A lit­tle pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment… Dan Buet­tner, a writer for Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, has stud­ied the world’s longest-lived peo­ples. Most of his find­ings are summed up in his book, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Liv­ing Longer From the Peo­ple Who’ve Lived the Longest. And here, in this Ted Talk, he boils things down even fur­ther, giv­ing you 9 com­mon diet and lifestyle habits found among the world’s old­est pop­u­la­tions. They’ve been use­ful­ly sum­ma­rized by Pre­sen­ta­tionZen as fol­lows:

Move Nat­u­ral­ly
(1) You don’t need a for­mal, rig­or­ous exer­cise plan. We’re talk­ing here a change in lifestyle that is fun­da­men­tal­ly active. We’re designed to move. We’ve not meant to dri­ve 100 meters in a car to pick up chips at the local store. Walk, do yard work, what­ev­er. Do exercises/activities that you enjoy.

Have Right Out­look
(2) Slow down. When you’re con­stant­ly in a hur­ry and stressed out, this has a neg­a­tive impact on your health. Lim­it­ing neg­a­tive stress is one of the health­i­est things you can do for your­self.
(3) Have a clear pur­pose. The Japan­ese call it “iki­gai” 生き甲斐 (lit: life + val­ue, be worth while). You must have a pas­sion, a call­ing, a pur­pose. There’s got to be a rea­son to get out of bed every day.

Eat Wise­ly
(4) Drink a lit­tle (wine) every­day.
(5) Eat main­ly plant-based foods. Small amounts of meat and fish are OK.
(6) Hara Hachi Bu: Eat until 80% full. Do not eat eat until you’re stuffed. (I’ve talked about this many time before in the con­text of pre­sen­ta­tion.)

Be Con­nect­ed with oth­ers
(7) Put fam­i­ly, loved ones first.
(8) Belong to a com­mu­ni­ty. Many in his study belonged to faith-based com­mu­ni­ties.
(9) Belong to the right tribe. That is, hang out with peo­ple with healthy habits, phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al ones.

Takes these tips to heart, and please share them with friends…

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