Age-Reversal Tips: You Can Be Younger (How To Use The Power Of Your Mind to Look & Feel 10 Years Younger).

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness Podcast, we've been obsessed with having a young body, which is all very nice, but a young body and an old mind is a bit pointless. You should have a young mind and a young body. That's the great thing about humans. We can choose to say whatever we like, but your body has no choice but to react to the words you use. Make a point of do what you love, do what makes you feel good. I believe if you do what you hate, you pay a price.

Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. Hey. I've known today's podcast episode for a while. Her name is Marissa Peer. You may have heard of her before. She's like the. I don't know. I'm gonna describe her as the. The Hypnosis to the Stars. I don't know. That's what I'm going to call her, though. She's pretty amazing. She's a great woman. I've had a chance to hang out with her and her husband at a lot of different events and they're just super smart. She has this really intriguing book on longevity and that's what we are going to talk about today. All right, folks. Well, I have talked a lot about anti aging and longevity before on the show, but there is a book that I have not talked about, at least that I can remember that I read on a flight back from, I believe it was Sardinia, Italy, when I was speaking in Sardinia at a kind of longevity focused event there in of course one of the well known blue zones. And this was at what's called a Mind Valley event. And MindValley is one of the companies that I've partnered with in the past to not only speak at their amazing events like mindvalley youy and Awesomeness Fest that's put on by Vishen Lakhani and a former podcast guest of mine. And he of course brings in the speakers from all over the world. And one person who I met there was a super, super fascinating woman. She's actually very well known as a therapist. Her name is Marissa Peer. Marissa Peer. She's written a lot of books and she's very well versed in hypnosis particularly and does a lot of work in hypnosis and also something called rapid transformational therap, known as RTT therapy. And she, unknown to a lot of people, has actually done quite a bit of research and writing in the realm of anti aging and longevity. But from a very unique standpoint, kind of more of a standpoint of using your brain and your mind to reverse aging. Now she had handed me at one of these Mind Valley events, her book, her book called you can be use the power of your mind to look and feel to 10 years younger. And I kind of started thumbing through the book on the plane ride home and wound up folding over a bunch of pages because I found so much of it fascinating and so much of it kind of separate from a lot of the chatter that's going on right now in terms of like, you know, nad and sirtuins and peptides and hormone replacement and all these things that are often discussed in the anti aging sector. And it really had a very unique approach, so much so that I wanted to get her on the show. And we've been trying, I think we've been trying for like a year to actually hook up for this interview and we have finally, finally made it happen. So as we chat, I'll not only link to her book but also all of her other resources and her websites in the show Notes, which you can find@BenGreenfieldFitness.com YouCanBeYounger that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com YoucanBeYounger and and before I start diving into all these questions that I have for Marissa about some of the rabbit holes I want to dive into regarding this book, one thing that I think I want to say so that you guys are thinking about this the right way as you listen is a little anecdote that I highlighted in the book and it goes like this. Artists Michelangelo and Pablo Picasso did amazing work in their late 80s and 90s respectively. To Tyson did his best work in his 80s and 90s. Verdi composed Ava Maria at 85 years old. Martha Graham, the brilliant ballerina, was still performing on stage at 75. And at 95 she was choreographing her 180th work. Lucian Froude continued painting until his death at 88. The pianist Vladimir Horowitz played to a sold out Carnegie hall at 98. Arthur Rubenstein did the same thing at 90. The Rolling Stones are still performing as they enter their 70s. Rod Stewart is still recording in his 70s. Nicholas Parsons at 88 was just on the BBC Radio 4 program just a minute displaying great mental agility. Bruce Forsyth is very agile and mentally sharp at 86. And she just goes on and on and on in this book with a list of very inspirational examples of people who are functioning extremely well into their 70s and their 80s and their 90s. And they're not sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home. They're. They are crushing life. And that's the type of stuff that Marissa teaches you how to do in this book. So. Pretty excited to have you on the show, Marissa, welcome.

I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much.

Yeah. And from what I understand, you guys, you and your husband John, you are in the process of relocating from London to la, right?

We did that last year. Isn't it interesting? Many people at our age, like, retire, go, I've retired. Isn't it great? I'll never retire ever, ever, ever. I love that saying, when hope dies, old age runs to meet you. And I'm a great believer in reinventing yourself. And so we move to la, we paddleboard every day. We feel like teenagers. And it's absolutely true that the more youthful things you can do and the more youthful you feel, the more youthful you physically become. And I think some people say, oh, I'm too old for that now, or at my time of life. So we, we really walk our talk. We've relocated across the world. We've got a brand new life, brand new friends, brand new pets. And honestly, I've never been happier. Neither is he. It's. It's wonderful.

Oh, I love that. So you guys are just kind of like retiring from retirement?

Well, we're never going to retire. I hate the word retire because it means give up. I mean, I wouldn't, I would never retire from anything ever.

