The keys to longevity are in your hands. In his book “Health in front of you, the millennial secret that will change your life”, Dr. Frédéric Saldmann, cardiologist and nutritionist, decodes the lifestyle recommendations distilled in sacred texts and ancient rituals. Selected advice for a longer, but also more fulfilled life.
Top health: Your book is a call for accountability. How are we the architect of our own health?
Dr Frederic Saldmann: In the words of Jean-Paul Sarthe, “The important thing is not what we do with us, but what we do with what has been done with us”. Genetics is not the only factor in the balance. It is our lifestyle as a whole that is our real medicine. Epigenetics, this branch of genetics which is interested in the influence of our way of life on the expression of our genes, proves it. Evidenced by these studies carried out on twins: they show that the one who smokes will have a shorter life expectancy than his twin.
Top health: In this case, it is in the sacred texts that you have found the keys to a way of life that brings longevity.
Dr. FS: Between the lines, you can indeed discover countless advice on prevention and hygiene, reflexes of common sense in reality. Decoded in the light of the most recent scientific discoveries, which most often corroborate them, these texts give us some keys to keep diseases at bay. In the end, these two approaches complement each other, with one and only goal: to help us live in good health longer.
Top health: These texts teach us in particular the importance of the mind, of our attitude in life. How do they impact our health?
Dr. FS:Our inner thoughts, the words we use to address others, but above all to ourselves, can indeed do us good or harm. Imagine: a minute of brooding is enough to raise the level of cortisol, the stress hormone. It then takes him five hours to come back down to a normal level!
Hence the importance of starting by working on your inner language to generate hormones beneficial to health, and more particularly to immunity. The most recent studies confirm it: there is a very strong link between the mind and immunity. The power of the mind – in this case, the ability to remain optimistic and to put all the chances of happiness on one’s side – has the potential to activate the shield of our biological protection against diseases, whether serious or not. . And when the disease is there, the posture that we adopt plays a major role in the healing process.
Top health: Why is spirituality particularly important in forging this “shield against disease”?
Dr. FS: Science has just shown that the immune system maintains extremely close links with the brain, particularly through the lymphatic vessels. Thus, people who demonstrate a powerful spirituality have better immune defenses. Conversely, a poor spiritual life creates a void in the body from which illnesses take advantage to settle. Illness arises from this body-mind imbalance, from this discrepancy between our deep being and our life. We are all born with a part of spirituality in us.
Spirituality is simply asking these questions: what gives meaning to my life? What makes me feel good? For this, there is no need to go to a place of worship. It is about taking a step back from material considerations and engaging more in a search for meaning.
It’s daring not to have a life to please others or correspond to the codes of society; to go towards what makes us vibrate. This is the basis of good health. It is worth taking the risk, our health being our most precious asset.
To read : Health Ahead – The millennial secret that will change your life, Dr Frédéric Saldmann (ed. Robert Laffont)
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Focus on novelty
It’s proven: Routine is bad for brain health. “Novelty has the power to boost the satisfaction felt, and would create new neural circuits”, explains the doctor. It has also been shown, in mice exposed to E. coli bacteria, that their immune reaction was twice as strong if they secreted dopamine, one of the happiness hormones. New places, new activities, new people, new habits: think outside the box!
