10 ways to health & longevity....

Today's post: Friday, 7-11-2008

One of the nice things about being willing to take charge of your health is the long list of things that have been proven to work that you can do or do more of.

Here are two posts we’ve already done with some of those lists.:

Proven long life strategies….Friday, 5-23-2008
(Strategies from the new Blue Zones book.)

& Fri, 3-14-2008, 21 ways to live to be 100)

It can be enjoyable & enlightening to read these lists. It’s fun & encouraging to note the ones you already do & do well.

And, it can help you to see things you do but need to do more or better & things you maybe never have heard of before you can do & even enjoy. (Our many posts on dark chocolate are a good example of that last category.)

Our post today has 10 ways to be healthier or live longer or both.

Nine are from an article in the email that I got earlier today from Total Health Breakthroughs.

I’ll quote the article here & add my comments plus a tenth one I think very powerful.

I like his article because he includes some things NOT on lists from other sources AND because he does an unusually good job on some of the short parts he writes on each habit..

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

“Friday, July 11, 2008

The Nine Habits of Highly Healthy People

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

For years, business and motivational gurus have known that there are basic habits that seem to predict professional success and excellence. Books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by motivational speaker and business guru Stephen Covey, which has sold over 15 million copies alone, shows that people are hungry for the secrets of success.

We don't yet have the perfect formula for long life, happiness, and physical health, but a little careful distillation of the massive amount of research on health and longevity reveals that cultivating nine basic habits will significantly increase the odds of your living long, well, and happily -- in a robust, healthy, weight-appropriate body.

1. Eat your vegetables. No kidding --and I'm talking at least 9 servings a day. Unless you're following the most stringent first stage of the Atkins Diet, you should be able to consume 60-120 grams of carbs a day (depending on your weight and exercise level), and you'd have to eat a stockyard full of spinach to get to that amount. Every major study of long-lived, healthy people shows that they eat a ton of plant foods. Nothing delivers antioxidants, fiber, flavonoids, indoles, and the entire pharmacopeia of disease fighting phytochemicals like stuff that grows in rich soil.


2. Eat fish and/or take fish oil. The omega-3's found in cold-water fish like salmon deserve the title of "wellness molecule of the century." They lower the risk of heart disease, they lower blood pressure, they improve mood, and they're good for the brain. And if you're pregnant, they may make your kid smarter!


3. Connect. And I'm not talking about the internet. In virtually every study of people who are healthy and happy into their 9th and 10th decades, social connections are one of the "prime movers" in their life. Whether church, family, volunteer work, or community, finding something you care about that's bigger than you, that you can connect with and that involves other people (or animals) -- will extend your life, increase your energy, and make you happier -- always.


4. Get some sun. At least 10-15 minutes three times a week. Interestingly, a recent study showed that the four healthiest places on earth where the people were longest-lived, were in sunny climates.1 Sun improves your mood and boosts levels of cancer-fighting, performance-enhancing, bone-strengthening vitamin D -- a vitamin most people don't get nearly enough of.


5. Sleep well. If you're low in energy, gaining weight, grumpy, and looking haggard, guess what? Chances are you're not sleeping long enough or well enough. By sleeping "well," I mean uninterrupted sleep, in the dark -- without the television on, in a relaxing environment. Nothing nourishes, replenishes, and restarts the system like 7-9 hours sleep. Hint: start by going to bed an hour early. And if you've got a computer in the bedroom, banish it!


6. Exercise every day. Forget this 20 minutes three times a week stuff. Long-lived people are doing things like farm chores at 4:30 in the morning! Our Paleolithic ancestors traveled an average of 20 miles per day. Our bodies were designed to move on a regular basis. New studies show that merely 30 minutes a day of walking not only reduces the risk of most serious diseases, but can even grow new brain cells!2


7. Practice gratitude. By making a list of things you're grateful for, you focus the brain on positive energy. Gratitude is incompatible with anger and stress. Practice using your under-utilized "right brain" and spread some love. Focusing on what you're grateful for -- even for five minutes a day -- has the added benefit of being one of the best stress-reduction techniques on the planet.


