The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest

by Dan Buettner

“Absolutely,” she said. “When Gianni and I were doing our interviews, we noticed that when you ask the most highly functioning seniors how they are, they always say, ‘I feel good … thanks to God.’ Yet they may be blind, deaf, and their bones hurt. Psychologists call this an external locus of control. In other words, they tend to relinquish control of their lives to God. The fact that God is in control of their lives relieves any economic, spiritual, or well-being anxiety they might otherwise have. They go through life with the peaceful certitude that someone is looking out for them.” I had heard of a study that echoed their findings: In this study, participants who attended religious services about once a month or more had up to a 35 percent reduced risk of death for the next 7 years.

“She told me, ‘I had no money to buy food. But I knew God would provide,’ squeezing my arm. ‘And now He has.’ ”

“More than half were of Chorotegan descent. They tended to sleep about eight hours a day. They got maximum exposure to the sun. The long-lived women were likely to be the firstborn. And we also noticed that these people were extremely positive, which we can associate with their longevity.”

COOKED CORN Costa Ricans have eaten maize (corn) since the time of the Chorotega Indians. Lime (calcium hydroxide) is used to cook the kernels, which infuses them with higher concentrations of calcium. But just exposing corn to heat can also increase its nutritional value. A recent Cornell University study found that cooked corn contains higher levels of antioxidants than raw kernels.

COSTA RICA’S LONGEVITY SECRETS Try these common practices from Costa Rica’s Blue Zone. Have a plan de vida.

Successful centenarians have a strong sense of purpose. They

feel needed and want to contribute to a greater good. Drink hard water. Nicoyan water has the country’s highest calcium content, perhaps explaining the lower rates of heart disease, as well as stronger bones and fewer hip fractures. Keep a focus on family. Nicoyan centenarians tend to live with their families, and children or grandchildren provide support and sense of purpose and belonging. Eat a light dinner. Eating fewer calories appears to be one of the surest ways to add years to your life. Nicoyans eat a light dinner early in the evening. Maintain social networks. Nicoyan centenarians get frequent visits from neighbors. They know how to listen, laugh, and appreciate what they have. Keep hard at work. Centena...

bodies produce vitamin D for strong bones and healthy body function. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a host of problems, such as osteoporosis and heart disease, but regular, “smart” sun exposure (about 15 minutes on the legs and arms) can help supplement your diet and make sure you’re getting enough of this vital nutrient. Embrace a common history. Modern Nicoyans’ roots to the indigenous Chorotega and their traditions have enabled them to remain relatively free of stress. Thei...

In the ensuing months, something strange happened. He started to feel stronger. He got out of bed in the afternoon and shuffled around the gardens and vineyards behind the house. One day, feeling ambitious, he planted some potatoes, green onions, garlic, and carrots. He didn’t expect to be alive to harvest them, but he enjoyed feeling the sunshine, breathing the clean ocean air, and getting his hands dirty with the soil of his birth. Elpiniki could enjoy the fresh vegetables after he was gone. Six months came and went. Stamatis didn’t die. Instead, he harvested that garden and, feeling emboldened, cleaned up the family vineyard as well. Easing himself into the island routine, he woke up late, worked in the vineyards until mid-afternoon, made himself lunch, and then took a long nap. In the evenings, he either drank wine with friends at home or walked to the local tavern where he stayed up past midnight playing dominoes. The years passed. His health continued to improve. He added a couple of rooms to his parents’ homestead so his children could visit. He built up the vineyard, producing 400 gallons of wine a year. Today, 35 years later, he is 100 years old and cancer-free. He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs, or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move to Ikaria.

HONEY

In addition to being a natural sweetener, honey may help control blood sugar levels, studies have found. Eating honey also has been shown to slow the oxidation of the “bad” cholesterol levels in the blood, which is a good thing. Researchers from the University of Illinois found that darker honey had more antioxidants and less water than lighter honey.

local diet. Ikarians eat a version of the Mediterranean diet, a menu rich in olive oil and vegetables, low in dairy and meat, with some alcohol daily. On Ikaria, it also includes an abundance of potatoes (which grow well in the rocky soil), goat milk, beans, and some fruit. Also, Ikarians seasonally gather many of the more than 150 varieties of greens that grow wild in Greece for salads or to bake into pies. Some of these greens contain more than ten times as many antioxidants as red wine. In the villages, they drink “mountain tea” every day, sometimes as a medicine but mostly as an end-of-the-day cocktail, usually made from whatever herbs r greens happen to be in season. Although they love fresh fish, Ikarians eat rela...

comforting beverage, but they all double as medicine,” he said. “The panacea here is honey,” he added. “They have types of honey here you won’t see anyplace else in the world. They use it for everything from treating wounds to curing hangovers, or for treating influenza. Old people here will start their day with a spoonful of honey. They take it like medicine.”

