, on the one hand, that the elderly have high expectations for longevity, and, more importantly, that some elderly brains have deteriorated to the point where it is hard to tell right from wrong.

If one keeps reading and doing calculations in middle age, the brain ages much more slowly, and in old age one can still live clearly and rationally. Many retired professors at universities remain sharp-eyed and sharp-eared in old age, quick-witted, with reaction speeds that rival the young. This is related to their years of reading scientific literature and doing research; precisely because their professions kept them mentally active, their brains did not age so fast. The Dutch brain scientist Professor Schwarber found that the brain is crucial to the elderly's quality of life and the length of their lives.

So how can we slow brain aging? From my own experience, one must both read and think, and also study mathematics and do lots of calculations. We often say that language and mathematics are the foundation of all learning; this applies not only during schooling but to every stage of life.

I have deep personal experience of this. I do some math problems every day now; I am especially interested in Olympiad problems and can barely stop once I start. To control the time I spend on them, I have to limit the number of Olympiad problems I do each day. I feel that doing math trains my thinking; my judgment is passable, and this is related to my being good at math.

The latest findings in brain science show that the human brain keeps developing even into old age. But to promote brain development, one must keep learning. Reading alone has a limited effect on brain development; calculation helps brain development more.

People good at math think more rigorously and more easily spot loopholes. So now, to slow my father's brain aging, I also advise him to do some math every day. My father used to be an accountant, so his mathematical thinking is well developed. In recent years, various marketing teams specifically preying on the elderly have also moved into the rural market, and quite a few elderly people in our village have been fooled, but my father has never been taken in.

I have heard many amusing claims about aging, such as "when people grow old, the feet grow old first"; these are all bewitching phrases manufactured by lecturers who urge the elderly to buy health supplements. The elderly should take some calcium, but more important is to exercise the brain. And exercising the brain and improving thinking relies not on any supplement, but on reading, thinking and calculation. People who read enough not only know more but are more balanced in spirit; once we understand the reasons behind many worldly affairs, we no longer become indignant or depressed over things we "can't stand." Emotional people are mostly ruled by prejudice; people who read widely are less prone to prejudice. And people who calculate frequently react faster and are less easily fooled.

Exercise also has a great effect on delaying aging. If people in middle age have not yet developed a habit of exercise, they will become a burden on their families in old age. But exercise should not be excessive; one should not repeatedly injure soft tissue. Some fitness enthusiasts end up covered in injuries; if we spend some time in the orthopedics and emergency departments of a hospital, we will find a host of patients seeking care because of excessive exercise. Moderate exercise is beneficial, excessive exercise harmful; about five hours a week of moderate-intensity exercise is enough.

Diet also has a great influence on aging. After middle age it is better to eat lightly; if there is no disease that forbids a vegetarian diet, a meat-to-vegetable ratio of no more than 1:4 is best. A diet of rich meats and fish leads to high blood lipids, high blood sugar, hypertension and high uric acid; heart disease, diabetes, stroke and gout are all, without exception, related to high-fat, high-sugar and high-protein diets.

I am not a vegetarian, but I try to keep to a light diet. In recent years I have seen some cancer patients trying the ketogenic diet; in every case I have personally seen, they died faster than patients on a normal diet. I keep hearing tales that someone succeeded thanks to this obsessive nutritional theory, but I have never seen it myself. I think innovation is good, but being different must still be sound; otherwise it is just playing to the gallery and harming others.

Confucius said that at forty one has no perplexities, and at fifty one knows the will of heaven. People between forty and fifty are in the thick of middle age; the bubbles of idealism have mostly been squeezed out, and one ought to be calm and detached. The middle-aged have experienced what they need to experience, and grandparents and parents have one after another passed away, giving them a direct understanding of death and fate; their state of mind should gradually become peaceful and philosophical.

In my youth I could not accept fatalism; back then I always felt that personal effort could change fate, and that people who lived in hardship were largely responsible for their own lack of effort. Now I have become half a fatalist; my profession makes it impossible for me not to be one. Many patients' illnesses are simply fated; from the moment they became a fertilized egg, they were destined to have a high probability of becoming sufferers of some incurable disease. If we do not understand their fate through fatalism, we violate basic scientific common sense.

I feel deep sympathy for such patients. The fact that I now have no major disease is because my fate is better than theirs, not because I am superior to them. Likewise, the fact that we live with fewer worries, and even our industrious nature, are nothing to be proud of; they are simply due to having inherited better genes and received a better education—entirely the random arrangement of fate. To me now, a person who is physically and mentally healthy, and whose life and work go smoothly, ought to be grateful to fate and should do something for those whose lot is harder than ours, to help them.

Buddhism often says that, among the six perfections—precepts, patience, generosity, meditation, diligence and wisdom—wisdom (prajna) is the most important. Prajna is a kind of wisdom that commands all others. If a middle-aged person can consciously elevate his prajna, he will naturally cultivate a detached, calm state of mind, unmoved and unafraid in the face of events, peaceful in conduct, neither servile nor overbearing toward others. Such a person ages much more slowly. This is perhaps why the ancients said that the benevolent live long!