top of page
Search

Episode 59: How to slow down aging with Dr. Alka Patel






Brief summary of show:


Have you ever wanted to press pause and slow down aging?


When you think of aging, you may immediately think about getting older. As you’ll hear in this episode, these are two very different things.


Joining me to speak about this topic is Dr. Alka Patel, a TEDx speaker, GP, Lifestyle Doctor, Longevity Coach, author and podcaster. She is Founder of Lifestyle First®, Creator of The Lifestyle First Formula® and host of The Lifestyle First Podcast.


One of her greatest passions is to empower and equip passionate changemakers to connect to their D.N.A. and Discover, Notice and Activate who they are, what they want and where they are going so that they can outSMART stress and outLIVE life with Stress Modifying Age Reversing Techniques for a life of Longevity, Intention, Value and Energy- it’s time to LIVE!


She helps speakers to self-care, leaders to leverage health and wellness in business and high impact experts to live longer, younger. Her own biological age is almost 30 years younger than her chronological age- yours can be too!


Listen in as we talk about:

  • [2:40] The concept of aging and getting older

  • [5:20] The difference in getting older and aging

  • [6:40] Is it possible to slow down aging?

  • [7:20] Dr. Patel’s acronym that focuses on the 10 key elements of our lifestyles

  • [8:50] How to measure your biological age

  • [20:00] The impact of what we consume both physically and mentally

  • [22:50] The three F’s of food


Notes from Natalie:

Connect with Dr. Alka Patel


Connect with Me



View Transcript for this Episode

[00:00:00] Natalie: Are you that person that worries every time you are asked to go on camera, do you get asked to do an interview, maybe a zoom call and you don't know what to wear or what you'll say as an Emmy award-winning news anchor. Thousands and thousands of people struggle with their on-camera persona and appearance because I'm asked so often to give tips on how to be on camera.

[00:00:21] I created a guide that you can buy for just 24 99, and it has everything you need to know from what to wear, what makeup to use. And this is for men and women. I want you to feel empowered and calm. Every time you go on camera, find out more by clicking the link before you go on camera. It's in the show notes and it's on my website, Natalie dot com.

[00:00:44] Hi everyone. It's Natalie. If you're like me, you are always looking for ways to be healthier, have more energy. And of course, to feel better the age you look and you feel well, it doesn't have to be a number today. I am talking to TEDx [00:01:00] speaker lifestyle, doctor longevity, coach, author, and podcaster.

[00:01:04] Dr. ELCA Patel. We're going to talk about. Outsmarting stress, leveraging health and wellness to live longer and to live younger. Get this. Dr. Patel says that her biological age is almost 30 years younger than her chronological age. And she says yours can be too, regardless of what you have done in the past, that might not be so great for your body.

[00:01:29] You know what I'm talking about? Let's learn today. Let's get healthy. Here's my interview with Dr. ELCA Patel.

[00:01:35]

[00:01:37] Natalie: Dr. Patel. So good to see you today. I want to talk about slowing down the aging process and how we can do that by taking care of our.

[00:01:48] Dr. Patel: Oh, my favorite topic. Yes. Let's talk about that for

[00:01:51] Natalie: sure. Okay. So let's just dive right in. What are your tips and slowing this down? I mean, we all, we all want that, right.

[00:01:58] We try to prevent [00:02:00] wrinkles. We try to stay healthy, all of those things, but it can be kind of.

[00:02:05] Dr. Patel: Oh, for sure. I think before we kick off on the actual slowing down process, I think worth, just chatting a little bit about this concept of aging and getting older, because we often do to sort of avoid talking about this don't we, because it seems to be this to booze as you've just described around aging.

[00:02:22] And I think that was probably linked with. Association with just words. So I don't know about you, but you know, previously when I thought about Asia and I say previously, not anymore, but you know, when you talk about aging, what comes to mind? You're right. You mentioned wrinkles and being fragile and gray hair and slow body.

[00:02:39] And so we're sort of wired aren't we to really think visually. And so we always think about these images that appear. Um, in our, in our mind. And there's a saying, isn't there that I might not remember your name, but I will remember your face. So a lot of our ideas and beliefs get created in those officials.

[00:02:55] And I think what I find is a moment we talk about getting older and aging. We can drop this [00:03:00] very painful vision. And so we don't want. Talk about that. And it's also painful as well. Isn't it? That sense of nearing the end of our life, really? Um, and I find this particularly where the women, I'm sure, you know, you've been asked, how old are you?

[00:03:14] And there's this guest or, oh, I don't want to tell you. And so we tend not to even want to talk about it because this is. Judgment around it isn't there. but sting, I think it was sting who said something great. He's now 70 years old, the singer staying. And he said, uh, when you reach a certain age, you do realize that life is finite and you can either be depressed by that or say that.