Yeah, well, I think it's a great perspective. And of course, you kind of highlight a lot of that in your book. And I personally feel like even if I were to retire from perhaps the type of work that I'm doing now, my grandfather never retired. I don't think my dad will ever retire in that they're constantly starting new businesses, making new changes, never looking for that day when they can just golf and live off the income that they've saved up or off of Social Security. They're instead just moving and shaking. And we see that over and over again just in the anecdotes that I gave at the beginning of this interview. I mean, you have to jump out of bed every morning with a distinct and driven purpose in life. And if you're retired, in many cases, unless your purpose in life is to get a better handicap on the golf course, you're probably not going to have the type of purpose that keeps you moving and shaking for very long. So I love what you guys are doing. Okay, so anti aging and longevity, like I mentioned in the Introduction. Those are really hot topics right now, especially amongst, like, scientists and transhumanists and physicians. And for you, I mean, you're. You're a therapist. And so I'm curious, what got you attracted to focus on this field? Because, you know, it's not something you see a lot of therapists talking about. So what first attracted you to the concept of becoming younger, so to speak?

One of the very great things about being a therapist, especially a female therapist, is very few careers for women where you don't have a cel date, very few careers where people go for your wisdom. But therapist is an amazing career because the older you get, the wiser you're seen. And so that's always been great for me. But, you know, I'm also a speaker and a writer, and I just wanted to show people that you don't have to fight aging, you have to defy it. I mean, what is it? You know, I spend a lot of time in Africa. I've been to Japan. I've been all over the world. Interesting enough, French women in Japanese are the longest living women in the world, come from two areas where they really respect older women. They find them attractive, sensual, fascinating. And then I began to notice that all the countries where they respect age have people who live not just longer, but they live better. So in China, they say you're Nothing until you're 70 because you haven't lived enough to have an opinion. In countries where they call ageing, saging, and where they really respect. I don't even like the word elders, but it always fascinated me that the countries where they respect older people are the countries where people age much better than when they go, oh, you're past it now. You've had it. He's just dead word, or you're old or you're a senior. And the countries where they don't have old people's homes, interesting enough, other countries where people live longer and the countries where they have. Is it China where they have a day every year where they celebrate old people? They all tend to live right up until after that celebration. It's always like, they choose to hang on for that because it's the time when they are celebrated, and we all need to be celebrated.

Yeah. And, you know, in the US it kind of goes back and forth. Right. Like, obviously, right now, during this COVID pandemic, nursing homes seem to be getting more attention and sympathy now than ever before, which is great. But, you know, it seems like, you know, even before the pandemic, that we kind of stripped Older lives of a lot of purpose and meaning to instead lock people away and protect them in more of, like a hospice or, you know, relatively isolated care setting. But, you know, when you look at, even in the US At a lot of our leaders that we hear about right now, you know, all politics aside, you know, Nancy Pelosi is 80 and Anthony Fauci is 79, and, you know, President Trump is 74. And they're doing what they're doing as people who are at the same age as other folks who are just sitting around in nursing homes. And so, yeah, I think redefining the way that not only we think of age and this idea of life, in many cases, as you've just alluded to, just beginning when you're wiser and more experienced and able to really inspire and help the younger generation versus old age, resulting in the body falling apart and you getting locked away, it's a very different way to approach things. I think that there's just so many examples in society, even currently, not just in politics and beyond, of people who really are displaying what one can do as they age if they have that purpose and that drive, not to mention the health, but it goes beyond just being healthy, because obviously any of those folks I mentioned, like Pelosi or Fauci or Trump, they could also be out golfing every day and not making the impact that they're making. And so one of the things that's related to aging is this concept of rejuvenation. Rejuvenation, or the idea that the body's kind of constantly rejuvenating. And that's something you get into early in the book, that there are clues that it is possible to become younger. But can you get into some of the things that are going on when the body is constantly rejuvenating?

Yes. For instance, all of us, we make a new stomach lining every 28 days. We make new red blood cells every 28 days. Our eyes rejuvenate themselves all the time. We make new skin constantly. So the body is always in the state of rejuvenating. And actually the mind never ages. The memory may change, but if you're a professor at university, the professor in their 80s will have the same mind as someone in their 30s. Because the mind is rather brutal. It has a use it or lose it. If you use your mind, just like if you use a muscle, it will actually rejuvenate incredibly. So people who are using their mind again, composers, pianists, writers, painters, tend to have a very active mind. The people who just give up and retire and just surf through the television all day. Find that they don't. Because your brain has a use it or lose it. So as my mother got older, one of the things the brains love is something called neurobics newness. So if you look at a child, they'll cray and then they'll jump on, get Lego and then they'll come back and play with a puzzle. They're always doing something new. And as you get older, it's really important. I put my mother on the computer. I got her to use Skype, I got her to use all her, she loved crossword puzzles and I got her to use those on an iPad. Because every time you introduce the brain to something new, the neurons keep firing. You can have an active brain, but you have to use it. And one of the best things to do to keep your brain really young and agile is to, when you're cleaning your teeth, balance on one foot. You'll find that almost all of us, as we go upstairs, will set off from the right leg. We always hold everything with our right hand, unless of course, we're left handed. If you use the other hand and the other leg, you start to fire different neurons. It will actually keep you incredibly young. There's so much you can do to keep a young mind. We've been obsessed with having a young body, which is all very nice, but a young body and an old mind is a bit pointless. You should have a young mind and a young body. And one of the reasons people like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have aged so well, considering that they actually abused themselves a lot with drugs and drink, is because they're always doing something new that always performing, writing new songs and anything you can do that's youthful, girly, giggling, dancing. If you do whatever a young person does, have sex in your 80s and beyond, laugh, giggle, try something new, then what will happen is you trick your brain into believing that you are young. So we have three ages and it's very important to recognize we have what I call a birth certificate age, which is the least important one of all. And then we have the age of our organs, our biological age. And if you were a runner aged 40, but you ran in the sun, a 40 year old will have a 30 year old lungs, a 30 year old heart, but 50 year old knees and skin. So we can see that our organs age on their own time. We have the age your birth certificate says you are, the age your organs are, which is completely different for everybody. And the age you feel and the age of your organs is related to the age you feel. So having sex, laughing, rollerblading, swimming, playing with kids, being silly, being girly, being boyish actually sends a message to your organs that can only slow down. It can reverse your aging. And that's really good to know and even better to put into practice.

