I came across this word the other day and was immediately attracted to it – for reasons I know not.

Senescence comes from the Latin word senesere, meaning 'to grow old'. It is all about our gradual deterioration as organisms.

What this radio programme highlighted was that senescence can be slowed and delayed and some were predicting a future where there is no reason why we should not be living over one hundred years!

Now...did that strike fear or hope into you?

My work often uses the four quotients, in order to make people aware of what they can do to make themselves healthier and more balanced to also improve their families and organisations.

PQ – physical – Human Living – To Live

IQ – intellectual – Human Doing – To Learn

EQ – emotional – Human Being – To Love

SQ – spiritual – Being Human – To Leave a Legacy

Most organisations, I believe, falsely focus on their IQ (the cognitive ability to memorise facts and solve puzzles) almost to the exclusion of the other three.

This follows on 'schooling' from the age of five – and we see the present rebellion against yet more IQ tests in primary schools presently.

I believe it would be far better if education was far broader than almost solely IQ schooling and included, in some way, the other three quotients (health, relationships and meaning) i.e. the whole person and not just the brain. In this present 'system', our bodies are simply mechanisms for carrying our brains around, with our heads tilted to one side - the left – to grow our rational abilities!

As far back as 1934 it was discovered that too many calories not only made us fat but also doubled the speed of our senescence!

So we have the clear IQ understanding that calorie intake can half our lifespan and yet last month was the first month in the history of this planet, that there were more obese people than starving people!

There is also the latest research that not only does exercise keep us more mentally healthy, it actually increases the size and ability of our brain. This is clearly shown by halving senescence in degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

So my question on senescence, on a mental health web site is, 'What are we doing in all four quotients to ensure we stay as healthy as we can and while like me, not avoiding mental health issues, reducing them to the smallest effect on our lives and the lives of our families?'

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life." John Lennon

Les

A Moodscope member.