Things You Can Do to Live Longer and Healthier – Part 2

Live Longer and Healthier? “Eat less, stress less, move more, and love more” – The Blue Zones Solutions 

Continuing from Part 1, Learn about Things You Can Eat to Live Longer and Healthier, the Blue Zone solution advocates the next step is to do the things which help you live longer and Healthier:

7 Tips for Longer Life

1. Get enough sleep

Getting enough sleep reduces stress and enables your body to rejuvenate. It is known that sleep strengthens your immune system and boosts your energy level. What’s important is that it gives you a fresh start in the morning with clear and decluttered mind.

2. Drink alcohol moderately

Moderate consumption of alcohol can be good for you heart. The latest recommendation is about 14 units of alcohol per week for both man and woman. However, taking too much alcohol does just the opposite for your heart health and can affect your liver and cause cancer of your digestive tract.

3. Eat well

Healthy food choices give you control of your life. The health benefits of healthy eating goes beyond physical health. Start building your confidence level and well-being from your plate!

4. Do not smoke

Smoking can be a quick shortcut to greater attention, focus and feeling a less cluttered mind. However, once the nicotine effect is over, the aftermath is often hard to handle, making us craving more and more for smoke and keep running away from our life issues. Smoking exposes your body to whole variety of toxins and chemicals and hands you a big discount (about 14%) on your life expectancy.

5. Exercise

Doing exercise regularly for about 30 minutes on most days can lengthen your life by  five to seven years when compared to those who lead a sedentary lifestyle. Exercise moderately such as jogging, swimming, cycling as to your liking.

Regular Exercise 30 mins five times weekly

6. Hugs, cuddles and holding hands

Being aware of other people feelings and your own helps foster good relationship. Humans have a need to love and care for others as well as a need for intimacy. These act of love and care can increase the dopamine level in our brain which make us feel well and contented as well as increase the oxytocin level, the feel-good hormone. Having a good relationship with your partner is fundamental to healthy family dynamics and in turn the community at large.

7. Stress management

Stress hormone puts us in fight or flight situation that is neither good for our physical health in the long run nor beneficial for our survival in modern world when it is excessive. Deep breathing using your tummy can help you feel calmer and more in control of yourself and the environment. Mindfulness practice widens your horizon and senses. You will find yourself more energetic with better immune system with good stress management. Also, you’ll find your social life, family life and work life a whole lot more balanced.

Live Longer – Eat Right and Live Right

Well-being encompasses a whole range of living experiences. Living well physically, mentally, and spiritually can be a challenge or seemingly impossible goal to attain. However, the path to be truly happy and well might well lie within every one of us. Slow down and listen gently to what your heart and body have to say.

See Part 1 – Learn about Things You Can Eat to Live Longer and Healthier

References:

1. 15 things you can do to live longer [Internet]. Canyon Ranch. 2019. [Available from: https://www.canyonranch.com/blog/health/15-things-you-can-do-to-live-longer/; accessed on 2019 April 25]
2. Dan Buettner. The blue zones solution: eating and living like the world’s healthiest people. National Geographic Books. 2015 Apr:32-72.

Tags

• exercise
• healthy living
• longevity
• stress management