8. Drink red wine or eat grapes. The resveratrol in dark grapes is being studied for its effect on extending life, which it seems to do for almost every species studied. (So does eating about one third less food, by the way.) If you've got a problem with alcohol, you can get resveratrol from grapes, peanuts, or supplements. (And if you're a woman, and you choose the alcohol option, make sure you're getting folic acid every day.)


9. Get the sugar out. The number one enemy of vitality, health, and longevity is not fat, it's sugar. Sugar's effect on hormones, mood, immunity, weight, and possibly even cancer cells is enormous -- and it's all negative. To the extent that you can remove it from your diet, you will be adding years to your life and life to your years.
This list may not be perfect and it may not be complete, but it's a start. As my dear grandmother used to say, "Couldn't hurt." Not one of these "habits" will hurt you, all will benefit you, and some may make the difference between life and death.

And it's never too late to start cultivating them.

Enjoy the journey!

References

1. Buettner, D, The Blue Zones, National Geographic Books, 2008; ISBN 1426202741.
2. http://biomed.gerontologyjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/61/11/1166.

[Ed. note: Dr. Bowden is a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition and health. He's a board certified nutrition specialist with a Master's degree in psychology and the author of five books including The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth. His latest book is The Most Effective Cures on Earth…..]”

X* X* X* X* X* X*

1. Vegetables.

As we posted about recently, eating a lot of the green, nonstarchy vegetables like salad greens, broccoli, green peas, green beans, & the green, nonstarchy vegetables that are other colors like fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic, & cauliflower is on of the little known and most effective ways to get & stay trim and free from excess body fat.

All the cruciferous vegetables from radishes to kale, to broccoli help prevent cancer. And, raw broccoli & cauliflower also help prevent not just cancer but the most dangerous forms of it as well.

You can try having seaweed soup with shrimp & mushrooms with oriental spice or kimchi with poached egg for breakfast or scrambled eggs with broccoli sprouts or an omelet with chopped onion & green pepper & chopped mild chilis for breakfast.

You can take a variety of raw vegetables with you to eat at lunch.

You can make many kinds of good tasting salads with some extra virgin olive oil or nuts or avocado or shrimp, feta cheese, or canned wild salmon.

And, steamed vegetables have more flavor than you might guess if you haven’t tried them & have more of their nutrition intact than boiled vegetables.

Lastly, research recently reported found that organically grown vegetables have even more of the nutrients he talks about than those grown with pesticides & herbicides.

2. Eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils is surprisingly high in them, including the DHA he highlights. And article later in the today’s issue has a recipe for cooking wild caught salmon that lists each 6 ounce serving as having 1,000 mg of DHA & notes a Tufts University study that 180 mg a day of DHA apparently cuts your chances of getting Alzheimer’s disease by 47 %.

DHA is available in supplements that take it from the algae that fish eat to have so much of it.

And, Nordic Naturals & many other companies sell purified fish oil capsules with DHA, EPA, other omega 3 oils. Nordic Naturals’ supplement & those some other providers also include a natural orange or lemon flavor that over-rides any fishy aftertaste.

Lastly, it is now pretty well established that women who take DHA while pregnant & then while breast feeding, or use formula that has DHA added, wind up with measurably smarter kids.

Since people with adequate DHA are also noticeably less irritable & are easier to get along with than people who get way too little, they likely have easier to take, friendlier kids besides.

3. Talking with friends, colleagues, & family members often turns out to be extremely valuable for health.

People who are optimistic enough to see much of the difficulties with people as temporary & see reasons to like people & who notice and value the strengths in others do this better with even better results every way.

And, even better, recent research has shown just talking with people give your brain a workout as good as solving chess problems or doing crossword puzzle. Since it feels easier & is even fun sometimes, this effect is both surprising & very good news.

