Blue Zones revisited: How to live to 100
Many years ago, I was inspired to live to 100 after reading Blue Zones by Dan Buettner, who with a team of researchers studied what the longest living humans have in common.
According to the highest populations of centenarians (100 and older) in the world, this is what the researchers found, ordered from most in common to least:
- Long-lasting humans have families, don’t smoke, eat plant-heavy diets (beans, lentils, peas, etc), are physically active, and social.
- They believe in God, eat whole grains, are culturally isolated, don’t drink alcohol, empower women, garden, and get lots of sunshine.
- Lastly, they eat a handful of nuts everyday, aren’t in a hurry, and occasionally drink a glass wine (although that’s recently been disputed).
Ever since I first read Blue Zones, I’ve adopted most of the above and feel great. That’s no guarantee I’ll live to 100. But I’d do it anyways since I feel better now than when I didn’t do the above.
“My own experience has given me the conviction that, quite apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older; to develop because, as the passions grow calm, as the fancy and sensibilities are less excited and less excitable, our reason becomes less troubled in its working, less obscured by the images, desires and distractions, in which it used to be absorbed; whereupon God emerges as from behind a cloud; our soul feels, sees, turns towards the source of all light; turns naturally and inevitably; for now that all that gave to the world of sensations its life and charm has begun to leak away from us, now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered up by impressions from within or from without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false—a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses.”—My favorite passage from