You are your Mitochondria
Life doesn’t wait.
How do we harness the moment, fill ourselves with a long life, full of meaning and potential, when the days whiz by full of work, family, obligations? This is the question we must ask! What does LIFE mean to us? What IS life?
It’s human to be distracted, disillusioned, desperate. For a long time I felt this way, I still do many days. As I look back on the moments, the days, the years leading up to NOW, underlying everything was this struggle to find meaning.
I am putting my nerd hat on, and jumping down the well of science to answer this one! Because the more you understand the real reason behind all of the health and fitness advice, the longer you will live, the more memories you will make, the more time you will have to find meaning.
Do you want to live as long as possible? Is longevity important to you? How about living a long time but without disease?
Let me introduce you to your mitochondria. These organisms have harnessed the power of oxygen as an energy source, they are the reason we evolved from a single cell organism floating around in the sea, to a human being with a conscious brain. Your body is filled with these single celled “aliens,” housing their own DNA mind you! and take the air you breathe to run your engine. Every plant and animal that utilize oxygen on this planet, have mitochondria.
If mitochondria have the power to harness oxygen and transfer the energy we need to be ALIVE, they also have the power to deteriorate and slowly die, which means we slowly die. These aliens are literally our life force, the more we have, the healthier we are, the longer we live. Guess where the majority of our mitochondria live? In our muscle cells.
So we come to it… the theory. Our longevity depends on our mitochondria’s ability to utilize oxygen for energy, and how these mitochondria handle the byproducts from oxygen use, is what determines how well and how fast we age.
We talk often of the benefits of fitness, general health, genetics, good nutrition, and stress management. And we also talk of lifestyle factors detrimental to our body, like chronic stress, drug & alcohol use, and poor sleep.
It has come to light just how much these factors affect our health and longevity and the simple ways we can improve our quality, and the length, of our of lives.
Over the next few weeks we’ll dive a little deeper into these aliens living within us, and what we can do on a daily basis to improve our chances of a longer life! More time with our kids, time enjoying the things we love, time feeling and living on this amazing planet.
