Want to die in good health? Eat healthy and resolve your traumas

The day before my dadi passed away, she bathed and then washed her clothes in the afternoon, as she had been doing for the past many years. She had her lunch, went to bed for a nap and never woke up. She was more than 90 years of age; her relatives in the village told us she may have been closer to 100. 

My grandmother from my mother's side, my nanu, fell and broke one of her hip bones and was bedridden for many days before she died. She had a pacemaker in her heart for at least 15 years. She also suffered from diabetes and hypertension. 

Both were incredible human beings yet we mourn them somewhat differently; we wish nanu had lived a bit longer and not suffered so much. We remember dadi's good health, how the only medicine she would take was sips of Coke or Sprite for her digestive issues. 

Death is inevitable. We know it and all of us are, knowingly or unknowingly, preparing for it.

However, experts think those who have maintained good health throughout their lives tend to age slower, live longer and die less painful deaths. (We are not taking into consideration accidental deaths, deaths from genetic diseases or diseases for which we still have no clear answers, such as cancer.) 

For these people, even when age sets in, they can still take a few more steps without feeling breathless, carry a backpack without worrying about straining their back, or play with their grandchildren.     

Ageing can't be reversed, although there is plenty of research suggesting that good habits like managing stress, eating well, etc, can slow it down. Sure, longevity in people can vary for a number of reasons, but again, we are not considering exceptions like good genes etc. 

The American Heart Association has listed eight healthy habits which can ensure you die peacefully, and not in a hospital bed surrounded by machines. They are: 'Eat a healthy diet, be more active, quit smoking, get healthy sleep, maintain a healthy weight, control cholesterol, watch blood sugar, and manage blood pressure.'

We can add one more to the list for modern people, 'cut down on screen time.' 

We have two kinds of age: chronological age (our actual age measured in numbers, years etc), and the other is our biological or phenotypical age, which is measured by how well our body is functioning relative to our actual age. 

In Bangladesh, there is a third kind, the 'certificate age', which is the forged age given on your certificates by your parents, so you can appear for BCS and other public job examinations at least 10 times. 

Jokes aside, there is nothing we can do to change the first one, but the above-mentioned eight measures can affect our biological age and "slow the body's ageing process by six years" according to an article published in The Guardian last year. 

These are simple measures really, and you do not have to be like Bryan Johnson – the American multimillionaire who is on a mission to reverse ageing under a project titled 'Project Blueprint.' 

Other than exercising vigorously and eating very limited portions of food, the 46-year-old man consumes more than 100 supplements every day and has a large team that works on 'extending his life' 24/7.  

Needless to say, his anti-ageing attempts have been met with severe criticism.  

We spoke to experts from different fields like mental health and well-being, and physical fitness, to understand if it is possible for someone to 'die in good health.' It turns out they can if they want to, and it is basically everything that our parents have been telling us to do: put down our mobile phones, eat more vegetables and hop on the treadmill. 

Mind you, there is no 'one size fits all' way to stop or slow down the process of ageing, and it is certainly no magic. But the way we grow up, our childhoods and adult life, play a significant role in how we age and die. It is not just physical fitness; our mental health and well-being also equally affect our longevity. 

There is no magic to stop or slow down the process of ageing, but we can certainly try to leave with our body functioning well. Photo: TBS

A normal childhood vs a problematic one

Nissim Jan Sajid, founder and lead psychological counsellor at Onward Consultation, says that our whole lives can be segmented into different parts, such as childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, late adulthood and then death. 

"If we look closely, there are certain key factors in each of these areas of our lives. There is something called 'Adverse Childhood Experiences' (ACE), which can determine people's likelihood of developing a full-grown mental health disorder later in life, if they face a disturbed childhood with traumas, abuse, violence etc."

"Such children grow up maladjusted, which is why they can't develop healthy social relationships, or the develop unhealthy coping mechanisms such as alcohol, drugs etc," she said, adding, "Then in their young adulthood phase, where, instead of addressing these issues, they keep piling bad habits over bad habits. When they reach the later part of adulthood, they say it's too late now [to change things] and they keep following those bad habits until they die." 

She said that if a child is born and raised without any adverse experiences, and s/he goes through young adulthood without facing major traumas, then in late adulthood they end up developing meaningful relationships, generally value physical health and mental health, usually have fulfilling jobs that bring them a sense of purpose, and altogether feels a sense of belonging in the universe. 

"The fact of the matter is," she says, "this person may live a very long life." 

