The Nervous System & Longevity: Where Healthy Aging Begins | Dr. Gary Brodeur

The Nervous System: Where Longevity Begins

When we talk about longevity, the conversation often starts with diet, exercise, supplements, genetics, hormones, sleep, or the latest anti-aging technology.

All of those may deserve a place in the conversation.

But there may be an even more fundamental place to begin: The nervous system.

Because living longer isn't simply about keeping the body alive for more years. The real goal is maintaining our ability to function, move, think, respond, recover, and continue doing the things that make life meaningful.

That's the difference between lifespan and healthspan.

And healthspan depends heavily on one of the most remarkable abilities of the human body:

Our ability to adapt.

From the moment we're born, life continually presents us with changing demands.

Temperature changes. We adapt.

We exercise. We adapt.

We learn something new. We adapt.

We experience physical, chemical, and emotional stress. We adapt.

We encounter injury, illness, environmental changes, changes in nutrition, relationships, loss, growth, and aging.

Our survival depends upon our ability to appropriately perceive those changes, interpret what they mean, respond to them, recover, and adapt.

Longevity is, in many ways, an adaptation problem.

And sitting at the center of our ability to interact with and respond to our environment is the nervous system.

We Experience Life Through Our Nervous System

Think about that for a moment.

Everything we experience has to somehow become information our body can understand.

Light enters our eyes.

Sound reaches our ears.

Receptors in our skin detect touch, pressure, pain, and temperature.

Our muscles and joints continually provide information about where our body is in space and how we're moving.

Inside the body, sensory systems continually monitor changes in things such as blood pressure, oxygen, carbon dioxide, temperature, and countless other physiological variables.

Our nervous system receives an extraordinary amount of information from both outside and inside the body.

It then has to interpret that information and coordinate an appropriate response.

We can simplify this incredibly complex process into four words:

SENSE → INTEGRATE → RESPOND → ADAPT

SENSE: What is happening?

INTEGRATE: What does this information mean?

RESPOND: What does the body need to do?

ADAPT: How do we change in order to meet the demand?

This cycle occurs continuously, largely without our conscious awareness.

And it has been happening since very early in our development.

The Nervous System Begins Developing Remarkably Early

During the earliest stages of embryonic development, specialized tissue begins forming what will

become the nervous system.

The neural plate develops and folds to form the neural tube, which eventually gives rise to the brain and spinal cord.

As the embryo continues developing, an extraordinary communication network takes shape between the nervous system and the rest of the body.

This matters because we often learn anatomy as though we're made up of independent systems.

The cardiovascular system.

The digestive system.

The immune system.

The endocrine system.

The musculoskeletal system.

The nervous system.

But we don't function as a collection of independent parts.

We function as an integrated organism.

Our nervous system serves as one of the body's major communication, coordination, and control networks, continually receiving information and participating in responses throughout the body.

Consider the relationship between the nervous and endocrine systems.

The hypothalamus—a region of the brain—serves as an important interface between nervous-system activity and hormonal regulation through its relationship with the pituitary gland.

This neuroendocrine relationship helps coordinate responses involving stress, metabolism, reproduction, temperature regulation, circadian rhythms, and other essential functions.

The nervous system isn't simply about making muscles move or allowing us to feel pain.

It participates in how we experience and adapt to life.

Health Is More Than the Absence of Symptoms

This distinction becomes particularly important because we've become extremely symptom-oriented in how we think about health.

Nothing hurts.

Our stomach feels okay.

We don't have headaches.

Our back doesn't hurt.

Our blood work falls within the reference ranges.

Therefore, we assume we're healthy.

But absence of symptoms and optimal function aren't necessarily the same thing.

Many physiological changes can develop long before they produce obvious symptoms.

Symptoms themselves aren't necessarily “good” or “bad.”

I prefer to think of them as body signals.

They're information.

Pain may cause us to stop loading an injured tissue.

Fever can accompany the body's immune response.

Fatigue may signal that the demands we're placing on ourselves are exceeding our available resources or recovery.

The symptom isn't always the underlying problem.

That's why instead of only asking: “How do I make this symptom go away?”

there's another question worth asking: “Why is my body producing this signal?”

Finding that answer moves us closer to the source.

What Can People Who Live to 100 Teach Us?

Scientists have spent decades studying people who achieve exceptional longevity.

The New England Centenarian Study, for example, has examined centenarians and their families to better understand why some individuals live exceptionally long lives and delay age-related disability.

We've also learned from populations frequently discussed in the Blue Zones literature, where researchers and writers have explored common lifestyle characteristics among populations with unusual longevity.

Genetics certainly matter.

But our genes don't operate in isolation from how we live.

Nutrition matters.

Movement matters.

Sleep matters.

Relationships matter.

Purpose matters.

Environment matters.

Stress matters.

Recovery matters.

And our ability to continually adapt to all of those influences matters.

That's why longevity shouldn't begin at age 70.

We're building our future healthspan every day.

The way we move today matters.

The food we eat today matters.

The quality of our sleep matters.

The relationships we cultivate matter.

The physical, chemical, and emotional environments we expose ourselves to matter.

And our ability to appropriately respond and adapt to those demands matters.

Maybe We're Asking the Wrong Longevity Question

The longevity industry is exploding.

We're surrounded by discussions about supplements, peptides, hormones, fasting, cold exposure, red-light therapy, biological-age testing, genetic testing, wearables, and increasingly sophisticated health technology.

Some of these tools may be valuable.

But before looking for the next longevity hack, perhaps we should ask more fundamental questions.

How well are we adapting?

How well are we moving?

How well are we sleeping?

How effectively are we recovering?

How much physiological reserve do we have?

How effectively are we responding to physical, chemical, and emotional demands?

And how effectively is our nervous system sensing, integrating, and coordinating those responses?

Because the goal shouldn't simply be: More years.

It should be: More healthy, functional years.

Years in which we can walk.

Think clearly.

Travel.

Work if we choose.

Play golf.

Exercise.

Garden.

Pick up our grandchildren.

Maintain relationships.

Live independently.

And continue pursuing the things that give our lives purpose.

That's healthspan.

And it gives us a different way of thinking about longevity.

Start With the Nervous System

As we continue exploring longevity, keep this framework in mind:

SENSE → INTEGRATE → RESPOND → ADAPT

Our ability to successfully navigate life depends upon our ability to perceive what's happening around and within us, integrate that information, generate an appropriate response, and adapt.

And that raises the next important question:

What happens when the demands placed upon us begin challenging our ability to adapt?

That brings us to stress.

We're constantly being told to reduce stress, manage stress, eliminate stress, and lower cortisol.

But what if we've misunderstood stress?

Exercise is stress.

Learning is stress.

Temperature change is stress.

Growth requires challenge.

In fact, appropriate stress may be one of the very things that allows us to become stronger and more resilient.

That's where we'll go next: Built to Adapt: Stress Is Essential to Longevity!

Because stress is inevitable.

Resilience is trainable.

Until next time,

Dr. Gary

Find The Source. Simplify The Solution. Restore Your Health.

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