Yeah, it's kind of interesting because that idea of liver regeneration Goes all the way back to Greek mythology, Where I think it was prometheus, whose liver was eaten by a bird of prey by the day and then regenerated in the night. And now we know in more modern medicine that the liver is one of the few organs actually does replace lost liver tissue from, I think, the remaining tissue in the liver. It's the only visceral organ that has the capacity to regenerate. But then there are other organs that contain cells that can regenerate. Like the pancreas is a perfect example. They had research that began to appear a couple of years ago Showing that caloric restriction or intermittent fasting could actually cause pancreatic cell regeneration that literally did, like, a mild reversal of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. And it's simply a matter of the body being placed in the right environment to regenerate. But then, in addition to being placed in the right environment, I think one of the things that you really specialize in Is the right thought pattern and literally thinking to grow young. I think that that's a. That's a phrase you use in the book instead of think and grow rich like Napoleon hill's book implies. Think, think and grow young. So what do you mean when you say think and grow young?

Well, the way you think about aging Will really dictate how you age. For instance, if you went to Japan and lived there and saw People of 85 doing tai chi every day, that's how you would expect to age if you went to old. People say, I'm in the middle of America, and so we're just surfing the TV all day. That's how you would expect to age. So thoughts are real. Every thought you think has a physical reaction and an emotional effect. So you may say, I'm taking these supplements, I'm doing these exercises. I'm juicing. But if you do that believing it doesn't really work. It doesn't have the same effect as you are absolutely believing it works. So the placebo effect, the belief you have about a drug, Will have more of an effect on you Than the actual compounds of that drug itself. So what you think is everything. And again, that your chronological age Disregard that. It's worthless. Keep telling yourself that you feel young and the age you feel will actually start to affect the age of. You. Look at somebody like Goldie Horn or Sally Field or he's giggling, very, very girly, they remain forever girly. If you looked at somebody like Bob Hope, I mean, I know he's not here anymore. Or comedians that are older and funny, they live a long life. So the most important thing is diet is important, exercise is important, supplements important. But the most important thing is to say I am younger. An expression of youth. And there's somebody called Dr. Ellen Langer, who in 1979, took a group of 30 quite old people to a retreat. And it was what's called a closed retreat. So what it means is they decorated that retreat as if it was 30 years ago. There were more badges themselves or the TV shows and even the magazines and papers and books from 30 years ago. And because their mind went back to that life of 30 years ago, they began to believe that it really was 30 years earlier. And then in 2010, the BBC did exactly the same thing. Created a whole environment that made it look like it was 1980. Before these significantly older people with a lot of health issues went into this retreat. They tested their grip, their vision, their hearing, their finger length, everything. And they all said the same thing. Somehow went back in time to being 30 years younger. I felt younger and everything changed. I went in on a walking stick out without it.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah, I mean, it's remarkable. But there are other studies with pilots who say if you put people on a flight simulator and tell them they're a pilot, their vision improves, and your vision can't improve that quickly. But the mind believing you are flying a plane will do everything to give you better vision. So your mind responds to your thoughts. If you say, I'm being attacked by a lion, even though you know you're lying in bed at night, you will react as if you're being attacked by a lion. If you say, oh, my God, this stress is killing me. Rather than, well, I'm learning a lot through this. And stress can be very good for me. You don't react to the event, you react to what you think the event is. It's like if I had a lump of meat in my hand right now. If you're a Hindu, that would be disgusting. If you're a vegan, it would be offensive. If you're a bodybuilder, it'd be amazing because it's not the thing, it's what you think about the thing, and what you think about the thing is yours to change. If you think, you know, I love aging. In fact, it's saging. I'm having the time of my life. I feel incredible. When I was at the very same manifest year, this woman came up to me and said, hey, what does it feel like to be a senior here? And I said, honestly, I have no idea, because I would never refer to myself as a senior ever. So I can't answer that question. People say to me, gosh, you're brave. Paddle boarding. Do you ever fall in? I'm like, never. It wouldn't occur to me to fall in because I say, I've got great balance, I've got great core. And for me, I love paddle boarding. I love exercising, I love dancing. But if you do it going well, I hate exercising. I hate yoga. I hate crunches. You won't have the same effect as saying, my body loves Pilates. My body loves weights. My body loves running and jumping. My body loves green juices, and it uses all of it to build a better body for me. So you can choose what to say to yourself every minute of every day. That's the great thing about humans. We can choose to say whatever we like, but your body has no choice but to react to the words you use when you say, this stress is killing me. This job is driving me mad. These kids are driving me insane. This commute will be the death of me. You're choosing to say that, but your body has no choice but to act upon it. Because every word you speak is a blueprint that your mind and body have to act on. And when you know that, you think, well, I better change the blueprint. Then I would never say, this is killing me. I say, it's a little stressful, a little challenging. I'd never say, oh, God, I'm absolutely exhausted. I'm dying of tiredness. I'd never say, I'm eating like a pig. I could eat a horse. Because these things are absolute lies. No one could eat a horse. No one eats like a pig. No one is a train wreck or a hot mess. And if you really are going to lie to yourself, at least tell yourself a better lie. I'm becoming younger. I'm slowing down, aging. I'm going to stay like this for the next 30 years. You say, well, that's not true, but neither is saying, my bum is the size of a continent. But we're prepared to lie to ourselves all the time, so tell yourself a better lie. Because the mind, whatever you tell you are good or bad, real or false, useful or not, it lets it in. It neither knows or cares if it's true. And you can change your entire life by telling yourself better things and indeed telling yourself a better lie, which ceases to become a lie and becomes real. So I'm a term youthful. It's a great thing to say, because if you say it enough, it becomes real.

