Live Younger, Better
You've come to the best place to track, improve and discuss your healthy lifestyle.- Vitality Compass: find out how long you'll live given your current habits.
- The Power9: the nine common denominators that all of the world's longevity all-stars share.
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Blue Zones: Live Longer, Better
5 Things You Can Do TODAY To Get Happier!
Studies show that money can buy happiness, but only until the point where you have enough to cover expenses for food, shelter, health care, and transportation. After that, more money brings diminishing returns. So, where to put your energy and resources if you want to maximize your happiness?- INVEST IN YOUR HEALTH – Health is a prerequisite to happiness. In other words, You can't be happy if you're unhealthy. Eating wisely and moving naturally are the best way to get fit
- CREATE QUALITY FRIENDSHIPS – When it comes to a social network, quality is more important the quantity. Having two good friends who care about you – whether your chips are up or down – is more important than a huge network. We often forget that friends rarely come on their own accord: they require effort, time and nurturing.
- EXPLORE YOUR RELIGION – World surveys show that religious people are more happy than non-religious people. Religious people are more likely to have a strong social network and to be at peace with their lives and mortality. What to do: if you have a religion, make and effort to reconnect with it. If not, visit four new religous communities in the next three months and see if any of them align with your values.
- SPEND MORE TIME WITH YOUR HOBBY – Build a model, knit a sweater, climb a cliff, cook a gourmet meal. The point is to spend time engaged in activities wherein you are optimally challenged, you get immediate feedback, you lose sense of time and you do it because it's intrinsically rewarding. Psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi identifies this state as the state of flow. It is perhaps the best way to achieve authentic sustainable happiness.
- IF YOU'RE UNHAPPY, MOVE – Where you live has a bigger impact on your happiness than your marital status, income, or even education level. If you are not happy where you are, consider moving. World-wide studies show that the happiest places on earth are not tropical islands but place where you feel secure, people around you have the same level of status as you do and it's easy to find a job that is interesting.
How to Create a Healthier Pantry
Given the option between chocolate cake and broccoli I'd opt for cake of course.
Working from home, when hunger pangs strike I will turn to my kitchen with all the relish of a cat nip crazed kitten. Fridge beware, I must have your contents. That is why it's especially helpful to remember your not going to eat it unless you buy it at the grocery store. All our meal choices start at the same place. What to do next time you venture into the land of fresh, fish and chocolaty delicious? Here are five tips for stocking up and staying healthy. One brown bag at a time.
How Excercise can Hurt your body.
An active life is a vital life. We’re taught from the age of pee-wee soccer that physical fitness walks hand in hand with emotional well-being, strength and personal satisfaction.
In a world where physical activity is the status quo, and treadmills come in as many brands, shapes and sizes as bottled water, sadly, joint health is increasingly declining. We’re wearing out the tread.
Many of the 70 million baby boomer's are being forced to reckon with their active lifestyle. Osteoarthritis is just one possible consequence of a long, active life according to a recent report. Osteoarthritis currently affects about 46 million Americans. Stanford University's Longevity Center reports that this number will hit 67 million by 2030.
Hips are like tires, once you “wear out the tread,” the cartilage, you’ve got to replace the hip. Sadly, new hips (knees, wrists) wear out too. Overtime, it is not unlikely for multiple replacement surgeries to be deemed necessary to keep you moving.
What to do?
When you exercise, focus on low or no impact activities like yoga, bike riding, hiking, swimming and pilates instead of jogging. At the end of the day, we’re all fighting the cartilage-clock. Overtime, cartilage that pads the joints wears down and wears out, and once you get bone on bone contact, that’s when the pain starts. The best solution is to focus your workouts on activities that don’t put large amounts of pressure or pounding on joint cartilage.
It’s not all about stress...
Stress on joints is commonly believed to be the main cause of cartilage wear and tear. New research suggests that repetition alone, that three mile jog you’ve been taking since the 1970’s, is not the only, or the main, reason for cartilage to go kaput. Other factors like obesity and previous injury may play a bigger role than popular science suggests.
Glucosamine and Chondroitin?
Many people, including a personal trainer I know very well, pop a vitamin that is a mix of glucosamine and chondroitin daily. This combo is believed to reduce pain and pressure on knees. Can a magic pill cure cartilage breakdown? Not yet, anyway. While an assortment of vitamins may make lofty advertising claims, medical professionals still lack the ability to generate new cartilage. Everything from aspirin, vitamin supplements, to cortisone shots is a quick pain fix, not a solution. Joints perform a mechanical function, and joint replacement is the only way we know to fix this function.
Want to know more about healthy joints? Read Stanford Universities take on how to keep aging joints healthy.
Water, water everywhere
The next time you work up a sweat and grab a glass of water to rehydrate, take a second to say thanks. According to the United Nations, more than 1 billion (yes, billion) people lack safe, clean drinking water, and more than 2 and a half billion don’t have access to adequate sanitation.
But for those of us who have clean water, water can be a wonderful thing. Water, the most vital of vital nutrients, varies in mineral composition from place to place. The Blue Zone scientist Gianni Pes discovered that the water in Nicoya, Costa Rica, is particularly rich in calcium.
Last week, deep in the University of San Jose’s archives, we found a map showing water hardness (calcium and magnesium content) in different regions of Costa Rica. We noticed that here in Nicoya, water is the hardest. To confirm this, we tested the drinking water in 20 different areas throughout Nicoya. The result: The water is off-the-charts hard in this area—at least 500 parts per million!
The World Health Organization has studied so-called “hard” water and found that water with more minerals (hard water) affords its drinkers some health benefits, specifically in terms of their cardiovascular health. While scientists don’t fully understand the reasons populations drinking hard water show lower rates of cardiovascular mortality, it is important to note that calcium and magnesium in water seem to offer added protection for one’s heart.
So be sure to stay hydrated – not everyone has clean water at their fingertips.
How Your Dog Can Help You Move Mindlessly
Moving mindlessly is a BlueZones concept that means integrating low-level physical activity into your daily routine. The healthiest, longest-living people in the world aren't gym-rats; but they have habits that promote or even require moderate, sustained exercise every day.
What, you don't have a herd of sheep you need to lead out to pasture in the hills every morning? Not to worry! Try thinking of other ways to encourage yourself to move mindlessly! Here are some things my dog has taught me about this subject:
- Running is the most fun thing ever.
Running after anything that moves is better. - Have an adventurous spirit - he has never let his lack of opposable thumbs stop him from believing he can climb a tree. After a squirrel.
- Drink lots water daily. Lots and lots and lots of water.
- Weight training rules - tug of war anyone?
- Repeat daily. In his case, repeat ten times daily.
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