SIESTAS

Your kindergarten teacher may be onto something—napping is good for you. Any time you can rest and recharge is good, but a study by the University of Athens Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health found that people who took naps had lower coronary mortality than those who didn’t. The researchers defined “regular” naps as the kind that took place at least three times a week for about 30 minutes.

“Yamas!” (Cheers!)

The Mediterranean diet is not a creation of some doctor or nutritionist; it’s a centuries-old eating lifestyle followed by the peoples living in southern Europe and northern Africa. It differs from country to country, but olive oil, fruits, vegetables, legumes, some fish, and wine comprise the building blocks.

It all started when Ancel Keys, a physiologist at the University of Minnesota, studied the diets and habits of people in seven countries in the 1950s (often referred to as the Seven Countries Study), including the United States, Japan, Finland, and Greece. He found that individuals from Greece had the lowest rates of heart disease and lived the longest, even though they had a relatively high intake of fat. Trichopoulou is largely credited with taking this dietary wisdom from tiny villages of Greece to the rest of the world. She and her colleagues also found that people who fastidiously follow

the Mediterranean diet have stronger bones, lower cancer rates, and live up to four years l...

naps. She told me about a just-published paper by the University of Athens Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health on more than 23,000 Greek adults. The researchers followed subjects for an average of six years, measuring their diet, physical activity, and how much they napped. They found that occasional napping decreased a person’s risk for coronary heart disease by 12 percent, but that regular napping decreased their risk by a whopping 37 percent.

HERBAL TEAS Ikarians drink herbal teas made from wild oregano, sage, and rosemary—all of which lower blood pressure. How they drink them is important too: They drink these teas daily but rotate flavors—to not get too much of any one compound. Researchers have also found that chamomile tea contains properties that guard against platelet clumping; peppermint tea exhibits antiviral properties; and hibiscus tea may lower blood pressure.

And, as Antonia observed, because islanders eat greens from their gardens and fields, they consume fewer dangerous chemicals from growing and processing, and more health-giving nutrients. She estimated that the Ikarian diet, compared to the standard American diet, might account for up to four extra years of life expectancy. Four years!

LEAFY GREENS

Salads offer a great way to eat a variety of vegetables, but the greens themselves also can be full of vitamins and minerals. Leafy greens are low in sodium and calories, and they are completely cholesterol free. Greens contain vitamins (A and C), folate, calcium, fiber, and phytonutrients. When picking greens, look for those that ...

the United States, actuaries at the Social Security Administration have calculated the age at which we end our productive lives and start becoming recipients of care and assistance. It’s called retirement. And we’re more likely to die the year we retire than we are during our last year of work. Coincidence? In Okinawa, there’s none of this artificial punctuation of life. Instead, the notion of ikigai—“the reason for which you wake up in the morning”—imbues people’s entire adult lives. It gets centenarians out of bed and out of the easy chair to teach karate, or to guide the village spiritually, or to pass down cultural traditions to kids. The word “retirement” doesn’t even exist in the Okinawan dialect. The Nicoyans use the term plan de vida to describe a lifelong sense of purpose. Dr. Robert Butler, the first director of the National Institute on Aging, estimated that an ability to define your life meaning adds to your life expectancy.

IKARIA’S BLUE ZONE SECRETS Try these common practices from Ikarians: Drink some goat’s milk. Adding some goat milk to your diet could provide a great source of calcium, potassium, and the stress-relieving hormone tryptophan. Researchers found that goat milk is very similar to human milk and provides oligosaccharides, which promote healthy intestinal flora. It’s also hypoallergenic and can usually be tolerated by people who are lactose intolerant. Mimic mountain living. The longest lived Ikarians tended to be poor people living in the island’s highlands. They exercised mindlessly, by just gardening, walking to their neighbor’s house, or doing their own yard work. The lesson to us: Engineer more mindless movement into our lives by living in neighborhoods with sidewalks, owning a bike that works, and planting a garden each spring. Eat a Mediterranean-style diet. Ikarians eat a variation of the Mediterranean diet, with lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, potatoes, and olive oil. Try cooking with olive oil, which contains cholesterol-lowering monounsaturated fats. Two other lessons: Look for the freshest oil, as time can diminish its antioxidant