You know, there's a few things that you highlighted there as you were talking that I think are interesting. One, about the humor and the happiness and the joy aspect. I came across some research that showed that people in their 20s laugh, like, I think about somewhere around less than four times a day, whereas teenagers are like around six times a day. Babies are like 300 times a day. And then once you hit 50, it's like three times a day, then in your 60s, one to two times a day. And a big part of that is that as you age, as many of us know, you just start to take life pretty seriously. And they've also done research that shows that people who are displaying more joy, particularly with a measurement as simple as laughing frequency, they actually have better health with age. And I don't think they've ever done actual telomere length or methylation clock measurements on this. But I think there really is something to be said for introducing more joy, more happiness, more comedy, more jokes, more kind of tapping into the same type of childlike joy that you did when you were a kid or when you were a teenager. And I was. It's funny because I didn't know we were going to talk about this, but I was just talking to my wife this morning. I'm like, you know, I realized, like. Like, I haven't really been, like, doing as many little dance parties with the kids or telling as many stupid, funny jokes with them at the dinner table. I need to start doing that again because I was just thinking about it last night, about this idea of happiness and joy and just how much better it makes life. And as you've alluded to and as you talk about in the book, how much of a role it plays in keeping you young. And then the other thing that I think is really interesting that I want people to make sure that they take to heart, was that BBC program that you talked about where they took all these celebrities and they had them live in this house, you know, this big country house furnished with kitchen and electrical appliances that they would have seen in their more youthful times. And they actually observed these people getting younger and, and, and displaying improved Flexibility and improved mobility. And literally they were just surrounded by the same type of, you know, films and sitcoms and magazines and newspapers and house furnishings as they had when they were younger. And I'm not necessarily saying you got to go throw out all your modern crap and destroy the feng shui of your home by, I don't know, putting up white and red checkered tablecloths and shag carpet and all that jazz, But I'm curious, Marissa, if you've actually seen of any examples or you've implemented in your own life this idea of how we could practically include things that reflect our youth in our own personal environment? Like, would it be pictures, would it be music? Or have you kind of thought about that much at all?

Yeah, music. Especially playing the music that you dated to that you got married to. Music that will take you back. Listening to music from when we were younger, even the way you dress, the minute you start to wear elasticated pants and flat shoes, that's not a good thing.

Knee high gray compression socks. I gotta be careful because there's a sponsor that sometimes sponsor this show that does compression socks. I tell everybody they're not the old man. Compression socks. Don't worry.

