How To Live To 100 - Nine Healthy Habits

Somewhere in the remote Nicoyan peninsula of Costa Rica, a 101-year-old great-great-grandmother is making you look bad. Her name is Panchita, and by the time you finish your morning blog rounds, she has already cleared brush, chopped wood and made tortillas from scratch. And here's the best part: she's not alone.

For the the last five years, I've been taking teams of scientists to five pockets around the world where people live the longest, healthiest lives. We call these places the Blue Zones. We found a Bronze-age mountain culture in Sardinia, Italy, that has 20 times as many 100-year-olds as the U.S. does, proportionally. In Okinawa, Japan, we found people with the longest disability-free life expectancy in the world. In the Blue Zones (Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Loma Linda, Calif.; and the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica), people live 10 years longer, experience a sixth the rate of cardiovascular disease and a fifth the rate of major cancers.

How do they do it? Forget fad diets, crazy workouts and syrupy self help cliches. The world's longevity all-stars practice simple, common-sense habits as a natural part of their daily routine. We think of these habits as the Power9:

1) Move naturally -- be active without thinking about it. Identify activities you enjoy and make them a part of your day.

* Inconvenience yourself: ditch the remote, the garage door opener, the leaf-blower; buy a bike, broom, rake, and snow shovel.

* Have fun, be active. Ride a bike instead of driving, for example.

* Walk! Nearly all the centenarians we've talked to take a walk every day.

2) Cut calories by 20 percent. Practice "Hara hachi bi," the Okinawan reminder to stop eating once their stomachs are 80 percent full.

* Serve yourself, put the food away, then eat.

* Use smaller plates, plates, bowls, and glasses.

* Sit and eat � not in the car or standing in front of the fridge.

3) Plant-based diet. No, you don't need to become a vegetarian, but do bump up your intake of fruits and veggies.

* Use beans, rice or tofu as the anchor to your meals.

* Eat nuts! Have a 2-ounce handful of nuts daily (it'll stop you from digging in the chip bag).

4) Drink red wine (in moderation)

* Keep a bottle of red wine near your dinner table.

* Keep the daily intake to two servings or less.

5) Plan de Vida: determine your life purpose. Why do you get up in the morning?

* Write your own personal mission statement.

* Take up a new challenge�learn a language or an instrument.

6) Down shift -- take time to relieve stress. You may have to literally schedule it into your day, but relaxation is key.

* Don't rush - plan on being 15 minutes early.

* Cut out the noise - limit time spent with the television, computer, or radio on.

7) Belong / participate in a spiritual community.

* Deepen your existing spiritual commitment.

* Seek out a new spiritual or religious tradition.

8) Put loved ones first / make family a priority.

* Establish family rituals (game night, family walks, Sunday dinners).

* Show it off: create a place for family pictures and souvenirs that shows how you're all connected.

* Get closer: consider downsizing to a smaller home to promote togetherness.

9) Pick the right tribe -- the people surrounding you influence your health more than almost any other factor. Be surrounded by those who share Blue Zone values

* Identify your inner circle. Reconsider ties to people who bring you down.

* Be likable!

Sound too simple? Remember, simple doesn't mean easy; I don't recommend trying to change all these behaviors at once. Pick two or three of the Power9 to work on at a time. Research has shown that if you can sustain a behavioral change for six weeks, you should be able to sustain it for the rest of your life. Which, as the world's centenarians have shown us, should be a long, long time.

Dan Buettner is a writer, holder of three Guinness world records in long-distance cycling, and leader of multiple international adventures. His latest book, The Blue Zone: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest, is in bookstores now.

Comments

[ShawnMichel]

Question. What is the point of living to a 100 if you're a corporate unbeing, a cog, a suburban consumptican, as the vast majority of Americans are? If you've done nothing all your life but capitulated: your hopes, your dreams, your authenticity--all for "the American Dream"? If, in your salivating daily efforts for more green, you've utterly destroyed your spirit and everything worth living for?

Ninety-plus percent of all Americans are like this. And so you are simply advising the cattle to live longer, consume more, and in their plastic end, given their plastic surgery, their botox, their hair dyes, their cutesy "mission statements," the McMansions and fast food and Vicodin and boutique grocery stores, to go on and destroy the planet, it's okay, you made it to a 100, brittle nonentity that you are.

[GreenMountainGirl]

Hateful Much?

[Pacific231]

Shawn, you do have a point, but you should have stopped after typing your first paragraph. To your basic point, there is nothing more tragic than encountering an angry, cynical old person who has long since disengaged themselves from society, from anyone who is not a cookie cutter of themselves, or a self-obsessed keeping-up­-with-the-­Joneses consumerist.

I agree too many Americans live like this, but you are being part of that cynical group by suggesting "ninety-plus percent" of Americans live like that.

I suspect the writer's book elaborates more about being part of the greater community as critical to extending the quality (as well as number of years) of ones life. A person engaged in a spiritually wholesome community will in turn *want* to be part of the greater community.

Oh, and being a member of a partisan Dobson-esque church is NOT spiritually wholesome; like substituting the suggested red wine in moderation with stiff scotch in excess; it will hurt you, not help you. Thankfully, it appears many Christians are turning away from such religious hatred.

So, be part of the solution, not the problem. Let someone else be a sad sack, grumpy old man addicted to Fox Noise and such, or a consumerist idiot up to his/her eyeballs in credit card debt. Live an authentic spiritual life (may I suggest Buddhist meditation? :-) be concerned with family members and others, and celebrate by pouring a glass of pinor noir :-)

[OttoMann]

On #1 it says to ditch the "lead-blower." I'm sure you meant leaf-blower, but what you said might have been good advice for Gov. Spitzer.

[klondiker]

Oh God. I already violate like 8 of these!

Thanks for posting, though. I'm going to print it this out and stick it on the bathroom mirror!