Plant-Based Diet
Buettner is actually very cautious to avoid putting too much stress on this point, although he does joke that if every American ate one more cup of beans a day, we’d see the average life expectancy of our country increase by two to four years.
He’s also careful to stress that these people don’t avoid meat altogether, they just mostly eat plants in their diet, supplementing with occasional meats and, typically, with moderate alcohol consumption.
Social Networks
One really important aspect of living longer is having a strong social network. Loneliness takes five years off your life expectancy, so it’s important to be surrounded by people who love and care not just for you, but about you. In the US, we often live separately anyway, spending much of our time alone, and this only increases as we get older, especially for people who live in retirement communities.
One great way that other communities get past this accelerating loneliness of age is to have multigenerational households. This gives older family members a place where they are welcome and regular social interactions.
Active Life
Another important aspect is that most of these communities don’t have a notion of retirement. Buettner says that retirement divides our lives into two phases: a useful, productive life, followed by a period where we are irrelevant, which often encourages us to lead lives of indolence and inaction.
In Blue Zones, people continue working for most of their lives. However, it’s important that this work isn’t of the same quality as that which younger people engage in. Instead of having a full time occupation of tending sheep, for example, an older man might serve as a counselor to the mayor or other public figures. A woman might stay in the home of her daughter or granddaughter, helping to cook, clean, and care for kids. This keeps people active even as they age.
Buettner notes that, although these people don’t exercise the way we think about it, they do get a significant amount of physical activity each day. They spend about an hour engaged in physical activity each day, with some fraction of that activity being what we would consider “strenuous” work.
Worship or Meditation
Another common aspect of life for these long-lived people is a period of quiet reflection each day, typically as part of a religious or spiritual practice. Some of these people pray. Others worship their ancestors. The faith itself doesn’t seem to matter so much as the way they participate in it.
FOY® Dentures Can Help You Engage in Longevity Practices
Although there’s no guarantee that living life in this way will help you live longer, it certainly wouldn’t hurt. And living this kind of life can be made easier with Fountain of Youth Dentures®. With quality fit and durable teeth, FOY® Dentures can help you chew healthy, unprocessed foods. And because they support neuromuscular health, they can make it easier for you to maintain a more active lifestyle as you get older. And because they are attractive and natural in their appearance, you will be less likely to withdraw from social circles because of unattractive and poor-fitting dentures.
If you would like to learn more about the amazing rejuvenating impact of FOY® Dentures, please contact a local FOY® Dentures dentist today.
