When people ask you how old are you, normally, you give them your age in years, right? However, what if we told you that you can figure out your actual age, i.e. how old your body is your biological age with the help of one simple method?
Often times, as noted on Healthy Holistic Living, you may be surprised to find out that your biological age may not be the same with your actual age. Let us learn more about these two “different” ages.
Chronological Age vs. Biological Age
Chronological age refers to how long one has been alive whereas the biological age has to do with the age of the body. Scientists can use a couple of ways to determine one’s biological age and one method is establishing the length of an individual’s telomeres or the protective ends of the chromosomes. They prevent the chromosomes’ ends to deteriorate, which has to do with how fast the cells age and die.
As Dr. Terry Grossman, medical director of the Grossman Wellness Center in Denver puts it, when a cell divides, a telomere falls off from the chromosome’s end and there appears to be a connection between the length of the telomere and one’s biological age. That is, the longer you live, the greater your chronological age is and the shorter the telomeres’ length is.
However, there is also a much simpler way to determine the age of your body and you need no scientists for it- you can perform the testing at home.
How to Determine Your Biological Age
First, lightly stretch the whole body as you do before exercising and once you feel ready, put the feet together and bend at the hips and try to reach the feet with your arms straight. You can slightly bend in the knees if the stretching is too uncomfortable. Now, it is time to check the results (depending on how far on the floor you got).
- You touched the floor with the whole hands- if you managed to do this without bending the knees at all; you have a relaxed and flexible body as the average 20- 25-year-old individual.
- You touched the floor with the fingertips- if you touched the floor with the fingertips and if your legs were straight or you used a slight knee bend and you felt little or no discomfort, you have muscle flexibility of a 35- or 38-year-old person.
- You were not able to touch your feet- and, when you tried to to reach farther, you needed a bigger bend in the knees and if this causes a strong pain that requires you to immediately straighten up, you have the muscle flexibility of person older than 50.
Regardless of the group you are in, it is good to know that the body’s flexibility depends on how much you work on it. So, daily stretching will help you build your flexibility and have “younger” muscles. According to Healthy Holistic Living, when it comes to the telomeres, research suggests that a healthy lifestyle comprised of a healthy diet and regular exercising can help keep the telomere length.
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