On Longevity

The secret to living to 100 years old… don’t have kids, I guess.

I have been reading a lot of posts and emails from health coaches/life gurus that preach something like:

The number one killer is stress! The key to living a long and healthy life mostly boils down to how much cortisol is in your system.

Then, inevitably, this list of advices follows:

Sleep when you’re tired.

Eat when you’re hungry.

Rest when you need to rest.

Well…I’d love to! Children be damned I guess. I don’t care if you’re hungry, having a crisis, or about to kill each other. I’m taking a nap, because my body told me so.

(from our upcoming documentary: A New Life)

In reality, I think sleep is huge. Cortisol is bad for my body.

But I don’t think that controlling my schedule is going to lead to a cortisol-free existence. In my experience, rigid thinking and living actually contribute to it.

This is because when I’m afraid of everything, I try to control everything. And the control impulse, for me, is a guaranteed stressor.

The only way I know how to deal with the stresses in my life (there are plenty, beyond having six kids, which all humans have) is to go directly against certain impulses:

1. Reach out for help when I want to do it alone.

2. Love when I want to fight.

3. Surrender when I want to do things my way.

#1 - I tend to want to go it alone, but when I’m in crisis, full of resentment, stress or fear, I have a long list of people that I can call. Usually, when I say what I’m feeling out loud to someone capable of holding that space for me, the insanity goes away.

#2 - Fight or flight doesn’t do much for me as a parent or artist. Destroying or abandoning my kids would be…a no no. But when I can observe them, talk to them, and choose to love them, things just don’t bother me as much.

#3 - I sometimes have to defend my morals or set boundaries. But what I’m talking about here is that much more common, every day pride that makes me want to have/do things my way. I’m learning to recognize that impulse and just let it go. The better I am at accepting others’ points of view, the better I become at accepting myself.

I’m still learning to live this way, and have bad days. But things are going in the right direction.