Change Your Thoughts
Your body responds to the pictures you make in your mind, and it constantly works to meet them. Reading books that describe cold can make you shiver, describing your favourite food can make you hungry, because your mind is responding. So dismiss every negative thought you have about ageing and replace it with a constructive one. From today on, rather than thinking ‘my skin looks old’, for instance, decide that your skin ‘dehydrated’.
Change Your Beliefs
Your thoughts and beliefs can be in conflict. For example if you believe you are scared of dogs even when you’re thinking ‘that dog isn’t a threat – it’s on a lead’ your body will already be responding to fear. It’s the same with our beliefs about ageing - they influence us 24 hours a day. Change a belief by introducing doubt - then your mind will be receptive to new beliefs.
Write out your beliefs about ageing and those of people who may influence you, like parents, grandparents and friends. Under each one, write something positive. For example you may write ‘My mother says getting older means getting fat and out of shape’. Counter it with: I don’t have my mother’s body and I maintain an active lifestyle.’
Change your language
Words are powerful. Saying things like ‘I’ve had a hellish morning’, or ‘parking was a nightmare’ elevates events that need to be forgotten. Describing pain as ‘crippling’ intensifies it, saying you are ‘ravenous’ can convince your mind you *are *starved and make you overeat.
1 Write the words you use the most frequently to describe yourself - positive words down the left and the negative words down the right.
2 Accentuate the positives and minimise the negatives. For example, change ‘I am not bad looking’, to, ‘I look wonderful.’ And for ‘I often get tired’, write ‘when I rest enough I have abundant energy.’
3 Now put words like ‘absolutely’, ‘definitely’ and ‘positively’ in front of the positives, and words like ‘slightly’, ‘mildly’ and ‘occasionally’, in front of the negatives. This is your new vocabulary.
Act Younger
You never forget how to ride a bike because it’s in your physiology. It’s the same with ageing; doing the things you did when you were younger remind your muscles how to behave, and tell your cells this is the activity of a youngster. Swimming, skipping and trampolining are activities designed to make you feel young.
Listening to music with youthful lyrics has a similar effect. Find songs like We Are Young by FUN, or the music you heard on your first date and play them daily. When we fall in love we become childlike, spontaneous and carefree - we rub noses, use baby voices, hold hands, cuddle up and find pleasure in the simplest things. Recreate those feelings; find pleasure in the rain or a rainbow and indulge your adventurous side. List the things you’re going to do to make your body become younger, plan when you’re going to do them, set aside a few minutes daily and commit to it.
Use affirmations
Only 10% of our mind is conscious, the other 90% is subconscious, so if you want to change any behaviour, you must make changes both consciously and subconsciously. Positive affirmations go straight into the subconscious, replacing negative thoughts. Go for things like: ‘I am becoming younger all the time’ and repeat them daily. Any objections will soften and eventually disappear.
Keep your mind *on *what you want and *off *what you don’t want; say ‘I am feeling younger all the time’, not ‘I don’t feel old’. Use the present tense; ‘My skin is becoming younger every day’, and never use the word ‘my’ before something you wish to be free from, such as ‘my wrinkles’ - if you don’t want to keep it, don’t call it ‘mine’. Sense, feel, touch and hear what you’re saying too; imagine touching your skin and feeling how soft it is.
Set an anti-ageing goal
When you write out your goal, your conscious mind immediately accepts it, while your subconscious mind goes to work to turn it into a reality.
First set your goal, for example ‘I am going to live every day of my life feeling and looking ten years younger.’ Then form a clear image of it, seeing it as if it were already in existence. Write out everything you’re going to do to achieve your goal, from refusing to criticise yourself, to taking exercise regularly. Excite your imagination by writing all the reasons you have for wanting to achieve this goal, then place it somewhere you will see it every day. Find a role model and stick it up with your goal as a reminder you can make it happen.
And…eat youth-enhancing foods!
Couple these age defying techniques, with a wrinkle-busting diet and double your gains!
**Avocados **are high in vitamin E and antioxidants, which will nourish your skin from the inside out and folate boots skin cell turnover.
**Blueberries are **stuffed with vitamin C, which helps you body collagen to keep your skin plump and line-free.
S****almon is full of omega-3 fatty acids, which beat dehydration, keeping skin looking dewy and locking in moisture.
**Broccoli **contains sulforaphane, which clears pesky toxins that can lead to fine lines.
Melon is stuffed with carotenoids, which help your body to produce vitamin A, the essential vitamin for slowing skin ageing.
Marissa's book You Can Be Younger: Use the power of your mind to look and feel 10 years younger in 10 simple steps (Piatkus, £13.99) is out now