Getting Healthy: How to live a long and healthy life

Throughout the world there are groups of people who are known to live to quite advanced ages. What’s more these people tend to live to a healthy old age.

There is now a project to study these different groups and what they have in common. The zones of healthy old people are called ‘blue zones’ – simply because one of the researchers circled one of these areas with a blue marker.

The good news is that, for a healthy old age, lifestyle habits are more important than genetic inheritance.

And what are the lifestyle habits that we need to adopt? So far the researchers have isolated nine:

• Stop eating when you’re 80 percent full
• Eat more veggies, less protein and fewer processed foods
• Drink red wine, in moderation
• Have a sense of purpose in life
• Maintain a spiritual or religious belief system
• Work less, slow down, take vacations
• Make physical movement a vital part of each day
• Create a healthy social network
• Make family a priority

These are all things we are capable of doing. If we can’t do all of them immediately, then we should be able to start with one or more. We have a good chance of living a long and healthy life by making modest lifestyle adjustments – none of them involve huge effort and sacrifice.

How to live a long and healthy life « wellbeingandhealth.net