Blue Lifestyles - How to Live to Become a Centenarian
A long, long time ago… In other words, maybe a month or so ago, I attended a webinar organised by the Global Wellness Institute. The name of the webinar was “Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer…Especially Now” and it featured Dan Buettner. Dan might be a familiar name to some of you as it seems he’s sort of famous (he’s published several New York Times best-selling books and has given a couple of talks at TED).
Anyway, there was a lot of interesting information in the webinar and it made me very curious about Dan and his colleagues' work on longevity. So I did some research into the topic while enjoying the beautiful Finnish summer. In the midst of laying in my hammock (see pic) it occurred to me that perhaps I could share some of the most intriguing things I came across seasoned with a few reflections of my own on the topic by writing a blog post. And now, here we are. :)
Enjoying the blue of the cabin lake
What caught my attention
Let me start by sharing a few quotes related to work of Dan and his research buddy Giovanni Pes that I’ve seen and heard in the past month and which I think you might find interesting too:
“20-25% of variance in lifespan is explained by genes. The rest is explained by, for instance, lifestyle, nutrition, and physical activity.”
“84% of all U.S. medical costs are explained by physical inactivity, food choices and portion size, tobacco and unmanaged stress.”
“The fountain of youth is within all of us, if we choose the right lifestyles.”
“Health behaviours are as contagious as catching a cold.”
“Longevity is not something that is successfully pursued, in ensues. It is the product of the right environment. The environment that makes the healthy choice the easy choice.”
Blue Zones - what are they?
The concept of Blue Zones was coined by Dan Buettner and his collaborators Michel Poulain and Gianni Pes, and it is based on research and identification of the world’s longest-lived cultures and populations. The name of the concept is actually a bit misleading: the question of longevity is not so much about location or geographic but more about lifestyle. The idea of ‘zones’, however, was useful in terms of identifying the locations in which the most long-lived people live but it’s not the “zone” which explains why people live to be centenarians.
It’s how they live.
Oh, and the ‘blue’ comes from the fact that Gianni Pes used a blue pen to mark villages on maps where the share of centenaries was above some specific threshold they used in their research. So if the colour of the pen had been red, I guess the zones might as well have been called ‘red zones’!
So it’s lifestyle, not zone - then what?
Remember that quote from earlier? Roughly 80% - that’s 4/5 - of the length of your lifespan is explained by the environment you live in and the lifestyle choices you make. Who your mother and father happened to be - strictly genetically speaking - is only about 20%. So it really is up to you how long a life you can have.
Of course, there’s also the environmental part. For instance, living in a polluted city crammed with people can be quite harmful to your health, that I think we all know.
The most important part, however, is the social part. Who you hang out with. “Show me your friends, and I’ll tell you your future”, you might have heard before. That’s because we tend to become more similar with the people we spend time with (“Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated!”). Are your friends exhibiting healthy lifestyles, or are they chain-smoking, obese and working too much? You might want to be a bit picky as regards your social relations but don’t go solo all the way. Did you know that loneliness can be as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day when it comes to life-span? I didn’t until I heard Dan talk about it in a video.
Makes you think, doesn’t it, especially in terms of the social distancing measures etc. in the past months in many parts of the world due to COVID-19. And the pandemic isn’t even over yet, globally. I don’t know about you but I at least have started seriously reconsidering my priorities in terms of the amount of time spent socialising with friends and family. The issue of family can be a bit complicated for some, but at least when it comes to friends there should be a lot more degrees of freedom for all of us to make good choices in terms of who we spend time with and how.
Can we all live to become centenarians?
Honestly? Based on what I’ve learned I guess the answer is the same for everyone: perhaps, it depends.
I know, such a lame and academic answer to give!
The truth to the matter seems to be that the odds are in our favour if we live in the right kind of environment and have the right genes (the latter is only 20% though, remember!). The environment needs to be one in which making a healthy choice is the easiest choice. And you need to have enough luck with you throughout your life so that you don’t end up in freak accidents or become a victim of random crimes which might harm your physical and/or mental wellbeing for the long-term.
But let’s be clear about it: Not all of us can make it to over 100 years of age because of genetic lottery. However, we can increase our life-span by 10-12 years by adopting a certain lifestyle. A lifestyle which according to the Blue Zones research has nine evidence-based common denominators:
Move Naturally
Purpose
Down Shift
80% Rule
Plant Slant
Wine @5
Belong
Loved Ones First
Right Tribe
I recommend you check the more detailed descriptions on the Blue Zones website.
In short: it’s a question of moving throughout your life, having the right outlook, eating wisely, and connecting with your fellow human beings. It does come down to your lifestyle. Lifestyle = habits = what you do on a regular basis. Perhaps not every day. But week after week, month after month, year after year. And especially with whom.
Life circumstances keep changing for many of us so there is probably no one right and final answer on how exactly to build and sustain a healthy lifestyle that would work no matter what. Unless of course we have been lucky enough to be born into or are already living in the right kind of environment. But then we most likely wouldn’t even know it. It would be the normal way of things for us. Unfortunately, I guess that’s not true for most of us at the moment. Especially if we consider how long lives people live at present and the prevalence of various lifestyle diseases such as diabetes.
What can I do to live a long life?
I believe it is essential to be curious and open-minded to explore and discover what works for you in any given phase or moment in your life. And letting go the idea that it’s ever going to be perfect. Actually, I think it might even be counterproductive and lower the experienced quality of your life if you pursue that perfect health and life which is being marketed at us.
I also believe that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And that there are some basic healthy habits that are good to have in place as consistently as possible. The bare minimum is at least to be aware of them so that you can gradually start to make choices towards a healthier lifestyle, one baby-step at a time if nothing else. For instance, sleeping enough and getting the right amount of calories is pretty fundamental. (In case you are interested in habits for longevity and how you can measure them, you might want to check this article)
On the other hand, going on a diet or getting a gym membership are unlikely to give you any long-term results. There’s actually some pretty good scientific evidence to back up that claim. See for instance Dan Buettner’s presentation (slides 60-61). Then again, joining a diet program or a gym might also help you make some new friends (with healthy habits hopefully!) which can make a huge difference for you socially.
At the end of the day, I think, it’s a matter of finding a path that works for you in the given situation in your life. Sometimes it might mean taking the road less travelled (and less popular) should the alternative be an unhealthy one. Remembering to balance short-term gratification with longer term potential benefits and risks. And having a few like-minded good friends with you along the way.
Taking a path less travelled with a good friend