In 2009 Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize in biology for her discovery and research of telomeres. Telomeres are the caps on the ends of DNA. They are likened to caps on the ends of shoelaces which keep the shoelaces from becoming frayed over time. It’s important that these caps stay intact because they protect the rest of the DNA. The greater the telomeres break down then the greater the risk of DNA death, which results in the death of the cell. As cells divide and age the telomeres become shorter. The shorter your telomeres the higher your chance of heart disease, cancer, susceptibility to infection and death.
Something that is very interesting is that Blackburn discovered that stress, especially chronic stress made the telomeres shorter. It seems the hyper arousal of cortisol and adrenaline repeated over time attacks the telomeres viciously. Furthermore, there were two types of stress in particular.
One was how we perceive stress and tend to ramp it up so it gets a greater response from us than the threat deserves. I think of this as a male stress response in fight or flight that gives a greater response than what is proportionately needed (like when someone cuts you off on the freeway and you go into road rage). The second type is called ruminating stress where your mind goes over and over the thing causing you stress as you relive it a thousand times when you are lying in bed wide awake instead of sleeping soundly. This one I associate more with a woman’s response to when she is unhappy in her relationship. Both types can be experienced by either gender and both types produce cortisol and affect the ends of your DNA strands called telomeres. Both types lead to disease and death. Both types impact negatively on your romantic relationship and emotional connection.
The good news is that telomeres can be repaired. It has been found that cancer cells generate telomerase which is an enzyme which keeps repairing the ends of the DNA. In this way the cancer cells continue to divide and grow, not ageing or dying which is not good news for the patient. So there’s all this research now looking at telomerase and how it could be the next anti-ageing drug compound. Okay so where are we going with all this? Blackburn herself concludes that compassionate caring for others can actually rejuvenate the telomeres. Her co-author, Dr Elissa Epel also adds that connecting with others and helping others can prolong lives.1 Another study has found that women who practiced loving kindness meditation, a technique that encourages compassion, had longer telomeres than women who didn’t.2
You can go and get your telomere length tested easily enough to see what your biological age is. There are several companies that offer it cheaply enough. But more importantly, more compassion will lengthen them whatever length they are at the moment. Unhealthy stress responses are literally and biologically killing us. Compassion on the other hand, practiced regularly in our most important relationship will add years to our life and life to our years. When we live bonded together and practicing compassion in our relationship, we actually reap health benefits as well as fulfilling deep emotional needs. Compassion must replace cortisol if we want a romantic, connected relationship. It just turns out that the side benefit is that it’s also far better for our physical health as well.
1 See Dr Elissa Epel Youtubes on her work with mindfulness, compassion and stress reduction.
2Loving-Kindness Meditation practice associated with longer telomeres in women By Elizabeth Hoge and seven others (Sciencedirect.com)
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Previously Published on Romance Is Alive and is republished on Medium.
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