power, and never cook with so much heat that the oil smokes. High heat breaks down healthy fats, making them much less healthy. Stock up on herbal. People in Ikaria enjoy drinking herbal teas with family and friends, and scientists have found that they pack an antioxidant punch. Wild rosemary, sage, and oregano teas also act as a diuretic, which can keep blood pressure in check by ridding the body of excess sodium and water. The key is to drink herbal teas every day and rotate varieties. Nap. Take a cue from Ikarians and take a midafternoon break. People who nap regularly have up to 35 percent lower chances of dying from heart disease. It may be because napping lowers stress hormones or rests the heart. Or it may be because nappers tend to live healthier lives. The bottom line: Your kindergarten teacher may have had it right. Fast occasionally. Ikarians have traditionally been fierce Greek Orthodox Christians. Their religious calendar called for fasting almost half of the year. Caloric restriction—a type of fasting that cuts about 30 percent of calories out of the normal diet—is the only proven way to slow the aging process in mammals. Regularly and moderately reducing calories, either as part of a diet or as part of a religious practice, may yield some of the same longevity benefits Ikarians enjoy. Make family and friends a priority.

Ikarians foster social connections, which have been shown to benefit overall health and longevity. In fact, researchers who analyzed 148 different studies found that people who weren’t connected to their communities had a 50 percent greater chance of dying during the follow-up period of seven and a half years (on avera...

the Vitality Compass™, a tool that asks you 33 questions and, based on your answers, calculates 1) your potential life expectancy at your current age, 2) your healthy life expectancy—the number of good years you can expect to live, 3) the number of extra years you’re likely to gain if you optimize your lifestyle, and 4) a customized list of suggestions to help you with that plan. Completing the Vitality Compass™ is the first step to figuring out where you are on your personal longevity journey.

LESSON ONE: MOVE NATURALLY Be active without having to think about it

LESSON ONE STRATEGIES To get moving in your Blue Zone, try some of these tips. Inconvenience yourself. By making life a little tougher, you can easily add more activity to your days. Little things, like getting up to change the channel or taking the stairs, can add up to a more active lifestyle. Get rid of as many of the following as possible: TV remote control, garage door opener, electric can opener, electric blender, snow blower, and power lawn mower. Be ready to use as many of these as possible: bicycle, comfortable walking shoes, rake, broom, snow shovel. Have fun. Keep moving. Make a list of physical activities you enjoy. Rather than exercising for the sake of exercising, make your lifestyle active. Ride a bicycle instead of driving. Walk to the store. At work, take a walking break instead of a coffee and donut break. Build activity into your routine and lifestyle. Do what you enjoy. Forget the gym if you don’t like it—you’re not likely to go there if it’s a chore. Don’t force yourself to do things you dislike. Walk. This is the one activity that all successful centenarians did—and do—almost daily. It’s free, easier on the joints than running, always accessible, invites company, and if you’re walking briskly, may have the same cardiovascular benefits

as

running. After a hard day, a walk can relieve stress; after a meal, it can aid digestion. Make a date. Getting out and about can be more fun with other people. Make a list of people to walk with; combining walking and socializing may be the best strategy for setting yourself up for the habit. Knowing someone else is counting on you may motivate you to keep a walking date. A good place to start is to think, whose company do I enjoy? Who do I like to spend time with? Who has about the same level of physical ability? Plant a garden. Working in a garden requires frequent, low-intensity, full-range-of-motion activity. You dig to plant, bend to weed, and carry to harvest. Ga...

LESSON TWO: HARA HACHI BU Painlessly cut calori...

Dr. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating, is conducting perhaps the most innovative research on what makes us eat the way we do.

LESSON TWO STRATEGIES To help follow the 80 percent rule in your Blue Zone, try the following tips. Serve and store. People who serve themselves at the counter, then put the food away before taking their plate to the table, eat about 14 percent less than when they take smaller amounts and go back for seconds and thirds. Learn to recognize when you have enough on your plate to fill your stomach 80 percent. Make food look bigger. People who eat a quarter-pound hamburger that has been made to look like a half-pounder with lettuce, tomatoes, and onions feel equally full after eating. Students who drank a smoothie whipped to twice the volume with the same calories ate less for lunch 30 minutes later, and reported feeling fuller. Use small vessels. Drop your dinner plates and big glasses off at a charity,

and

buy smaller plates and tall, narrow glasses. You’...

