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Though we don’t have a lot of data about the mechanisms that link stress and aging, we are brought up to believe that stress is correlated with infections. In fact, stress is perhaps the greatest ager of them all. The more you’re stressed, the greater the risk of accidents, infections, and arterial aging. It’s not really the stress we’re worried about, since everyone has it; it’s more your response to stress. It seems that when you’re in high-stress mode—working your tail off at work, for example—you’re cruising along fine. But when you come off that stressor, you get sort of a rebound effect where you’re a lot more prone to infections (your T and B cells go into hiding to avoid a fight and are slow to come back to help you). In terms of stress-reduction techniques, one person may like playing basketball to blow off steam; another may like sitting in steam. Some may like listening to Mozart; others may like listening to Metallica. But there’s at least one thing that everyone can do in the face of stress: Remove yourself from a stressful situation immediately, whether it’s by taking a walk around the block or simply moving to the next room. That momentary time-out gives you a chance to breathe and react rationally. Whatever it is, you need some sort of backup plan—some technique that removes you from the emotions of a stressful situation. It may be taking ten deep breaths, or even scrunching your face up for fifteen seconds. Whatever it is, you can make your RealAge up to six years younger by developing a backup plan for reducing stress when your first lines of defense fail.

You should also change the way you think about some of the nagging stresses in your life—a demanding boss, the broken screen door, the cable company that never seems to get the bill right. Look, few people are trying to be jerks on purpose. What’s stressful is the reaction to the situation or the action. That may not help you get your screen door repaired any faster or correct the cable bill, but when you remember that stress comes with the situation and action, not so much from malice, then you’re better able to have a manageable response to otherwise stressful situations—and that’s a healthier way to deal with them.

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It doesn’t matter what kind of fight you’re in—a bar fight, a fight with the mechanic, a family food fight—you always want someone else to take your side. Simple math shows that the more people who are on your side, the better your chances. The same goes for your health: creating a strong social network is paramount and raises the level of your immune system. How? Depression has been linked to infection, presumably because depression inhibits the fighting ability of your T cells. It’s not just forgetting to activate your burglar alarm; it’s not caring whether it’s activated or not. Group participation works, too—religious groups, social groups, and work groups are all beneficial.

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Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whom-ever he was talking with something about “a thousand marbles.” I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say.

“Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It’s too bad you missed your daughter’s “dance recital” he continued. “Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities.” And that’s when he began to explain his theory of a “thousand marbles.”

“You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.

“Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I’m getting to the important part.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail,” he went on, “and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays.” “I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear.”

Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.

There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.”

“Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.”

“It was nice to meet you. Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 Year old Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!”

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. “C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.” “What brought this on?” she asked with a smile. “Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles.

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Look, if you live in this world, you’re going to catch a cold. That’s part of the trade-off to interacting with people: talking to them, shaking their hands, sharing subway poles with them. Germs will spread. So if your mission is to prevent colds, then your only real answer is to pack your boxes, say good-bye to the family, and move to the woods. If you come in contact with other people, you’re going to spend some time sneezing, coughing, blowing, and sniffling. In fact, most American adults catch two to four colds every year. Just because it’s a fact that you will catch a cold doesn’t mean you have to live with all the consequences. Everybody seems to have their own remedy for what helps cure a cold, but the truth is you can’t really cure a cold; you can only speed up its course. And there have been only three things that have been shown to have a real effect on speeding one up—chicken soup, zinc lozenges, and vitamin C (though we don’t know why they work, research has shown that they do). Take regular doses of any of the three at the moment you start feeling symptoms—that’s 500 milligrams of vitamin C four times each day with plenty of water immediately at the start of cold symptoms and for the next two or three days, or one zinc lozenge every six hours, or a cup of chicken soup four times a day at the onset of symptoms. That can reduce the average time that a cold lasts from roughly five days to three.

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T cells, B cells, and white blood cells pretty much have things under control and keep your home secure. But it never hurts to call in reinforcements—specially trained nutrients that have been promoted to the rank of immune booster. The best nutrients for keeping your system secure:

VITAMIN C Take 500 milligrams twice a day every day to boost your immune system (so it can produce more bullets to kill the invaders). You can take it in supplement form, as well as through foods such as oranges and other citrus fruits, 100 percent natural orange juice, tomatoes, and bell peppers. Vitamin C, for all its power to keep your immune system and arteries young, can make you up to one year younger.

YOGURT Yogurt that hasn’t been pasteurized contains Lactobacillus acidophilus—a healthy bacteria that turns milk into yogurt and fights off fungus-related infections. Or you can take acidophilus in supplement form of 20 milligrams twice daily. It works by helping to prevent the overgrowth of fungi that shouldn’t be able to grow in your body. Another great fungicide: garlic.

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