[00:03:39] I'm going to appreciate every single minute to its maximum potential. I think it's really important to just pause on that thought before we sort of dive into how can we slow down aging?

[00:03:51] Natalie: Yeah, I think we get that stuck in our head. I want to slow it down. I want to stay young forever, and yet I turned 50 last year and I, I realized [00:04:00] with that.

[00:04:01] So much experience and knowledge and wisdom. And we know that we've always heard that, but to really appreciate that I've earned every gray hair I have.

[00:04:12] Dr. Patel: Absolutely. And one thing that, based on that, that I then also always talk about is in terms of getting older and aging. And I, I will share that with about the difference between the two as well is I've got this little phrase that says, uh, we gained the vitality of.

[00:04:29] But retain the wisdom of your years. And I appreciate, I love what you just said about that with time comes wisdom. So that's so important to, to hold onto, but we also want to feel that energy and that vitality and that sense of value as well, that way. So, maybe if I just touch on the difference between getting older and aging, because there is a, there is a difference here.

[00:04:52] Getting older is very much attached to the, to the tick tock of the clock. It is inevitable. Isn't it? It's the [00:05:00] way that life works. There is a beginning. There is an M getting older is part of that, but aging. It's very, very different. Aging is physiological. It's by a chemical it's epigenetics. It's your chromosomes shrinking.

[00:05:18] It's your cells breaking down. So I look at aging as the spirit. At which you get older. And really that gives us a little bit of a differential because we, we can't control the tick of that chronological calendar or the sun and the moon. But what we really can control is what I described this, the talk of the biological clock, the speed at which you age, how well you are, how vibrant you are as you get older.

[00:05:44] And it's actually gone, gone. No, I I'm

[00:05:46] Natalie: sorry. I don't mean to interrupt you because you're saying such good things, but I don't want to forget. The speed at which you slow down your aging, is that what we consume and how we exercise and those things are that's.


[00:05:59] Natalie: I think [00:06:00] what we really want to get to today is how do we slow that down?

[00:06:03] Is it possible

[00:06:04] Dr. Patel: to. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. and, uh, it's exactly that it is your lifestyle that is very, very much at the center of the speed at which you, which you age. And we can now measure that. I measure biological age in all of my patients and all of my clients to give us a real sense of number and data that really matters.

[00:06:24] And then we focus on mapping your lifestyle to. What you do to your biological age and then watching that change. Cause I think when we talk about, I talk a lot about strategic self-care, so your lifestyle is very much about how you care for yourself, the day-to-day things you do to, to style your life.


[00:06:44] Dr. Patel: And I've got this lovely acronym that I use to really focus on. What I described as the 10 key elements of your lifestyle. So I'll share that with you. That would be really useful. So it spells out the word lifestyle first, [00:07:00] because as it says on the tin, I think it's incredibly important to prioritize our lifestyle in terms of slowing down aging, living, living, living long, living long.

[00:07:09] Uh, so L is for your life's purpose. I is your identity. Ethics food eat for your guests. It exercise or sleep tea is timeout. Why is your connections? L is learning habits and E is emotion. So these are really, really important dimensions of your, of your health, of your lifestyle, which pay a very, very critical part.

[00:07:37] In, in the aging process and in, in the disease process, um, as well, um, and this process, what I call the lifestyle first method gives us lots and lots of ways to do that. So as I've said, what I do with my clients or my patients is I measure your biological age. We map lifestyle changes according to their lifestyle, first method to your age.

[00:07:58] And then we measure it because [00:08:00] none of us have got time for guests. So at camp, we were living in a busy. Well, so we have to be really strategic and focused on what changes we do actually make.


[00:08:11] Natalie: Okay. So explain that to me. How do you measure one's biological age? And then what I know in reading some of your background, you say that your biological age is very different from, what age would you call it from here?

[00:08:26] And what is the difference?

[00:08:28] Dr. Patel: Yes. So biological agent, chronological, chronological

[00:08:32] Natalie: age, what is the difference in yours? And then tell me how you met.

[00:08:35] Dr. Patel: Ah, yes. Well, this is a number that I love to share. So, um, my biological age is 20, which is almost 30 years younger than my chronological age. And really that's very, been related very much to my focus on my lifestyle.

[00:08:52] So your biological age is very much. Cellular age. And if we look at processes that [00:09:00] occur in our body, one of the key things, that regulates what happens to ourselves, uh, to our immune system is inflammation. It's a very, very cool process. And as we get older, inflammation tends to. Build up in our bodies.

[00:09:17] And most of us are, have got a lot of chronic inflammation within us. And that sets off a whole cascade of processes that then affect, um, the aging process. So what the biological age tests that I focus on measures, is it really the age of your immune system, the age of your sort of stress responses? Um, because stress is something that is something that we all know.