"One can have predispositions such as cancer, of course, but studies have shown that people with healthier mental health and well-being tend to have higher levels of hopefulness and in cancer trials, those with hopefulness tend to do better even during chemotherapy and other treatments. They tend to have a higher likelihood of recovery as well." 

Prevent, reverse and cure

Tanjim Sohel Taj, former State Minister of Home Affairs and owner of Inspire Fitness, is an advocate for leading a healthy life, no matter what the age. At 54, he maintains a stunning physique, and blood sugar levels of a healthy 20-year-old.  

"My philosophy regarding a healthy lifestyle is that, just like a building needs a foundation, a healthy lifestyle should have a foundation comprising three things: proper nutrition, physical activity (including muscle activation) and rest, recovery, stress management and sleep," he said.  

According to scientists and experts, the causes of almost all non-communicable diseases like hypertension, insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease), kidney disease and even most cancers, are due to metabolic dysfunction or metabolic syndrome.

"And metabolic disorder begins with unhealthy eating habits like frequent eating (eating 4-7 times a day), eating too much fried and ultra-processed foods and too much sugar, including fructose from fruits and fruit juices." 

He added that when they were younger, their mother would tell them to not fill up their stomach with snacks, because it would ruin their appetite for lunch and dinner. The concept was three meals a day and that was enough.  

In this day and age, where healthcare is improving every day and there are highly developed medicines, it seems there is a cure for almost every disease. However, Taj strongly believes that "treatment does not cure, but puts a bandaid on the problem and in time, it will recur unless we address the cause. And so, the focus should be on prevention to begin with, or if you have a condition, then try to reverse it without medication if possible. So, prevent, reverse and cure (PRC)." 

"We need to understand that medicines and medications treat symptoms and disease, but will not offer a cure [unless it is some bacterial or viral infection]. Unless we address the root cause of the problem, the condition will persist." 

Longevity and the five realms of health and well-being

The biopsychosocial-spiritual framework looks at the interrelationships among the five factors - biological, psychological, social, occupational and spiritual - that influence our health and well-being.  All five define us, and they help us remain functioning, according to Nissim Jan Sajid. 

If we maintain a healthy lifestyle consistently, there is less chance of our physical health affecting our psychological health. That is the biological part. 

"Your neurochemical makeup in your body is very much influenced by exercise, by how well or how badly you treat your physical health. And that includes getting routine check-ups, so that you are actually informing yourself about making good choices."

The psychological part deals with ways to nurture our psychological health. Here, the biology factor is involved as well "because your neurochemical makeup is greatly influenced by how much you let your brain rest, how much you stay away from external dopamine stimulation – social media, television, binge watching, seeking out alcohol or drugs, or any other form of synthetic dopamine, which completely throws us into a frenzy." 

Nissim says that longevity is contingent on having good friends (the social factor). A person needs to have meaningful social relationships to live longer. The occupational factor is about having a sense of purpose. For those who feel empty or aimless, it is hard for them to connect to the community. 

And lastly, the spiritual area does not necessarily point to being religious; anything that helps you connect to the universe so you get to "frame life in more adaptive ways, rather than maladaptive ways". 

It is never too late to intervene, and change 

If you want to die in good health, you have to first live a healthy life. 

"An important aspect of a healthy lifestyle is maintaining skeletal muscle tissue, which we lose as we age or due to lack of activity, or a combination of both. Leading experts and scientists are now stressing that it is absolutely vital to maintain muscle or to build muscle for disease prevention benefits, anti-ageing benefits, longevity benefits, memory loss prevention benefits, fall prevention benefits [falls are a leading cause of death for elderly people]," said Sohel Taj. 

The muscles may or may not guarantee you entry to a bodybuilding competition, but they will certainly speed up your metabolism, and help your cells fight off diabetes and other diseases. 

"Diabetes is like a Trojan horse, it opens the doors for other diseases," he said. 

It is never too late to opt for a lifestyle that could make you live longer, and die a little less painfully. Taj introduced us to some of his gym members who have successfully weaned themselves off from diabetes and blood pressure medication. One 61-year-old member has dramatically reduced his blood sugar levels in just a year. 

If you have unresolved childhood traumas, perhaps now is the time to untangle all those pent-up feelings and emotions and give longevity a shot. That way, you might feel more positive about growing older, which also slows down ageing. 

"There are lots of people who come for therapies in their 30s and 40s. We can always intervene in different stages of our lives and add a few years [to our lives]," Nissim shared with us.