When I'm in Paris, in Italy, I look at women in their 70s who make an effort and still wear heels, a little scarf and a bit of lipstick, and they don't go for that white permed hair because if you do something youthful, you feel youthful. So dress, you know, you don't need to wear a leopard skin top and a miniskirt, but keep up with fashion to a degree. Keep up with music, keep up with things that kind of. We listen to Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith and all kinds of currents. I'm always saying to my daughter, what are you listening to? Now, my husband's daughter's in the music business, so we make a point of keeping very up to date with stuff. And it's so good for you. But the biggest thing are the words, you know, There was another study that I love where they took random strangers off the street, mostly in their 50s, 60s, or 40s, too. And they said, come up to this room and just read all the words written around them. The first group read words like fragile, careful, antique, delicate, easily breakable. And they just read all the words on the wall. Then they videoed them leaving, and they said they walked so carefully, so tenderly, like they would break. Second group came in and their words had been changed to youthful, exuberant, resilient, bouncy, happy. They said they practically leapt out of that room like they were Tigger on steroids, because their mind responded immediately to the words they read. And the word. When you say, oh, I'm an antique now, oh, I'm a bit delicate. Oh, no, I couldn't possibly do that. Then you turn into that extra expectation. You turn into the way you describe yourself. That is a scientific fact. And all you have to do is change your description and turn into that. So never say old, say youthful, Never say, you know, I. People say, oh, you know, I've forgotten because it's my age. I say, well, you know, go to any children's classroom at the end of the day and you'll see swimming trunks, lunch bags. They forget every minute ago. It's your age. You know, we just accept they forget as we go. We add on, I'm tired, it's my age. I can't read that. It's my age. I can't digest that it's my age. Do not add that to any sentence. You can sound tired, I've had a busy day. I can't digest that is not very healthy. Maybe I've overeaten. But don't keep adding it's your age to everything you do or want to do, do everything as if your age is irrelevant. And, you know, again, I go whitewater rafting, paddle boarding, running, hiking. Last year, my husband and I were driving around Bali on a motorbike and I still think, gosh, my mother, when she was the age and I would never in a million years gone around Bali on a motorbike, and our friend said, wow, you're so young. And I said, I know, it's funny. Our friends, we have many friends the same age as our own children. And although I look at that occasionally, usually I just ignore it, but it's such fun. And my daughter said, oh, it's so funny, Mummy. I was lying upstairs in bed with my boyfriend and my boyfriend went, who are those rowdy people in the street? She goes, oh, that's my mum and dad. And they're crazy friends. And I thought that was so funny that they looked at the window. Why don't you be quiet? You're being too noisy. So pay attention to your thoughts. Your thoughts control your feelings, Your feelings control your actions. Your actions control your events. And everything begins with your thinking. If you think, hey, I'm going to enjoy every stage of my life. I'm going to be like George Burns. I'm going to be having a great life in my 90s. I'm going to be like Jane Fonda looking super hot in my 80s. Why shouldn't I? If you decide to think that, then that's probably what you'll do.

Yeah, I have one tip for people, and that is with the music piece. Because I started listening to music from my youth, like my early youth, like 5 to 6 years old recently, because I had my mom find all of our own vinyls. And I bought like a vintage record player off of Amazon, but kind of like a modern one that will play records but can also transmit via Bluetooth to our main sound system or just play standalone records, do CDs, do cassette tapes. And so I have a giant box of records. And yesterday I woke up my boys by playing the same album. I think it was an old school, like, I believe it was second chapter of acts or Keith Green, one of the two. And I was just blasting that in the morning and they opened up the little sliding door to their room and, you know, pop their tired little faces out and they're like, what is that? I'm like, these are the songs I used to listen to when I was a kid, you guys, they came down and they were dancing around. They absolutely loved it. And I love kind of the old school vinyl sound. And literally just, just asked my mom and she brought the albums up and, you know, if you have some old vinyl around or old music, you know, cassette tape mixes, I'm totally dating myself. But, you know, those are the kind of just simple things that you can implement that keep you young. And I think even things like family photos or photos of you when you were a kid that you're framing and hanging on the walls, there's just all sorts of cool things. I mean, you could even take it into relationships. Like, you know, my wife and I have both done kind of like boudoir photo shoots of us, you know, kind of in our prime and given. Given each other some. Some tasteful yet slightly dirty photos that we keep in cigar boxes and we can look at our lover when they were young. And to me, that just fills me with a surge of youthfulness when I look at my wife in her underwear in her 20s. And here we are in our mid to late 30s and there's all sorts of crazy things that you can do. But yeah, it's this idea of just sending your body a message over and over again that it's still in this youthful environment. And then when you combine that with a happiness and the joy and of course, the purpose in life, all that stuff adds up. Now you also talk about primitive tribes in the Book I thought this was interesting. You get in the Hunza area of Pakistan and Georgia, in Eastern Europe and Ecuador and parts of South America where people are routinely living to be 100 plus. And I'm curious if in writing the book you took away anything significant from these areas aside from what you already talked about in terms of China, valuing the older person's experiences and you know, in China they believe you're nothing until you're 70, but you know, did you come across anything else in looking at long lived populations?