4. Get some sun. Most people today do not. There is some danger in too much. And, many people live in places where it is too hot, cold, or dangerous to do.

That said, doing so causes your body to make & release a surprising amount of vitamin D3.

And, getting at least some – even if it is in overcast looking winter weather at lunchtime for 10 or 15 minutes has been shown to prevent SAD, sunlight caused depression.

The wonderful news is that taking 1,000 mg of D3 as a supplement twice a day is cheap and has an astonishingly long list of health benefits that have only recently become known including preventing all kinds of cancers & immune diseases. To a large degree taking that much vitamin D will protect your health when you can’t get much sun.

Lastly, another very powerful reason for the good track record of getting sun exposure is that it often goes with walking, gardening, outside work, or playing some kind of sport. Since all or most of these kinds of exercise can be done inside, that also helps people who can’t get outside to get the benefits anyway.

5. Sleep well. I really like his approach. He notes that not only is enough sleep important but gives some great tips on how to set it up so you get refreshing & effective sleep during the time you have to sleep.

Three other points are worth adding. You sleep a LOT better if you exercise the day before. I find that a lot of exercise or activity or doing a vigorous strength training work out that day, are unusually effective in doing this. Second, it also helps enormously if you go to bed & get out of bed at the same time each day, or at least each weekday. Lastly, NOT watching the news on TV after about 9 PM unless something truly remarkable or important has happened will help you sleep much better. And you may get more sleep by not staying up to watch the news besides.

6. Exercise every day. Exercise is incredibly important for good health. It also improves your sex life. Surprisingly few people really know how incredibly important it is. As long as you don’t take too much time from working or parenting to do it or injure yourself, MORE & every day IS better than 20 minutes three times a week.

But a very important point he misses is that if each of those 20 minute sessions is 10 minutes of vigorous & progressive strength training & 10 minutes of vigorous interval cardio and a person does these sessions every week, they get close to half of the benefits of all the exercise he recommends.

And, you may HAVE 20 minutes three times a week but not have more time than that in your schedule now. Even better, if you do the 20 minutes three times a week each week, you will be easily up to doing a lot more exercise when you have the time. And, if you don’t do that much you very probably will not be.

7. Practice gratitude. I really like that he includes this one. Research has found that if you make even two minutes every day to remember something good that you already have or that happened to you that day, your mood and your perceived quality of life increase dramatically.

And, when you feel better, research shows, you are much more likely to exercise & make the extra effort to eat right and do these other things for your health. Your connections with the other people in your life will go better, for example.

It BELONGS on this list; & I’ve rarely seen it on other such lists.

8. Drinking red wine in moderation, eating red or purple grapes, & eating cherries & berries all have multiple & powerful health benefits BESIDES resveratrol that he does NOT mention.

To get the full anti-aging benefit of resveratrol, I think you need to drink red wine in moderation, if you can do so safely, and eat red or purple grapes or drink purple grape juice, & eat cherries & berries when you can – AND take resveratrol supplements daily.

But the evidence is that if you do that, you’ll live longer in better health & be notably less likely to get heart disease, cancer, or to begin to have no energy for life.

THAT is a powerful set of benefits.

9. Slash the amount of sugar you eat & drink.

Two points he left out are that:

a) learning how to NEVER eat or drink high fructose corn syrup and then doing just that & virtually eliminating refined grain foods from your diet are the most important part of cutting sugar & super high glycemic foods from your food supply.

&

b) the more exercise you do each week, particularly interval cardio & strength training, the better your body will safely handle the sugar that you do wind up ingesting.

Also, since many of us enjoy some foods that have sugar occasionally, I find it more doable to eat them much less often than to give them up entirely.

What clearly will harm you is if you eat tons of sugar or even worse, high fructose corn syrup, every day & never exercise.

I’m out of time today, so the 10th way to give yourself better health & longevity will be in our next post.

It’s more complex & high tech than many of these other 9 ways. But it is as powerful or even more powerful than they are.