THE Longevity Hack No One is Talking About
Jan 28, 2025Stop Reacting Like a Tiger is Chasing You
(*If you prefer to listen, I did a podcast on this topic)
We're all seeking the secret to a longer, healthier, happier life, right? We obsess over diets, supplements, and exercise, but what if the most powerful longevity hack is something we're all overlooking? What if it's not about what we do, but how we respond to the daily grind? The truth is, whether you've faced significant trauma or you're just caught in the everyday stress of modern life, our chronic biological overreactions are killing us, slowly but surely.
The Survival Trap
Our bodies are designed with a powerful survival mechanism. When faced with danger, our nervous system activates what is called "survival mode". This mode floods us with neurochemicals to help us fight, flee, or freeze. It’s perfect for escaping a saber-tooth tiger, but completely inappropriate for modern life where our “tigers” are often just a spouse who left the cap off the toothpaste or a driver who cut us off in traffic.
The problem is our bodies can't tell the difference between a real threat and a perceived one. So, when we react to everyday annoyances with the same intensity we would use to fight off a predator, we're essentially putting jet fuel into a Honda. This constant over-activation of survival mode has consequences:
- Exhaustion: Like a car idling too high, we waste energy, leading to fatigue and burnout.
- Lost Joy: Our focus narrows to perceived threats, making it hard to experience happiness, peace, and connection. The survival mode is simply not designed for joy, love, or connection. Its only priority is survival.
- Sickness: Chronic stress weakens our immune system, making us more vulnerable to illness.
- Poor Sleep: The nervous system stays on high alert, disrupting our sleep and making true rest impossible.
- Disconnection: When we are in survival mode we cannot connect to others authentically.
- Shortened Lifespan: All of these factors are linked to a reduced quality of life and premature aging. Ironically, it is our over-active survival mechanism that is literally killing us.
The Two Modes of Our Nervous System
It is useful to understand that the nervous system has two primary modes of operation: surviving and thriving. It is either one or the other - there is no neutral. The survival mode, which can be likened to the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), is designed for short-term emergency responses. The thriving mode, which leans more towards our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), is our natural state for rest, digestion, healing, and feeling good. The goal is to spend less time in the SNS and more in the PNS.
- Survival Mode (SNS): Activates fight (anger, frustration, control), flight (fear, anxiety, panic), or freeze (depression, numbness, dissociation).
- Thriving Mode (PNS): Supports rest, digestion, healing, connection, joy, and creativity.
The Role of the "Amygdala" and "Hippocampus" **
Our brain stores memories in different ways based on the state we are in at the time of the experience.
- Amygdala: When in survival mode, the brain stores memories as fragments in the amygdala. These fragments can be easily triggered, causing overreactions in the present. The amygdala stores these fragments in a timeless way, meaning that our brain experiences these unconscious fragments as not over, ever-ready to be "triggered" by present moment stimulus.
- Hippocampus: When in thriving mode, experiences are stored as complete memories in the hippocampus. These memories are organized chronologically, and "filed away" so that our brain and body (not just our mind) know, "that's over." These memories not only lack emotional charge but often are associated with wisdom gained.
(** When I use single-cause-effect brain terms like "amygdala" or "hippocampus, I am doing so with the understanding that this is an over-simplified, albeit useful generalization. There is always an incredibly complex symphony of interactions going on to accomplish something like memory and how that filters our experience. But, by employing useful generalizations we can get to principles that enable us to do work: deliberate, dedicated, actions that produce intended results.)
Minding the Gap: Where Overreactions Come From
Overreactions - and thus incredible energy loss, suffering, and complexity - happen when there's a "gap" between an appropriate response and our actual reaction. This gap is caused by past "traumas" - big and small - registered as (unconscious) information stored in the "amygdala". For example, the appropriate response to the toothpaste cap being off is putting it back on. But the overreaction (anger, resentment) stems from past experiences and is a sign that survival mode has been activated and triggers in the "amygdala" have not been resolved.
The Solution: Shifting from Reactivity to Creativity
The key to improving our health, relationships, performance, and longevity is to consciously reduce our dependence on our survival mode and cultivate thriving. At the ALL Together Academy, every single tool you are learning is geared towards this end, and Extra and Open Attention is the FOUNDATION that makes all tools WORK for shifting from survival to thriving, including things like:
- Tapping (EFT): Stimulates acupressure points to clear blockages in our nervous system channels, moving traumatic memories from the amygdala to the hippocampus. Tapping works best when combined with an attitude of joy, openness, love, kindness, awareness, gratitude, and surrender (JOLKA-GPS).
- Breathwork: Utilizing specific breathing techniques, like the 1:2 inhale-exhale ratio, percussive breathing, fog breathing, and physiological sighs can help activate the PNS.
- Mind Training: Engaging in mental exercises that create safety and peace, such as guided meditations and present moment awareness.
- Other Tools: Skin-to-skin contact, short bursts of exercise, pandiculating and other "bottom-up" somatic therapy tools, can also support the transition to thriving mode.
- Joyful Excellence Mastermind - hosts a library of literally hundreds of maps, tools, and instruction sets to literally hardwire courage, resilience, contribution, and joy - regardless of past or arising conditions. Reach out if you are curious about joining our wholehearted community.
It’s Not Your Fault, But It Is Your Responsibility
It’s essential to remember that it's not your fault if you are stuck in survival mode. Our brains are wired to prioritize survival, and we've all been conditioned to react to stress. However, once we recognize this, it becomes our responsibility to choose a different path. We must actively participate in our conscious evolution and stop reacting as victims of circumstance.
The Takeaway
The most effective way to transform your health and well-being is to start actively addressing the over-reactions that are draining you. By understanding our nervous system, and choosing to cultivate thriving over surviving, we can unlock our natural capacity to heal and enjoy a life full of energy, joy, and genuine connection. When you are no longer losing your most precious energy reacting to the traffic jam like it's a tiger trying to rip out your throat, all that ENERGY becomes available for healing, creativity, wisdom, and JOY. When you start acting on the newfound energy, instead of wasting your most precious resources, you start to get exponential gains in return because now, instead of throwing your assets into sunk costs, you are spending energy on the things that matter most and make you feel healthier, stronger, and happier.