Consistent Commonalities of Long-Lived Humans
from the desk of Dr. David Cohen

• First, they do not get all bent out of shape in life's ongoing disasters and challenges. They accept, and focus on resolution rather than resentment and complaint. The identical brain energy used to focus on the problem is persistently channeled into the solution. No matter what doctors, professors or researchers tell you, we have known for thousands of years that the absolute number one cause of death on earth is stress. It is identifiably the single greatest cause of heart problems, back problems, gastrointestinal disorders, skin problems, and more.
  
  Even diabetes, although passed on genetically every third generation (and sometimes even more often) is developed by many people as a direct result of stress and the dangerous chemicals that the body produces as a direct result of stress. Bet your bottom dollar that ulcers are NOT caused by what you eat, rather by what’s eating YOU. Dr. Sarno and so many others have conclusively proven with, get this -- thousands of individual patients – that literally 99% of all back problems are caused by stinking thinking. Stop thinking your doctor is God; she’s NOT; he’s NOT. We have a special section just for back problems that may very well surprise you; more importantly, will help you radically help those problems without surgery or pharmacology's mostly-unproductive interventions. Many people have addressed hypoglycemia and insulin simply by making better choices, better decisions, and without having to relinquish all of life's sweetest treats. Remember, all of our answers here come directly from those who live longer, better lives.



• Next, they drink more water than you do. considerably more water than you. If you need to be told you're not drinking enough water, you're either ignorant, which we can instantly fix, or stupid, which is up to you to fix. Water, and not bread, is the true staff of life. You can live without food for months and even years, you cannot live a single month without it, and probably not much more than a week. You use about eight gallons of water to flush a toilet to make it clean. Are you so stupid that you wouldn't flush the toxins and poisons out of your body by the same natural method? If you removed all the water from the human body, you would have a small amount of material left, literally small enough to fit into the palm of your hand. Just as surely as you know that water unreplaced becomes stagnant and filthy, even toxic, do you not know that the water in your body is subject to the same degeneration? CHANGE YOUR WATER MORE OFTEN!



• They tend to breathe more intelligently than you do. I continue to smoke ten home-rolled cigarettes a day (1,600 chemicals NOT added to my lungs) and I can still blow a match out, with my mouth open, from a full eighteen inches away. When I exhale, I do so thoroughly, ridding myself of far more toxins than five nonsmokers who don't breathe correctly. I take in more oxygen, my brain functions more efficiently AND creatively, which is why, since re-adopting this practice, I've been able to learn to play and compose for piano, guitar, and harmonica; create at least ten to twenty new columns and essays every week, along with 45 to 48 other regular activities per week where my output is no less than ten times what yours is. I’m not smarter than you; I simply breathe more.
  
  Every baby born knows how to breathe: all the way out; all the way in. By the age of 12 or so, when we become so keenly psycho-socio-sexually aware of ourselves, our breathing patterns become pitiful, and health-degenerative. An observable analogy might be the seven-year-old, who, hearing the teacher ask a question, is straining in the seat with arms waving, URGENTLY needing to display his or her knowledge to the teacher. At age 12, that same child is still sticking that arm in the air, with the enthusiasm muted by that unvoiced concern, "Oh, gee, I hope I don’t get it wrong in front of everyone" (refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs: not being made a fool of is more important to us than a half-dozen other seemingly vital requirements). By age 17, when the teacher asks that question, both of the student’s hands are firmly tucked into the armpits, concomitant with the thought, "Ooooh, no; I’m not making a fool of myself in front of the class."


• The analogy to breathing is made because we’re so hung up on what other people think that we literally prioritize their opinion over our own well-being. When the boss or company is coming, you rush to make the house neat, and yourself presentable. When was the last time you rushed to make the house nice for your kids or spouse to come home to a thoroughly presentable environment? Yeah. Right. And so it is with our reduction in proper breathing based on our emotional concerns about what other people are doing, saying, or even thinking.

We allow small things to become magnified into anxiety-producing, respiration-reducing events that definitively accelerate aging, and a host of physical symptoms of that anxiety, which include back problems, stomach problems, kidney problems, skin lesions, and so many other physical challenges that you can rid yourself of in rapid, organized order.

In effect, we relinquish control over crucial functions in subservience to other people’s opinions, and that kills thousands and thousands and more thousands of Americans every month. You are free to pick from which cause of death you believe is more prevalent: death by poor stress management, or death by poor diet management. Either way, we're not talking about a mere hundred deaths per day, UNNECESSARY and premature deaths; we're talking about several thousand people dying every single day from heart disease, which is rarely congenital, and most often from poor stress or diet management.

Presuming that you are overweight because of issues you may not yet be ready to deal with, we can effect fast, powerful improvements by reverting back to the most basic of all human tools.

Re-teaching yourself how to breathe properly is the first, and by far most effective shortcut you can take towards adding to the quantity and quality of your life; how long you live, and how well you live.

Exhale completely, and inhale completely. If you’re that challenged by this vitally urgent requirement for a healthy life, challenged at the thought and deed of breaking out of your (ridiculously uncomfortable) comfort zone, then try one simple device and reap the benefits instantly, and within a day or two, measurably.

The device? It’s called PRACTICE!!!

This very minute, before you even make a commitment to do it ten times per day, start with once; start with the first occasion in too long. Right now, as you read this, force all of the air out of your lungs. When you think your lungs are empty… think again; there are still AT LEAST two quarts of air left in your lungs that are dirty and in life-saving need of being replaced NOW.

Keep pushing that air out. Keep pushing. Believe me, no matter how empty you think your lungs are, you can find more to push out…. And if you were offered a hundred grand to push more air out of your lungs than five other contestants next to you, you’ll amaaaaaze yourself with how much exhalation you’re capable of.

OK, you’ve hit the point of being certain that there’s no more air in your lungs. Slowly, and evenly, breathe allllllll the way in now, through your nose, refilling your lungs. That’s it!!!

Just once is all you’re asked to do. Once. In an hour or so, do it again. Obviously, it’s best to do this outside, where you’re getting fresh air. Never mind all that city pollution: it’s far healthier than the air you haven’t even been breathing by virtue of the insanely shallow breaths you’ve been taking for years!! Doing it inside, however, is fine, as long as you’re not in a room filled with smoke or chemical vapors.

If I were you, I’d be getting very excited, because, having read this far, it means you DO care enough to want to glean benefits from shortcuts, and guess what? This one PowerGem brings a slew of benefits you haven’t even guessed at.

Engaging in proper respiration INSTANTLY boosts several brain functions, and for those who actually do a full respiration ten times per day for the next 22 days? You will find that your thinking is clearer, faster, and by a powerful measure, more creative. This never fails, it works for one hundred percent of the people one hundred percent of the time. Yes, the more you breathe in and out per each lung function or lung cycle, the higher your intelligence grows.

Nothing can change the fact that, from the precise day that I began breathing a bit more the way I did in my first year of life, my mind and body have responded far beyond what any examiner thought was viable, let alone likely.

Your brain requires only two forms of food: tiny amounts of glucose, and enormous amounts of oxygen. The more oxygen you feed the brain on a consistent basis, the more it produces for you. When you understand that your brain is working considerably faster, more creatively, and more efficiently, you never want to go back. Unfortunately, we are human, so we require a habit before it becomes second nature. Breathe all the way out, breathe all the way in, and watch the results. One great way to measure it is to write down a whacky wish you might have, and try to produce twenty ideas per day on it for five days. Practice better breathing for 22 days, and then try the "whacky wish" test again. You'll be astonished.