I wrote a whole chapter on what people who live to be 100 and beyond tend to do because they all leave clues. So there are certain groups all over the world in Greece too of people who get to be 100 plus and they all are involved in the family. They still work, they still exist, they still walk down a steep hill to pick olives or to pick oranges. They come back, they still get involved in cooking, they still have family dinners. The family go to them for advice. They often still, even in their 90s, are having sex, which is incredibly important because it tells you that you're young, even if you're just holding hands and kissing. Because when you look at the person you're in love with, they forever look young to me. My uncle used to always say to me, now my wife, she always looks 16 to me. I can never see her as anything other than the 16 year old girl that I fell in love with. And often when they show people pictures of their partner, they go, that's not my wife. No, she doesn't look anything like that. Who's that old person? My wife is young and gorgeous because that's what you see. And so people who live a long life are involved in their community, involved in their family, they're looked up to, they still cook, clean, run a house, have sex, get involved. People turn to them for advice and they feel useful, they feel desirable and they feel significant. And they tend to move a lot, they tend to exercise a lot. Just, you know, in the blue zones they're always walking. And so there's so many things that we need to do. They often have pets and that's very useful too because they have to walk them and exercise them. But it's this feeling of mattering. And I think that's the problem. We put people into old people's home, don't visit them. And even old people's homes say that if we make our guests make their own food, get their own food, vacuum their own room and dress themselves, they do better the Minute we start doing everything, let me launder your clothes, let me. They just deteriorate because it's like a muscle. If you don't use it, it stops being of any use to you at all. And we have more hundred year olds than ever before. And you know, 30, I remember Bridget Bardo when she was 35, she was old. Now you think old. We aren't even old at 55 now. Every year our life expectancy goes up by. Sorry, every three years we add a year to our life expectancy. And now 100 isn't even unusual. People are planning to live to 110, 100, because so many things that killed us, disease and poor sanitation just, just don't exist. We have other challenges. All the pollutants in the food and all the wi fi. But if you believe you're resilient and you have a joy for life and you have things that you love doing, still have hobbies or interests. I saw that with my father who was eternally a fascinating conversationalist and funny. And he lived until he was 90 and he could have lived longer actually, but he was always a raconto very interesting and always loved every stage of his life. And most people, if you interview 70 year olds and go what was the best stage rather than five years ago? They never go when I was 20, when I was 15, they usually say, oh it wasn't that long ago. And you're very rarely meet people of age go I want to be 20, I want to be 60 again, but not 20. So it's only 10 years back that we see as being the best time of our life. And you can, you can easily reverse your mental, physical and emotional age by 10 years. That's not even difficult. And you can do it super fast too.

Yeah. And you know what's, what's interesting is you talked about having sex with a lot of these tribes that are showing better health with aging or aging at a slower rate. There is this theory that's basically a theory of reproductive usefulness from an evolutionary or an ancestral standpoint that the more children a woman has early in life or the more sex, particularly for women, this seems to be more the case that they have as they age, the greater the lifespan. And then when menopause sets in, you often see an acceleration of a lot of biological factors associated with, with aging. But what's really interesting is this whole grandmother hypothesis or maternal hypothesis and what that shows is that basically in societies or cultures where the women are given a more honorable matriarchal role or they're given a role of caring for the grandchildren, caring for the village, passing stories onto the tribe, et cetera. You don't see that menopause results in the type of accelerating aging that it does in cultures where matriarchal wisdom is less emphasized or less valued or less honored. And even though most of those studies were done in women, I imagine we could probably extrapolate a lot of that to males as well. That the more that an elder feels honored and is given more of a role of a storyteller and a mentor in society, the more that the drop in reproductive usefulness with age, especially for women, just because of the limited egg supply, whereas men can keep on, you know, making sperm later on into life. But the more that can be done, the less deleterious the loss of reproduction or fertility with age becomes. So it's just like if there are different ways in which society begins to find you useful that go beyond just propagating the human race, the more likely is that culture is set up for the elders to live a longer time, which I just think is incredibly interesting.

Well, what's so fascinating is that we're. Humans are one of the only species. I think humans, dolphins and monkeys are the only species that mate for the sheer joy of it. Every like a lion will not go near a lioness unless she's in heat. Dogs and cats and horses only mate when the female can procreate. So our primitive brain believes you're having sex to make a baby. Even if you're 70 years old, it believes you are having sex to recreate yourself. Because it believes that so profoundly, the more sex you have, the more your mind goes, you know, you're making an offspring here, and I better keep you young because you're going to have to raise that offspring. We are wired to recreate ourselves. We're also wired to have the energy to look after what we've recreated. And sex tricks your body into believing you're making a new human being. And you're going to have to have the energy to raise that human being. So the more sex you have, the more orgasmic you are, the more aging slows down. And interesting enough, Chinese emperors and the Turkish ones too, they could only reign for as long as they could physically have sex. So when the Chinese emperor stopped being able to do it, he was replaced. And they would send young, pretty girls into his chambers at night to keep him young and agile, because they believed if you can actually have sex, your mind is young. And, you know, this whole hen night comes from the fact they used to paint them with henna and trying to make them feel gorgeous and then shove them in the room with an 85 year old and they could actually go ahead and do the act with him because they felt good and he felt good. And I always thought that was fascinating, this interesting belief, if you can have sex as a man at 8, you can continue ruling. The day you can't have sex is the day the next generation up comes along. Because they knew even then that sex slows down aging, orgasms slow down aging in humans. And that's such a fascinating thing. And it's a good reason to keep having sex, even if it's a bit of DIY sex and even if it's not full sex and it's just kissing and cuddling. And I used to be a patron of a big cancer breast cancer charity in England. And they said true women who have orgasm survive breast cancer so much more, even if they're giving it to themselves. Because of that mind's belief in your pleasuring your body, you're having an orgasm. That's what young people do, therefore you must be young. And then you start to make NK natural killer cells. So orgasms fight cancer, fight aging, fight depression, fight illness. Because of that mind certainty. The only reason you're having sex is to make a human being. And it's not enough to make one, you've got to also raise it. So we should all have a lot more sex and feel a lot more sexy because that is not the preserve of the young. In fact, my clients in 70 say, oh, sex is much better now. It's sensual, we take longer, it's fun, we laugh, we don't worry about, oh, is my stomach tight? Have I waxed everywhere? We just have a great time and we should all do that.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, well, to me, you know, when I'm 90, I'd rather be shagging my wife, so to speak, than laying in bed by myself with a canister of coconut oil. But either way, I think, yes, sending your body that message that you are still youthful and still reproductively useful, even if you're not making babies per se. I think there is definitely something to be said for that. And, and that song.