significantly less without even thinking about it. Make snacking a hassle. Avoid tempting foods. Put candy bowls, cookie jars, and other temptations out of sight. Hide them in the cupboard or pantry. Wrap tempting leftovers in an opaque container. Buy smaller packages. When given large packages of spaghetti, sauce, and meat, Wansink’s subjects consumed 23 percent more (about 150 calories) than when they were given medium packages. Give yourself a daily reminder. The bathroom scale can be a simple yet powerful reminder not to overeat. Put the scale in your way so you can’t avoid a daily weigh-in. In fact, weighing yourself is one of the most surefire ways to reduce your weight and keep it off in the long run. One study that followed 3,026 women who were trying to lose weight and keep it off found that after 2 years, women who weighed themselves daily lost an average of 12 pounds. Women who never weighed in actually gained an average of 5 pounds. In other words, at the end of 2 years, women who weighed...

Focus on food. A guaranteed way to eat mindlessly is to do so while watching your favorite show on TV or while emailing a friend at the computer. If you’re going to eat, just eat. You’ll eat more slowly, consume less, and savor your food more. Have a seat. Many of us eat on the run, in the car, standing in front of the refrigerator, or while walking to our next meeting. This means we don’t notice what we’re eating or how fast we’re eating it. Making a habit of eating only while sitting down—eating purposefully—better enables us to appreciate the tastes and textures of our food. We’ll eat more slowly and feel more nourished when we’re through. Eat early. In the Blue Zones, the biggest meal of the day is typically eaten during the first half of the day. Nicoyans, Okinawans, and Sardinians eat their biggest meal at midday, while Adventists consume many of their calories for breakfast. All Blue Zone residents eat their smallest meal of the day in late ...

LESSON THREE: PLANT SLANT Avoid meat and ...

2003, the FDA allowed a “qualified health claim” that read: “Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove

that eating 1.5 ounces per day of most nuts as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease.”

Studies have indicated that nuts may help protect the heart by reducing total blood cholesterol levels. In a large, ongoing population study from Harvard University’s School of Public Health, people who often ate nuts had lower risks of coronary heart disease than those who rarely or never ate nuts. The Adventist Health Study (AHS) showed that the person who ate nuts at least five times per week, two ounces per serving, lived on average about two years longer than those who didn’t eat nuts. “We don’t know if there’s something magical in nuts or if it’s that people who are eating nuts are not eating junk food. But the positive effect is clear from the data,” says Dr. Gary Fraser, director of the AHS study. One explanation might be that nuts are rich in monounsaturated fat and soluble fiber, both of which tend to lower LDL cholesterol, he says. They are also relatively good sources of vitamin E and other possibly hear...

LESSON THREE STRATEGIES Try these tips to incorporate more plants in your diet. Eat four to six vegetable servings daily. Blue Zone diets always include at least two vegetables at each meal. Limit intake of meat. The centenarians in the Blue Zones consume li...

meat

to twice weekly, and serve no portion larger than a deck of cards. Showcase fruits and vegetables. Put a beautiful fruit bowl in the middle of your kitchen table. At the bottom of it, leave a note that reads “Fill Me.” Instead of hiding vegetables in the refrigerator compartment that says “Produce,” put them front and center on shelves where you can see them. Lead with beans. Beans are a cornerstone of each of the Blue Zone diets. Make beans—or tofu—the centerpiece of lunches and dinners. Eat nuts every day. The Adventist Health Study shows that it doesn’t matter what kind of nuts you eat to help extend your life expectancy. Caution: A 1-ounce serving of nuts typically ranges from 165 to 200 calories, so 2 ounces could be almost 400 calories. Stock up. Keep nuts available in your home, ideally in packa...

LESSON FOUR: GRAPES OF LIFE Drink red wine ...

A daily drink or two has been associated with lower rates of heart disease, but alcohol use has also been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer, for instance. It does appear to reduce stress and the damaging effects of chronic inflammation. What’s more, having a glass of wine with a meal creates an “event,” and thus makes it more likely you’ll eat more slowly.

LESSON FOUR STRATEGIES Introduce a glass of wine into a daily routine. Buy a case of high-quality red wine. The Sardinians quaff Cannonau in their Blue Zone. This variety might be hard to find in parts of the United States, but any dark red wine should do. Treat yourself to a “Happy Hour.” Set up yours to include a glass of wine, nuts as an appetizer, and a gathering of friends or time with a spouse. Take it easy. A serving or two per day of red wine is the most you need to drink to take advantage of its health benefits. Overdoing it negates any benefits you might enjoy, so drink in moderation.