Blue Zone Living for Longer
“Blue Zone” is a term used for areas in the world where people tend to live longer lives, often reaching up to age 90 and even age 100 and beyond. Dan Buettner, Blue Zones founder, is a National Geographic Fellow and multiple New York Times bestselling author. He discovered five places in the world ¬– dubbed blue zones – where people live the longest, and are healthiest: Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece, and Loma Linda, California.
“A long healthy life is no accident. It begins with good genes, but it also depends on good habits.” - Dan Buettner
Dan and his team of demographers and researchers found that all blue zones areas share nine specific lifestyle habits:
The Blue Zone 9 Lifestyle Habits
Move naturally
Have a purpose in life
Downshift
80% rule
Plant slant
Wine at 5
Belong
Loved ones first
Right tribe
Let’s take a deeper dive into what these Blue Zones Power 9: Lifestyle Habits of the World’s Healthiest, Longest-Lived People are:
Move Naturally - The world’s longest-lived people don’t pump iron, run marathons or join gyms. Instead, they live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it. They grow gardens and don’t have mechanical conveniences for house and yard work.
Purpose - The Okinawans call it “Ikigai” and the Nicoyans call it “plan de vida;” for both it translates to “why I wake up in the morning.” Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to seven years of extra life expectancy.
Downshift - Even people in the Blue Zones experience stress. Stress leads to chronic inflammation, associated with every major age-related disease. What the world’s longest-lived people have that we don’t are routines to shed that stress. Okinawans take a few moments each day to remember their ancestors, Adventists pray, Ikarians take a nap and Sardinians do happy hour.
80% Rule - “Hara hachi bu” – the Okinawan, 2500 year old Confucian mantra said before meals reminds them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80 percent full. The 20% gap between not being hungry and feeling full could be the difference between losing weight or gaining it. People in the blue zones eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening and then they don’t eat any more the rest of the day.
Plant Slant - Beans, including fava, black, soy and lentils, are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets. Meat—mostly pork—is eaten on average only five times per month. Serving sizes are 3-4 oz., about the size of a deck of cards.
Wine @ 5 - People in all blue zones (except Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly. Moderate drinkers outlive non-drinkers. The trick is to drink 1-2 glasses per day (preferably Sardinian Cannonau wine), with friends and/or with food. And no, you can’t save up all week and have 14 drinks on Saturday.
Belong - All but five of the 263 centenarians we interviewed belonged to some faith-based community. Denomination doesn’t seem to matter. Research shows that attending faith-based services four times per month will add 4-14 years of life expectancy.
Loved Ones First - Successful centenarians in the blue zones put their families first. This means keeping aging parents and grandparents nearby or in the home (It lowers disease and mortality rates of children in the home too.). They commit to a life partner (which can add up to 3 years of life expectancy) and invest in their children with time and love (They’ll be more likely to care for you when the time comes).
Right Tribe - The world’s longest lived people chose–or were born into–social circles that supported healthy behaviour’s, Okinawans created ”moais”–groups of five friends that committed to each other for life. Research from the Framingham Studies shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and even loneliness is contagious. So the social networks of long-lived people have favourably shaped their health behaviour’s.
To make it to age 100, you have to have won the genetic lottery. But most of us do have the capacity to increase our life expectancy by as much as 10-12 years if we decide to adopt a Blue Zones lifestyle.
Blue Zone lifestyle and living practices are something that we can all choose to incorporate into our everyday life. We can start by taking small steps to begin with and add more healthy Blue Zone lifestyle choices as we progress. The Power 9 are an opportunity to have more control over our own health and our health span. By choosing to make healthier lifestyle choices and decisions today, we are helping to move ourself towards building and creating a better and happier version of ourselves longer term.
If you’d like to learn more about Blue Zone living for Longer, or need support with your Health & Wellbeing journey. Please use my contact form to get in touch.
Professionally trained and qualified to support people with their Life’s journey.
Helping you achieve success and fulfilment in all areas of your life. Best wishes always - Julie