What the moves like Jagger, they're singing about a 75 year old who by the way is still fathering children. You know, Ronnie Wood had two children at 70. There are men who are still fathering children. And for women, although our eggs dry up, the womb never ages. That's why women can actually a Grandmother can carry the embryo of her daughter if she needs to because certain parts of the body never age and one of those is the womb.

Yeah, that's true. That's another one that tends to regenerate to a certain extent, you know, the uterus with age just because of the cell turnover. So what about. And this might be a good segue from sex or to sex, depending on how you look at it. But you also talk about some, some things in the book that are more kind of like practical in the streets, ways to enhance beauty or defy aging as you age. Like eggs, for example. Smearing eggs on your face as a beauty treatment, is that something that you really do?

I mean, I don't really. I have done it actually. If you whip up an egg white and put it all over your face and let it dry, just the white, not the yolk, let it dry and then rinse it off 10 minutes later, it has an instantly tightening effect. And it's what a lot of actually movie stars do, they before they go on stage or before they go on set. So it will actually tighten your skin. It's temporary. But eggs, actually I'm a big fan of eggs because eggs contain everything to create life. And there's also staple foods that people eat who live into 100 and nuts and seeds are one of them. Eggs. It used to be soya. Soy used to be recognized as such a healthy food. That's actually changed rather now because it's so adulterized.

Yeah. And in many cases the fermented soy like the miso and the tempeh and the natto are still staples. But yeah, GMO adulterated unfermented soy is not necessarily, you know, especially for women who live in already estrogen rich environments, you know, with plastics and household cleaning chemicals and personal care products that contain phytoestrogens. You know, things like soy and flaxseeds do become a bigger issue, but you know, normally they shouldn't be that much of an issue. How about your own personal practice? What do you, you know, apart from what all these, all these, you know, blue zones or these longevity hotspots are doing and what we can learn from them. How about you personally, like, like what do you do? What have you found to be the big wins for you in terms of keeping yourself put together? Because you're not to blow smoke but like, you know, you're, you're remarkably well put together and you look good and you're obviously a very graceful and beautiful aging woman. So what do you do? What are Your secrets.

So I rebound a lot. I have a little trampoline, and I love that because it's aerodynamic and it's very good for you. There are many studies that say there is nothing that will reverse aging as well as exercise. So I do something. I have a Pilates machine in my house. Have a little trampoline.

I'm going to interrupt you real quick because just so you know, folks, I'm 38 and I trampoline every day. I have a little mini trampoline in the room next to my office. And that's actually one of the first things I do in the morning, just to get the G forces for moving lymph fluid through the body. And also to really help out with that morning bowel movement is I'll just go and do a little foam rolling and then jump up and down for about five minutes. And it feels great because they had.

Some studies with astronauts that said you go into muscle wastage in a day, if you don't move again, it's that use it or lose it. But you have to like it. So I trampoline for a couple of minutes. I play with really young music. I listen to the Cure, the Clash. In fact, in one of my rooms, I've got all my album covers on every bookshelf. Books. And the minute I listen to somebody like David Bowie or Bob Seger or stuff from when I was younger, I immediately feel younger. It's that thing I'm listening to a song I was dating to. Maybe Mark Almond, maybe the Clash, maybe the Cure, maybe in excess. And in that instant, I'm always going back to feeling like that girl of 19. And my body believes that I am that girl of 19. So that's the first thing I do. Exercise to really powerful music. When I clean my teeth, I tend to balance on one leg. And then I eat well. I juice, I drink water. I'm very into hydrating. I'm lucky to have a husband who is hilariously funny. He used to own 22 comedy clubs, and he makes me laugh all the time. He can always go into character. He's immensely funny.

The great. The great John Davies. Is he there with you right now?

He's in the garden. But he impersonate anybody. He can do any accent.

Yeah, he's a pretty funny guy. I had a good time hanging out with him.

Yeah, I mean, I married him because he was funny. That was my biggest thing. He never bores me because he can become someone else. I often say, oh, pretend you do that. And he's Always making faces and showing me a new part of him. And then we hang out with people. We have friends over for lunch and dinner and most of our friends are younger than us. A few are older, but we laugh a lot and that is the most. I love it when you laugh so much at your stomach aches and you laugh so much that you cry. So I'm very lucky. But I also love my life. I love my job, I love my kid, I love everything. And the first thing I do when I wake up and wow, I love my life. Because if you're in that frequency of gratitude and always looking forwards and not back, I never think, oh, I'm dreading getting older. It doesn't matter, it's just a number. I don't really focus on that number too much, but I do look at great role models. I used to work for James Bonda and she's always been inspirational to me. Because you're as young as you feel, you're as young as you want to be. So I, and I have a lot of hope. I plan to be here when I'm 110. We were talking before about retiring, but I won't retire. I might reinvent. I might give up one particular career and do another. But if you keep reinventing what you do and who you are and make a point to do what you love, do what makes you feel good, I believe if you do what you hate, you pay a price.

