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Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

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Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#51

Post by forgotmypw17 »

djedr wrote: post #6

wow, an exceptional character what caught my attention is that when asked about his secret to longevity, he said that he eats lots of fruit and takes cold showers not the first time I'm hearing about cold showers being beneficial; been doing that myself regularly for a few months and I definitely find benefits this is definitely encouraging to continue does anybody have a longer experience with cold showers and can s…

cold showers are some of my earliest memories as a child. "zakalka", or "tempering", is well known in slavic culture. i can vouch for them being one of the keys to including mood and mental state, immune function, and overall wellness.

Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#52

Post by lazyant »

dzink wrote: post #29

You can trial the cold shower experience by just a washing your face with cold water after you wake up every morning. Growing up in Bulgaria that was a standard practice for my whole family. It does wonders for the skin and is very refreshing.

There seems to be a lot of benefits from it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_reflex

Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#53

Post by forgotmypw17 »

xwdv wrote: post #9
djedr wrote: post #6

wow, an exceptional character what caught my attention is that when asked about his secret to longevity, he said that he eats lots of fruit and takes cold showers not the first time I'm hearing about cold showers being beneficial; been doing that myself regularly for a few months and I definitely find benefits this is definitely encouraging to continue does anybody have a longer experience with cold showers and can s…

I keep hearing the secret to longevity is exercise. Maybe cold showers would help you look younger though. But a lot of things will help you look younger.

there is no secret to longevity, at least not one "the secret" key to everything.

the real secret to longevity is recreating the conditions are bodies function best at and upholding those conditions. because our environment is so radically different from the past, this requires a lot of discipline, pondering, and paying attention most of all.

our bodies evolved for a certain environment, and recreating that environment would do us good. (i believe that careful people lived long lives pre-industry.)

some of these conditions are regular exercise, occasional starvation, following environmental queues, supporting a healthy biome, and avoiding stress.

our approaches to health today are comical in their attempt to simplify and reduce a billion-year-old continuously-evolving system down to one or two simple concepts while ignoring all the harm we do to it at the same time.

to use a car analogy, it's sort of like throwing away your automobile's maintenance manual and saying, "i heard the key to car longevity is changing the oil often", and filling up the engine with olive oil.

Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#54

Post by djedr »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #51
djedr wrote: post #6

wow, an exceptional character what caught my attention is that when asked about his secret to longevity, he said that he eats lots of fruit and takes cold showers not the first time I'm hearing about cold showers being beneficial; been doing that myself regularly for a few months and I definitely find benefits this is definitely encouraging to continue does anybody have a longer experience with cold showers and can s…

cold showers are some of my earliest memories as a child. "zakalka", or "tempering", is well known in slavic culture. i can vouch for them being one of the keys to including mood and mental state, immune function, and overall wellness.

Huh, never associated that with Slavic culture. Cool word, "zakalka". In Polish there is "hartowanie" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hartowa%C4%87), same meaning and also used in the context of exposing yourself to cold or difficulty. Related and a bit funny: people who swim in the winter are called "morsy" (walruses).

Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#55

Post by djedr »

inglor_cz wrote: post #50
djedr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen some clips of his interview on the Joe Rogan podcast. I didn't catch the cold bath part. I imagine a cold bath means immersing most of your body in water. So another variant. Theory sounds plausible. Curious if you happen to know any actual research that backs it up?

There is some research on effect of sauna on health. It seems that going to sauna is associated with lower mortality. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

Thanks for the link. Also found this on cold showers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5025014/ | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25705182

Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#56

Post by gmfawcett »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #53
xwdv wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing the secret to longevity is exercise. Maybe cold showers would help you look younger though. But a lot of things will help you look younger.

there is no secret to longevity, at least not one "the secret" key to everything. the real secret to longevity is recreating the conditions are bodies function best at and upholding those conditions. because our environment is so radically different from the past, this requires a lot of discipline, pondering, and paying attention most of all. our bodies evolved for a certain environment, and recreating that environme…

There's a premise here that deserves scrutiny -- that longevity (beyond reproductive age) has evolutionary benefits. Nature may well prefer that older individuals die off.

Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#57

Post by vuciv1 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #31
martamorena2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There very likely is zero correlation. But potentially, people who take cold showers represent a biased subset of the population, which is statistically more inclined to look young. This applies to pretty much EVERYTHING that is not done via high quality double-blind studies published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. Point being: Repeating single actions of successful people statistically does not make you succe…

Why is this being downvoted? As an example, there was a study that eating a handful of almonds every day is correlated with a bunch of positive health outcomes. Then a follow-up paper determined that this is simply because nuts are a relatively expensive snack, so they're eaten regularly mostly by wealthier people. It's well established that being poor is bad for your health, and conversely being rich tends to allow…

That absolutely makes sense. Correlation is not causation.

I would probably be characterized as one of the "health-nuts," so between the cold showers, moisturizing twice a day, trying to perfect my indoor air pollution, and literally eating raw spinach and a bowl of fruit for lunch... Who knows what contributes to what?

I probably have health anxiety. I wouldn't characterize it as extreme, but it does force me to do anything I hear is healthy for me.

Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#58

Post by whymauri »

vecinu wrote: post #44
desiderantes wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colombia has a huge range of climates. His city, Medellin, is a bit chillier than what you would expect.

Medellin has highs of 28C and lows of 17C every month, pretty much. Seems really warm!

Yeah, they might have mentally flipped Bogota and Medellin. Bogota is a lot like SF's climate, but even steadier throughout the year.

Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#59

Post by forgotmypw17 »

gmfawcett wrote: post #56
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is no secret to longevity, at least not one "the secret" key to everything. the real secret to longevity is recreating the conditions are bodies function best at and upholding those conditions. because our environment is so radically different from the past, this requires a lot of discipline, pondering, and paying attention most of all. our bodies evolved for a certain environment, and recreating that environme…

There's a premise here that deserves scrutiny -- that longevity (beyond reproductive age) has evolutionary benefits. Nature may well prefer that older individuals die off.

longevity has many evolutionary benefits, the biggest one being that older generation can pass on survival-essential knowledge and skill to the younger generations.

this process exists not only in humans, but in most animals, and the improvement is continuous, it never stops.

furthermore, the longest-surviving individuals (with the tightest bonds) are able to pass on the most survival knowledge to their descendants, creating an exponential effect.

Re: Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]

#60

Post by jp57 »

Fruit and cold showers!

Every interview with a centenarian asks "what's the secret of your longevity?" They answer and we all nod and stroke our chins and think maybe there's something to that cold shower thing after all. Or whatever. If his secret had been that he drinks three Dr. Peppers a day, or that he does a headstand for five minutes every morning at sunrise, our response would be the same.

He no more knows the secret of his longevity than a gambler knows the secret of a hot streak. Like every centenarian, he's on the mother of all hot streaks, that's all. Our impulse to find some causal agency that we can understand and adopt is no different than a gambler's. When he said "fruit and cold showers", it's no different than saying "if I stand on one foot and close my left eye when I throw the dice, I don't crap out."

I have to think that he knows this and he's just humoring us because he knows we want an answer other than ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. After all, we are all just children to him.

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