Listening to loud music stimulates the nervous system when it produces “the chills”, and when experienced with others you get the added longevity benefit from social interaction. Listening to music before bed can slow down breathing and improve sleep quality. “Our brainwaves synchronise to musical rhythms, which makes music a great metronome, enabling us to influence the release of brain chemicals and the activation of brain networks,” Jones says. “And of course, learning a musical instrument is proven to be one of the best ways of slowing cognitive decline and building new brain connections. Music really is a super-tool.” Eat 30 different plants each week

Scientists have discovered pathways in our cells that help to suppress that inflammation and can slow the ageing process. The key players — or the ones we know about so far — associated with those pathways are the enzymes AMPK (adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase) and mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), and sirtuins; proteins that play vital roles in cell repair and cell metabolism. “They’re like the house- keepers who help the epigenome maintain its function — cleaning the cells of waste products, and making sure there’s no damage,” Jones says. It helps to regulate blood pressure, supports the immune system and could reduce a person’s risk of heart disease and cancer and boost overall health. BEING exposed to very hot or very cold conditions is potentially life-threatening for the human body. Then an unexpected snafu blew up in my personal life. It had a significant negative impact on my mental and physical health. However, these things happen. The research for this book was well underway when all that emotional and financial drama erupted. I decided to immerse myself even deeper in it. Partly to simply help distract me from all the stress that I was dealing with. What I discovered was a tonne of incredible research that I hadn’t properly dug into before. This longevity field is moving so fast.Jones offers an eight-week programme to embed the lifestyle changes she advocates; several thousand have completed it online, many as part of corporate sign-ups. Her GlycanAge score is 51, very close to her actual age of 52. Middle-aged women often have high scores, she says, because of the menopause (inflammation can increase due to the decline in oestrogen). It’s why she is desperate for women in their forties and fifties to get on top of their daily habits as early as possible. “Many women I test in their early fifties come out in their mid-sixties unless they’re on HRT, so as someone who is combating declining oestrogen I’m pretty happy with a score of 51.”

Dr Jones said: “Just to give our system a rest, so try and leave 16 hours overnight, fasting, and then eat within an eight-hour period. You simply push an essential oil bottle into the base, switch it to the intensity and run-time you want, for up to 90 minutes. It doesn’t have to be the stairs; the idea is to exercise to the point where you can’t carry on a second longer. These really short bursts of intensive activity can activate the anti-inflammatory pathways that are the key to longevity. For some people that might be 20 seconds, for others longer. “It doesn’t really matter as long as you get to fatigue,” Jones says. Incidentally, pets are very good for the gut microbiome too, because you’re exposed to extra bacteria.”LOSS of muscle tissue leads to frailty and increased risk of falls and fractures. It also lowers the effectiveness of your immune system. There is no reason why most humans can’t live to 100, says Dr Julia Jones, bluntly. The neuroscientist and author is annoyed that on a recent longevity predictor test, her healthy life expectancy came out at “only” 97. YOU don’t need a full gym workout but get out of breath a few times a week. Stop using the lift and take the stairs. B-Sync On s the first and only supplement designed by sleep science and pharmacological experts to ­support and improve your wake-up process Credit: B SYNC As I mentioned earlier, my adoption of the simple, smart wellness habits in January 2020 extended my healthy life expectancy by 23 years in just 23 months.