Yeah. So the whole concept of self actualization, you know, it's like. I believe it was. Was it Tesla or. No, I think it was Edison who said, I never worked a day in my life. And it's not as though work doesn't sometimes feel like work. Like it's sometimes hard for me to sit in front of a page and, you know, write an article, but at the same time, time goes by really quickly when I'm doing it. And you know, once I get started, I'm in the flow and I absolutely enjoy it. And I think that working in your life's purpose with the skills that come easy to you or that you really enjoy doing, I mean, it's self actualization is something we see over and over again. So yeah, I'm right on the same page as you as far as that's concerned. Well, this has been absolutely fascinating. And since we talk so much about humor and about the importance of funniness, a couple last things. What's the best, most funny movie or book that you've recently partaken in that you think people should Go see after hearing this if they want some comedy in the their lives.

The funniest film I ever saw, I think was called Bad Santa.

I loved that Billy Bob Thornton.

So I met him and he was really. I really. He's very funny. I love that, that movie. It's probably one of my funniest. All the Monty Python, especially the Life of Brian, that still makes me. I mean that's a very English thing, but I love the Life of Brian. I love Chris Rock, I love Billy Connolly, I love stand up comedians. I was very lucky that when I first met my husband, he had 22 comedy clubs. We spend every Saturday night watching comedians make you cry with laughter. So it's a really good idea to google a hundred funniest films, the things that made you laugh the most, and watch them over and over again. In fact, when we're in the car, we occasionally go onto Sirius radio and listen to comedians giving a set. And it's such a good thing to do when you can cry with laughter. There's. There's nothing better than that. I'm sure there are other films I love, but I always go, but Elf. Every Christmas I have to watch.

My kids love Elf. They love Elf.

Well, Farah is just so funny. And you want to be around people that are funny, naturally funny, screamingly funny, that make you laugh until you cry. Because, you know, that's what children do. They giggle, they laugh. One of the reasons too, we were talking earlier about women looking after the grandchildren. When you look after young kids, they make faces, they make you laugh. And it has a constant age reversing effect. So I try to not watch serious stuff. I watch stuff that makes me laugh. If it's serious, unless it's a fascinating document, I don't watch it. I tried to watch Tree of Life and I found it so boring. I like watching stuff that makes me laugh because when you laugh, you feel good.

I agree. All right, well, I'll. I'll end by telling you one funny corny joke and then we'll part ways. So here you go. A ham sandwich walks into a bar and orders a beer and the bartender says, sorry, we don't serve food here.

Ham sandwich walks in. Oh, I've got it.

Maybe John will get it anyways though. So don't worry, folks, I won't give up my day job, but I will put a link to Marissa's book and everything that we talk about in today's show. The book again is called you'd can be Younger, really Fun read and you can get that@BenGreenfieldFitness.com you can be younger. And when you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com YouCanBeYounger, that's also a good spot for you to lead your questions, your comments, your feedback, maybe your own funny jokes because obviously mine wasn't funny enough. And your own funny movie tips and anything else you've found to keep you young. Excuse me, to keep you young or to spark more joy in your life, more happiness. And I really think that we can take these things to heart. It goes beyond just like popping pills, folks. And there's a lot more that you can do beyond that. So, Marissa, thank you so much for coming on this show and sharing all this stuff with us. It's been just wonderful talking with you again.

Thank you. Do you want to hear my funny joke?

I guess so.

So there's a woman and her husband, they're both like 65, and they're walking around a marina in Florida, and she says, oh, what I would do to go on a cruise. I'd love to go on a cruise. We can't afford it. And he says, I'd love that. And suddenly a fairy appears with a wand and says, I'm going to give you both a wish and you can have whatever you want. The woman says, well, I want to go on this cruise more than anything. She said, bum bum puts in her hand two first class tickets for this cruise. She went, oh, thank you. She said to the husband, now you can have a wish. And he went, okay. Turns. His wife says, I'm really sorry, love, but I want to go with someone 30 years younger. The fairy waves her wand and lo and behold, he becomes 95. And she says, you never forget, the fairy is a woman.

I love that. I did not see that coming. But that is much more relevant to age reversal than my joke is. I love that one. I'll have to remember that one. All right, well, cool. Marissa, thanks so much for coming to the show. Tell John I said hi. With whatever he's doing out there in the garden, you probably haven't. What, scraping poop or spreading compost or something?

Oh, he's just sitting in the garden talking to all the neighbors, having a wonderful time. He's very social and that keeps him young.

Of course he is. Yeah. I hope to see you guys someday soon. I loved hanging out with you at Mind Valley, and I'm sure we'll make it happen again.

My husband always laughs and says, if ever there was a nuclear war, you always want to be with Ben, you're going off and tracking and hunting. And he often says, maybe with Ben, if anything goes wrong in the world. And he's absolutely right.

Well, it depends on what goes wrong. But that's, that's, that's, that's high praise coming from John. All right, Marissa. Well, I'll talk to you later. It's BenGreenfieldFitness.com YouCanBeYounger is where the shownotes are. Grab our book. It's great. And until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Marissa Pier signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes, use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.