This is a wish we likely have for all of our loved ones and friends. Realistically, some of our loved ones and friends will fall by the wayside due to bad genes. Some will have a predisposition to cancer or to heart disease. When I see an otherwise healthy man in his 40’s have a major heart attack, the culprit is almost always a bad family history of early heart disease. But for those who received an average or better than average assortment of genes, there is much we can do to increase the chances of a long and healthy life.
There is no secret to giving yourself the best chance of a long and health life. You can’t turn around without seeing the advice and it is always the same advice. It is always the same advice because we now have so much evidence about what works to make us healthy and what makes us unhealthy. In retrospect, so much of it comes down to the way our bodies evolved. Over hundreds of thousands of years, the environment for the human race was pretty much the same. The further we get away from the conditions which our bodies evolved to meet, the more likely it is we will be unhealthy.
ACTIVITY
For gosh sakes, move. Get up off that couch. Our bodies were designed to move. Our ancestors did not sit around the cave watching television. If our ancestors did not move, they did not eat. If our ancestors did not move, they got eaten. Our bodies are finely tuned machines with thousands of biological processes going on in the background at any given moment. We can keep the machine running best, if we keep moving. Study after study has shown that any movement is better than none and that it is never too late to improve your health by beginning to be more active.
Researchers recommend 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, but you don’t need to be that active to enjoy the benefits of greater activity. As the image below shows, activity is good for the brain, the heart, the lungs, the digestive tract, and the bones, and pretty much everything in between. Activity can help stave off dementia, the risk of falls, heart attacks, osteoporosis, Type 2 diabetes, and many of the effects of aging. Get going.
DIET
Our bodies need fuel to operate. Just as with a nice car, you can’t put just anything into the tank and expect the engine to run at its best. When we eat, we are eating not just for ourselves, but also for the billions of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in our digestive tract. They are happiest and do their jobs of making things we need, such as short-chain fatty acids, best when we feed them lots of fiber and a variety of unprocessed foods.
In the middle of the last century, researchers noticed that people who lived in the Mediterranean basin were living longer, healthier lives than people living elsewhere and started searching for the reason. What they discovered is that their diet was the answer – what we now call the Mediterranean Diet. It is very much what our ancestors ate and what our bodies evolved to use as fuel. Lots of whole grains, beans, oily fish, fruits, and vegetables. Low on red meat and definitely low on processed and ultra-processed foods.
Even if you don’t adhere strictly to the Mediterranean Diet, as with exercise, every little bit helps.
CONNECTIONS
A famous English poet once wrote, “No man is an island.” We need other people in our lives to function at our best. People who don’t have good webs of social contacts are often less healthy and die sooner than those with richer social lives. Get out there. Life is better with friends. Call your friends and family and keep in touch. Make new social connections. Try to have a positive attitude. Forgive others. Take a moment to smell the roses.
A FEW DON’TS
I think it best to concentrate on the positives, but there are some things that it is best to avoid. Perhaps the most important is smoking. Never a good thing. It damages the body in so many ways.
Don’t drink to excess or engage in binge drinking. The latest research suggests that the negatives of alcohol outweigh the positives. That may be but I am still going to have a glass of wine and don’t mind a bit, if you join me.
Don’t skimp on your sleep. The body and the brain need a good sleep to recharge the batteries and to process the events of the day. Too little sleep affects your performance and your health. Take a nap.
The more of this advice you can follow, the better. I wish you a long and healthy life.
