How to Live Longer and Healthy

HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND HEALTHY

“May you live a long life full of gladness and health” Irish Blessing

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO).

Everyone wants to live longer…. and in good health.

Aging population has increased due to better living conditions, improved education and increased economics.

Gyms and Health Clubs are increasing day by day. This is a witness to what people aspire to.

Women live up to 73.5 years and men 68.5 years (UN 2012 Revision).

In India women live up to 67.7 years and men up to 64.7 years (TOI, 2012).

Described below are  20 tips on how to live well and longer; they are described first and summarized in tabular form at the end.

Summary

20 tips are under 4 headings namely

• EATING
• EXERCISE
• OUTLOOK &
• HABITS

HABITS	OUTLOOK	EXERCISE	EATING
Check Lipids	Optimism	Increase Exercise	Eat Antioxidants
Stop Smoking	Chill out	Lose Weight
Do not Oversleep	Marriage
Adopt a Pet	Laughter
Stable Finances
Reduce Stress
Manage Stress
Belong to Group
Cook Yourself
Educate
Meditate
Purpose in Life
Use your Brain

1. •                                      EATING AND DRINKING

‘There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner; 

in the dinner, the sweets come last’   (Robert Louis Stevenson).

Drink lots of tea. Tea is best taken as green or black. Tea appears to lower lipids.  Green tea is also associated with less cancer and heart attack.

Advantages of tea include high energy, weight loss and slowed aging process. 5 cups of tea using bags is advocated per day.

Drink one glass of red wine a day. Polyphenols in red wine maintain elasticity of arteries and as antioxidants slow aging process.

The best sources of antioxidants are beans – kidney, pinto or black, berries including blueberries as well as bright colored vegetables. Antioxidants play a role in retarding the aging process.

One piece of dark chocolate daily appears to provide antioxidants and releases endorphins.

Eating garlic will help to avoid high blood pressure and heart ailments. Excess salt and oil (pickles) is to be avoided.

Avoid also sweets and deserts.

2. INCREASE YOUR EXERCISE 

“I am not telling you it is easy but I’m telling you it is going to be worth it”

Exercise controls your weight, improves your self image.  

It elevates your mood and improves your endorphin level with an improved sense of well being.

A gym outing or walking group increases friendship circle. 

Exercise also helps you to sleep better.

3                                                CHECK YOUR LIPIDS

Heart attacks are more common in India and they occur at young age groups. 

Causes for heart attacks include high blood pressure, stress and family history. 

The main preventable cause is elevated cholesterol with other lipids in blood. 

These are controlled with medication after diagnosis by blood testing.

Essential fatty acids are needed for life. 

Omega 3 fatty acids are found in fatty fish like tuna, salmon and halibut and certain nuts like almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and even peanuts.

4. LOSE THE EXCESS WEIGHT

Excess weight is responsible for diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiac disease, sleep disturbances, strokes, cancers, joint pains, fractures, arthritis, lipid metabolism, heart attacks, poor self image, loss of self esteem… and I can go on!

Diet, exercise and life style change can help.

In advanced or morbid obesity, surgery appears to be the best option.

                                                     5.  DO NOT OVERSLEEP

People who sleep > 8 hours a day, have reduced life span.

Those sleeping < 4 hours a day also have reduced life span.

People sleeping 6 to 7 hours per day live the longest (Arch Gen Psych 2002).

                                                                  6.  STOP SMOKING

“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I have done it thousands of times” (Mark Twain)

Smoking produces emphysema of lungs, cancer of lungs and urinary bladder, increases heart attacks and blocks blood vessels all over the body.

Depending on how many cigarettes and the duration, it definitely affects quality and length of life. 

                                                         7.  STABLE FINANCES

Better income allows easy access to medical attention, better education and improved housing.

Better finances allow you to choose more healthy , clean food and longer life.

                                                                   8.  HAVE PETS 

“Animals are such agreeable friends- they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms (George Eliot)

Pet owners stood four times the chance of recovery after a heart attack compared to pet less people.

Cat owners over 10 years have been shown to reduce death by heart attack by 30%.

Walking a dog boosts parasympathetic nervous system in the elderly and helps to calm the body.

Kids with illness or death in the family cope up better with dogs.

