Being comfortable being uncomfortable

New Guy: (torques my arm)
Me: (yelps) Dude! Relax, I’m 50. I’m all about tapping.
Him: (laughs, answers in thick southern accent) Hey now, I’m not at fault here. You can’t come onto the mats looking younger than me and expect me to know you’re 50!
Me: (laughing) Fair. My go-to joke is that Asians don’t have height, but we have eternal youth.

Had a few people reach out to me to wish me a Happy Birthday and two of them commented on my blog entry about it.

Him: You know what woulda been a better entry? Five tips on staying young.
Me: Oh, I can give you two right now: (1) Stay outta the sun, and (2) Be born Asian. You’re kinda screwed on one of those…
Him: Dude, I’m kinda screwed on botha those!

I’m only semi-kidding about the first two. I stay outta the sun for the most part, and always have. It’s one of the benefits of never being invited to anything as a kid; I literally just stayed in my basement for years at a time.

As for being Chinese, genetics only account for 25% of your age/health, at least according to the April 2023 issue of Men’s Health:

So, the other 75% is up to you.

This anti-aging researcher named David Sinclair just gave his own four tips for reversing aging in an article that came out this week, headlined: Harvard researcher says he reversed his aging with these 4 steps.

Now, you can read them yourself, but I’ve actually been doing his four steps for years now. They are:

1. Run three times per week
What he really means is just exercise. It’s literally the fountain of youth. I’ve been going to the gym 6-10 hours a week for the last 30 years.

And that’s why it was the second tip I gave in my birthday entry.

2. Intermittent fasting
I’ve been doing this since Alison got sick, mainly because it’s highly anti-cancer, since fasting can trigger a biological state called autophagy, where the body seeks out low-performing/weird cells when there isn’t enough food present.

While the body can’t tell a cell is cancerous, it can tell if it’s low-performing/weird and will kill it to save nutrients for the higher-performing/normal cells.

That’s why I do it. BUT, it’s also linked to youth.

And the reason why can best be summed up in a question: What if your body tells the passage of time by the amount of calories it consumes?

It’s an interesting hypothesis but really, the exact mechanism probably isn’t all that important. What is actually important is that limiting when and how much you eat will probably mean that (a) you’ll live longer and (b) you’ll look younger.

Instead of spending thousands of dollars on face lifts and creams, skip brekkie.

Her: You like feeling hungry?
Me: I like feeling hungry. It reminds me that I’m alive and makes eating all that more fun.
Her: I don’t like being uncomfortable.
Me: The highest-performing people, I think, are the ones that are comfortable being uncomfortable.

3. Drink green matcha tea twice a day
I’ve been drinking a lot more than two cups of Green Tea a day since Alison got sick, again, because it’s highly anti-cancer.

Green tea, unlike other kinds of tea, has a compound called ECGC which has been linked in double-blind Japanese studies where they found that drinking five-cups of Green tea a day, not only resulted in a statistically significant reduction in cancer across the board, it led to a statistically significant reduction in … death.

In other words, if you drink five cups of green tea a day, you’re less likely to die, period. That’s wild.

Why every person on the planet isn’t drinking green tea like it was going outta style is beyond me.

BUT, just last year, a study came out that found that people that had too much green tea had liver failure. Still, it seems that the people that had liver issues took supplements along with green tea, moreover, it doesn’t say if they had underlying health issues to begin with.

As for me, green tea (it doesn’t need to be matcha) makes up most of my liquid sustenance, with coffee and water making up the rest.

4. Reduce stress and avoid “idiots”
I’m gonna say that this is the same as my bonus tip in my second birthday entry: Sometimes, you gotta say, “Fuck it, I’m out.”

Early this year, I cut out about three people from my life, one person literally went outta her way to make me feel like shit about everything, including how I was raising my son.

And one of my closest friends was a fella named Johnny who I cut out just after Alison died along with my old coach for the same reasons – I outgrew them and petty greivences, against me and the world.

I’ve got 8,250 days left on the planet and I plan to spend alla them with people that want to make themselves and people around them better, not worse.

Lemme add two of my own tips for looking and staying young:

5. Squat every day
Asians tend to live long and better when they’re in Asia and less so when they’re not. Why is that?

Well, there’s a large group of people that feel this is because many Asians in Asia still use squat toilets. This means, at least once a day, a huge amount of the population does these very deep squats which have massive health benefits, least of which are good knees and a strong core.

I squat daily – both with and without weights. You should try it.

6. Learn something. Anything. But learn it deeply
A good friend of mine, who is Caucasian, just decided one day to learn Chinese and I’ve been chatting with her about it. She said that she feels her brain working in ways that she hasn’t felt since she was a kid.

A sharp mind is a hallmark of youth. Older people are slower in every regard, including how they think.

Constantly learning new things – ideas, facts, languages, etc – is stretching out your mind as much as your body.

Me: I have a personal indicator that will tell me when I’m old.
Her: What is it?
Me: Ever since I was a little kid, I would bound – not walk, *bound* – up the stairs two at a time. I still do that and I can’t help myself. I think that the day I can’t easily do that is the day that I will truly be old.

Location: earlier tonight, asking my son to keep it down on West 77th.
Mood: healthy
Music: Got a pulse and I’m breathing, one life make it vivi (Spotify)
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