F-Bomb Longevity Made Easy

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So big is the buzz around this newly emerging area, that Dr Jones offers an eight-week program to embed the lifestyle changes she promotes; several thousand have completed it online, many as part of corporate sign-ups. Her Glycan Age score is 51, very close to her actual age of 52. Middle-aged women often have high scores, she says, because of menopause (inflammation can increase due to the decline in oestrogen). It’s why she’s desperate for women in their 40s and 50s to get on top of their daily habits as early as possible. “Many women I test in their early 50s come out in their mid-60s unless they’re on HRT, so as someone who’s combating declining oestrogen I’m pretty happy with a score of 51.” Listening to loud music stimulates the nervous system when it produces “the chills”, and when experienced with others you get the added longevity benefit from social interaction. Listening to music before bed can slow down breathing and improve sleep quality. “Our brainwaves synchronise to musical rhythms, which makes music a great metronome, enabling us to influence the release of brain chemicals and the activation of brain networks,” Jones says. “And of course, learning a musical instrument is proven to be one of the best ways of slowing cognitive decline and building new brain connections. Music really is a super-tool.” Eat 30 different plants each week

So the big question is: why would someone who’s physically fit come out with such poor readings? “We’ve put so much emphasis on cardiovascular fitness in the past few decades,” says Dr Jones. She was a sports and exercise scientist in the ’90s and helped to launch a chain of gyms, so she advocated exactly that. “But fitness and wellness are not actually the same thing. You can be fit but not well, as measured by what state your cells are in.”

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Gratitude is an easy way to boost positive brain chemicals and produce a calming effect, activating the parasympathetic nervous system — the rest and repair branch of our autonomic nervous system that stems the release of stress chemicals,” Jones says. “I sit with my dog Charlie for my first coffee of the day and list the good things in my life. Some people worry they have to come up with a different list every day but it doesn’t really matter what you’re being grateful for. As long as you’re doing it intentionally and not running through in your head all the things you need to do when you get to the office, it still has that benefit.” There is no reason why most humans can’t live to 100, says Dr Julia Jones, bluntly. The neuroscientist and author is annoyed that on a recent longevity predictor test, her healthy life expectancy came out at “only” 97. If you have any kind of sleep monitoring device, you can see that when you drink at night you tend to go into a deep sleep, but it’s not natural sleep,” she says. Try delaying your breakfast till 11am to extend your overnight fasting period. Image: Getty Rule 1: Delay having breakfast till 11am Julia has been studying the effects of music and sound on behaviour and wellness for 30 years. The first book helped in boosting a surge of interest in this area and became a unique music-based wellness programme run at offices of some of the largest companies in the world.

All of Dr Jones’s advice is grounded in science, she says, even if many of the experiments have so far only been carried out on mice. “Leading longevity scientists I meet at conferences are already doing these things themselves, because they have the conviction that what they’re seeing in mice – the reversing of biological age at a cellular level – holds true, even if there have not yet been sufficient human trials,” she says. “We should be able to live healthily to 100 – that’s the aim.” Dr Jones is an exceptionally good advert for everything she preaches. She weighs the same as she did in her 20s, having dropped six kilograms as a by-product of changing her habits, and hopes the next time she tries the longevity calculator (at apps.bluezones.com) she’ll get to 100. This is to preserve and improve the quality of sleep, a key to longevity. “If you have any kind of sleep monitoring device you can see that when you drink at night you tend to go into a deep sleep, but it’s not natural sleep,” she says. “You’re increasing the levels of the brain chemical GABA — essentially putting the brain to sleep. That fake sleep isn’t healthy and it disrupts the quality.” Jones says she doesn’t tend to drink during the week and no longer drinks to unwind late in the evening. Persevere with kombucha and kimchiDr Jones, who began her career as a sports and exercise physiologist and psychologist working with Olympic squads, and later studied applied neuroscience at King’s College London, has been researching optimum wellness for 30 years. The trouble is, she says, we’re mostly doing the wrong things at the moment: prioritising physical fitness over wellness at a cellular level. What’s now considered vital for longevity is controlling inflammation in your cells. Another technique is to have periods every day when you slow your breathing and exhale longer than you inhale. Turn your shower to cold before getting out

Scientists have discovered pathways in our cells that help to suppress that inflammation and can slow the ageing process. The key players — or the ones we know about so far — associated with those pathways are the enzymes AMPK (adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase) and mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), and sirtuins; proteins that play vital roles in cell repair and cell metabolism. “They’re like the house- keepers who help the epigenome maintain its function — cleaning the cells of waste products, and making sure there’s no damage,” Jones says. As an academic her PhD, MSc, MBA, PG Cert and BA (Hons) studies and research all examined various aspects of neuroscience and psychology. She began her professional career as a Sport & Exercise Psychologist and Physiologist in the early 1990s, working with Olympic squads.Jones is an exceptionally good advert for everything she preaches. She weighs the same as she did in her twenties, having dropped a stone as a by-product of changing her habits, and hopes that next time she tries the longevity calculator (at apps.bluezones.com) she’ll get to 100. You’re increasing the levels of the brain chemical GABA– essentially putting the brain to sleep. That fake sleep isn’t healthy and it disrupts the quality.” Dr Jones says she doesn’t tend to drink during the week and no longer drinks to unwind late in the evening. Smart advice for the wellness-seekers among us. Why would someone who’s physically fit come out with such poor readings? “We’ve put so much emphasis on cardiovascular fitness in the past few decades,” Jones says. She was a sports and exercise scientist in the Nineties and helped to launch a chain of gyms, so advocated exactly that. “But fitness and wellness are not the same thing. You can be fit but not well, as measured by what state your cells are in.”