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

by Dan Buettner

The way to learn longevity secrets from people like Ushi is to find a place where there are many Ushis—to find a culture, a Blue Zone, where the proportion of healthy 90- or 100-year-olds to the overall population is unusually high.

Scientific studies suggest that only about 25 percent of how long we live is dictated by genes, according to famous studies of Danish twins. The other 75 percent is determined by our lifestyles and the everyday choices we make.

“Our language on this matter must be unambiguous,” they wrote. “There are no lifestyle changes, surgical procedures, vitamins, antioxidants, hormones, or techniques of genetic engineering available today that have been demonstrated to influence the processes of aging.” The brutal reality about aging is that it has only an accelerator pedal. We have yet to discover whether a brake exists for people.

In fact, experts say that if we adopted the right lifestyle, we could add at least ten good years and suffer a fraction of the diseases that kill us prematurely. This could mean an extra quality decade of life!

In the case of humans, we probably peak in our mid-20s. We hold our own for a while, then at some point, perhaps in our mid-40s, we start to decline. Some people would say we actually begin to decline at age 30. It depends on the system that you track.

Rather than exercising for the sake of exercising, try to make changes to your lifestyle. Ride a bicycle instead of driving. Walk to the store instead of driving. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. Build that into your lifestyle. The chances are that you will sustain that behavior for a much longer time.

Again, there are two issues here. How long can I live? The other is: How well can I live?

There are some things I’d certainly recommend for what people would call successful aging. One of them is, in fact, to have a sense of social connectedness. Most people enjoy the company of other people, particularly other people who they feel care about them.

The goal will be to make positive behaviors convenient and, in some cases, unavoidable.

The Power Nine covers the following life domains: What to do to optimize your lifestyle for a longer, healthier life; how to think; how to eat; and how to build social relationships that support your good habits. These lessons are patterned after the lifestyles of Blue Zones centenarians but modified to fit the Western lifestyle.

It’s much easier to maintain healthy habits if your environment is set up for them.

Instead, they engage in regular, low-intensity physical activity, often as part of a daily work routine.

The overall goal is to get into the habit of doing at least 30 minutes (ideally at least 60 minutes) of exercise at least five times a week. It doesn’t have to be all at once, although that seems to be better.

Painlessly cut calories by 20 percent

hara hachi bu—a reminder to stop eating when their stomachs are 80 percent full.

more a matter of what’s around us. We overeat because of circumstances—friends, family, packages, plates, names, numbers, labels, lights, colors, candles, shapes, smells, distractions, cupboards, and containers.

Most of us have a caloric “set point” of sorts, a level of calories we can consume each day without gaining weight. We tend to gain weight by eating just slightly beyond the caloric set point week after week. For most of us, the solution is to eat enough so that we’re no longer hungry, but not so much that we’re full. Wansink asserts that we can eat about 20 percent more or 20 percent less without really being aware of it. And that 20 percent swing is the difference between losing weight and gaining it.

The trick to maintaining a healthy weight is to eat foods with low caloric density. If we look at our food and think it will fill us, it probably will. As Wansink writes, volume trumps calories.

Indeed, scientists analyzed six different studies of thousands of vegetarians and found that those that restrict meat are associated with living longer.

Protein helps us feel fuller, and helps us avoid the peaks and valleys in our blood sugar levels that make us feel hungry.”

Beans, whole grains, and garden vegetables are the cornerstones of all these longevity diets.

Take time to see the big picture Okinawans call it ikigai, and Nicoyans call it plan de vida, but in both cultures the phrase essentially translates to “why I wake up in the morning.”

If you can identify the activity that gives you this sense of flow and make it the focus of your job or hobby, it can also become your sense of purpose.

“Doing things that are novel and complex. Once you get good at them, and they are no longer novel, then you move on to something else.

Craft a personal mission statement. If you don’t have a sense of purpose, how do you find it? Articulating your personal mission statement can be a good start. Begin by answering this question in a single, memorable sentence: Why do you get up in the morning? Consider what you’re passionate about, how you enjoy using your talents, and what is truly important to you.

People who’ve made it to 100 seem to exude a sense of sublime serenity.

remember watching Gozei Shinzato pause to watch a brilliant thunderstorm as she washed her breakfast dishes in Okinawa, and Sardinian shepherd Tonino Tola stop to take a long look over the emerald green plateaus below. He’d seen that same sweeping view for almost 80 years, yet still took time every day to appreciate it.

Apart from such health benefits, this Blue Zone lesson does much to add richness to life. Slowing down ties together so many of the other lessons—eating right, appreciating friends, finding time for spirituality, making family a priority, creating things that bring purpose.

We generally hold working and being productive in high regard; being busy often wins us esteem. Few cultural institutions exist to encourage us to slow down, unwind, and de-stress.

Be early. Plan to arrive 15 minutes early to every appointment. This one practice minimizes the stress that arises from traffic, getting lost, or underestimating travel time. It allows you to slow down and focus before a meeting or

The simple act of worship is one of those subtly powerful habits that seems to improve your chances of having more good years.

To a certain extent, adherence to a religion allows them to relinquish the stresses of everyday life to a higher power.

Unitarian Universalism, for example, is open to anyone who believes in the inherent worth and dignity of every person and in the acceptance and encouragement of each individual’s own spiritual journey.

Be surrounded by those who share Blue Zone values

Social connectedness is ingrained into the world’s Blue Zones.