Longevity is a lifestyle.
Find out how lifestyle habits can help you live healthier longer.
Longevity is about how you live your life.
Supplements and drugs have shown great impact on longevity, but longevity is also about how you live your life. Scientific research has shown that the impact of lifestyle on healthy ageing is also significant.
An example of such research is the definition of so-called blue zones. In his book “Blue Zones” (2010), Dan Buettner identified five places in the world where people are living longer and healthier, and where they have many lifestyle habits in common.
Exercise
Mindfulness
Sleep
Social activity
Diet
Exercise.
Exercise is one of the best defense and repair strategies that we have to counter different drivers of ageing.
Research results are crystal clear: being in good physical shape is associated with living longer. This holds true at any age. Multiple studies show the higher someone’s level of fitness, the longer they live. There is plenty of scientific evidence that exercise can activate the processes needed for DNA repair. Getting to a good level of fitness and maintaining it should therefore be a top priority for everyone who wants to slow down ageing.
So, how much fitness and what types of workouts are we talking about? The best mix is a combination of aerobic workouts (100+minutes of walking, running, swimming and biking a week) with resistance training twice a week to strengthen the muscles. Engineering movement in your daily life (such as walking to work or to the supermarket) can help you achieve these fitness goals.
Mindfulness.
Daily rituals that reduce stress and reverse the inflammation associated with stress contributes to the protection of our DNA.
Long-term stress compromises health and longevity. The main culprits are stress hormones that have a negative impact on our body and our mind. Mindfulness therapies have already proven to be an effective stress reducing intervention. Meditation can lower stress hormone levels and blood pressure and scientists already established it is helpful for pain, depression, and addiction, amongst many other conditions. New research is helping us to understand how mindfulness can help extend people’s lives.
Recent studies have shown that people who meditate have more activity of the enzyme telomerase. Telomerase is responsible for repairing telomeres which are the pieces of repetitive DNA at the end of our DNA strands. When they unravel, our DNA gets damaged. Meditation helps to increase the amount of telomerase, in turn helping our telomeres to protect our DNA.
Sleep.
Sleep deficiency leads to accelerated ageing, and a higher risk of ageing-related diseases, like diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
Having a consistent sleeping pattern is one of the hallmarks of people who achieve exceptional longevity, who live into their 90s and beyond with good health and a strong quality of life. Scientists found out that having a sleep deficit can compromise nearly every major body system, from the brain to the heart to the immune system, making our inability — or in some cases unwillingness — to sleep enough one of the unhealthiest things that we do.
People who get both quality and quantity shuteye are less susceptible to serious illnesses like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. Getting eight hours of high quality sleep is a critical piece of the long-life puzzle.
Social activity.
Staying socially engaged reduces stress levels and helps us to stay healthier longer.
Humans are social animals. We need to be around other people to feel good. Participating regularly in social activities is crucial to protect us against the harmful physical and emotional consequences of social isolation, such as increased stress hormone levels. Research has shown that people who keep old friends and make new friends live healthier longer.
Find your tribe. Healthy habits such as exercising and positive thinking are contagious. But so are detrimental habits like smoking, excessive drinking and weight gain. Curate your social circle by including people who support healthy behaviour.
Diet.
Nutrition is one of the most powerful lifestyle interventions to reduce your rate of ageing.
Nutrition is a powerful tool to extend your lifespan and improve the quality of your life. It is however one of the least commonly understood ways to support healthy ageing. Most people follow crash diets which have short term goals such as quick weight loss in mind, not a long term goal such as longevity. When we look at the eating patterns of people living in blue zones, we can draw a few lessons from the common characteristics.
Eat little or no red meat. Put vegetables, legumes and mushrooms first in your diet. Skip bread, pasta and potatoes. Don’t overindulge in food, so stop eating when your stomach is 80% full. Build in periodic fasting periods to reduce weight, blood pressure and cholesterol. Steer away from sugary drinks and animal milk.
Read up on the science.
+ Impact of exercise on longevity
Physical activity and the reduced risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease
- Physical Activity, Cognition, and Brain Outcomes: A Review of the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines, Erickson et al., Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 51(6), 1242–1251 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000001936
Higher levels of physical activity related to longer telomere lengths
- Physical activity and telomere length: Impact of aging and potential mechanisms of action, Arsenis et al., Oncotarget, 8(27), 45008–45019 (2017). https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.16726
The association between cardiorespiratory fitness and longevity
- Association of Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Long-term Mortality Among Adults Undergoing Exercise Treadmill Testing, Mandsager et al., JAMA network open, 1(6), e183605 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.3605
+ Impact of mindfullness on longevity
- Telomere length correlates with subtelomeric DNA methylation in long-term mindfulness practitioners, Mendioroz et al., Sci Rep 10, 4564 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61241-6
+ Impact of sleep on longevity
- Human longevity is associated with regular sleep patterns, maintenance of slow wave sleep, and favorable lipid profile, Mazzotti et al., Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 6, 134 (2014). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2014.00134
+ Impact of social activity on longevity
- Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review, Holt-Lunstad et al., PLoS medicine, 7(7), e1000316 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316
+ Impact of nutrition on longevity
Link between eating plenty of animal protein the risk of aging-related diseases.
- Dietary Protein, Metabolism, and Aging, Soultoukis et al., Annual review of biochemistry, 85, 5–34 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-biochem-060815-014422