9. REDUCE YOUR STRESS

“You must learn to let go. Release the stress” (Steve Maraboli)

Men with highest level of  anger response to stress were three time more  prone to heart disease than men who were slower to anger.

They were more than six times likely to have heart attack by 55 years of age.

This is largely due to increased stress leading to higher blood pressure.

So it is vital to take it easy .

Work more on less stress!

10. MANAGE YOUR STRESS

Everyone including the elementary school going child has stress today.

Stress induces increased cortisol levels in blood. This dulls the immune mechanism of the body and alters the cognitive function.

So special management skills are required for students, parents, attending interviews, during exams, in negotiations, etc.

Too much stress leads to depression leading to imperfect results.

Highly stressed jobs pay well, but make you unhappy and shorten your life!

                                                          11.  COOKING YOURSELF

People who cook at home for 5 or more meals per week were 47% more likely to be alive after a decade against those who do not according to a Cambridge study. 

No more take away or phone orders for meals!

Self cooking at home decreases stress and saves money too!

                                                      12.  EDUCATE YOURSELF

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself (John Dewey)

Education in school and university appears to make people live longer.

Educated people know the importance of good sanitation, preventive health check ups, exercise, food and need to avoid smoking.

All over the world, it has been proved that education improves longevity.

Also people who make friends at work have less stress and live longer.

                                                                 

                                                                13.  MEDITATE

Meditation is claimed to be the most powerful healing for stress and long life.

15 minutes of meditation equals 60 minutes of sleep in relaxation of mind.

Good time to meditate is in the mornings.

During office work, short breaks of 5 minutes meditating help to relax.

Simple technique is to relax your limbs while sitting down and keep your mind away from surrounding; it helps to concentrate of one word.

                                                        14.   BELONG TO A GROUP

“If you want to walk fast, walk alone.

If you want to walk far, walk together”

Seventh Day Adventists (SDA) group belong to a specialized group of Christians who celebrate Sabbath on Saturdays.

They keep Saturdays free for getting together in church for worship and spending the whole day away from work.

The old and the young bond together at least once a week.

SDAs have more centenarians among them because of the bonding, clean living and taking time off weekly.

Five simple health behaviors promoted by the Seventh-day Adventist Church for more than 100 years increase life span up to 10 years.

• Not smoking,
• Eating a plant based diet,
• Eating nuts several times per week,
• Regular exercise and
• Maintaining normal body weight

                                                15.    HAVE A PURPOSE IN LIFE

“Mystery of human existence is in finding something to live for, not just staying alive”  (Brothers- Karamazov)

Centenarians were interviewed about what made them live.

Each of them had a compelling purpose to get up in the morning and work. Incentive to work and purpose to live is one of the most important stimuli.

Compulsion to go and take care of your own work is something we need to learn from the elderly.

                                                             16.  USE YOUR BRAIN

Problem solving skills like Sudoku or crossword puzzles appear to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Reading a good book makes you think.

Even in disasters or emergencies, the well read person can figure out a way easily.

                                                        17.  IMPROVE OPTIMISM

“Pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees opportunity  in every difficulty “ (Winston Churchill)

Optimistic folks had 50% reduction in risks of early death compared to pessimists (Mayo clinic).

They are happy, less stressed and tend to have more of normal blood pressures.

                                                               18.    CHILL OUT

Men with anger response are more likely to have premature heart disease by three times compared to those who are relaxed.

Angry people are more likely to have heart attack by six times by the age of 55 years (John Hopkins University) compared to those who decide bygones be bygones.

                                                                   19.  LAUGH

“Laughter the best medicine”

Laughter releases stress and produces less cortisol, adrenal hormones and increases happy Endorphin levels in blood.

Learn to see the humorous side of life!

The more you laugh, the less you are angry!

The angrier you get, the greater the heart attack (Princeton Longevity Center)

                                                                  20.   MARRIAGE

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages” (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Longevity and healthy aging is an inherited phenotype across three generations (Mechanisms of Aging and Development ,Feb 2005). 

So, if you are still single, pick a partner who has live, old grandparents. This will help your children, if not you!

Married people live longer.

Divorce shortens your life span! So make sure you marry the right person who will make you happy (and vice versa) in the long run! This will help you!

END