How to Live to 100

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“In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead, get that out of the way, and finish off as an orgasm.” – Woody Allen

Just as each successive generation expects to live longer than the last, Millennials and Gen Z expect to live to 100. Okay, but before planning a thirty-five to forty-year retirement, let’s make sure that the extra longevity is a healthy one that can actually be enjoyed.

How do we do that? There is no mystery here.

Digesting Stress

It’s not merely about food intake and exercise, as though we’re balancing a budget of accounts receivable and accounts payable. There are enough diets and fitness plans to line a buffet from here to the moon. Life is a metabolic journey. The single most important life-hack or gerontology-snack has to do with digesting stress.

Photo by Elisa Ventur, unsplash

For some, stress keeps the blood flowing. For others, it’s totally debilitating. What does stress actually do to the body? The deleterious effects of divorce, bereavement or financial struggles are found in the carnival of issues that arise from sustained-tension in our musculoskeletal, respiratory, endocrine, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and nervous systems. The easier-said-than-done formula is simply: maintain a healthy social support system of family and friends, engage in regular physical activity and, as my mother always says, get lots of sleep (“It’s the hours before midnight that count,” Mom tells me.) But in reality, stress is the insurmountable paywall that blocks us from all of that. So, what is the key?

Lifestyle vs. Life

How we metabolize stress is as important as how we metabolize the food we reach for as a vice in response to that stress. This has little to do with good genes and sunny weather. It’s the non-genetic lifestyle factors that contribute to healthy longevity.

The highest life expectancy and health expectancy in the world is in Japan. That doesn’t mean we should all move there. What is does mean is we have to consider the distinct work-life attitudes and ethics that fuel this statistic. Our focus is on centenarian women of Ogimi Village Okinawa, Japan.

stress, support
Photo by Neil Thomas_unsplash

Okinawans leading traditional lifestyles have high estrogen and testosterone levels as they age, low rates of dementia and osteoporosis and clean arteries that contribute to low rates of heart disease. In fact, Okinawans have 80 percent fewer heart attacks than North Americans; and when they do suffer a heart attack, they are twice as likely to recover. They have 80 percent fewer cases of breast cancer and prostate cancer, and less than half the ovarian and colon cancer of North Americans.

Okinawa Program

There are four aspects that enable healthy longevity: physical health, mental health, social health and spiritual health. Okinawan centenarians typically maintain a low glycemic diet that is both calorically low and nutritionally high. They eat low-fat, cholesterol-busting foods including unrefined complex carbohydrates, whole grains, legumes, fruits, high-fibre plants and vegetables. Over lunch in Ogimi Village, my hosts tell me, “There is no life without vegetables.” The U.S. National Cancer Institute recommends we eat five vegetables per day. Okinawans eat seven.

Okinawa Sea Grapes

Hara Hachi Bu

They also consume 40 percent fewer calories than Westerners and practice a custom of hara hachi bu, which means eating until 80 percent full. Why? Because even though the time it takes for my stomach to tell my brain that I want that sizzling, juicy steak is instantaneous, the time it takes for my brain to tell my stomach that I’m already full is twenty-minutes. That delayed response time is what gets us in trouble.

Low caloric intake improves blood sugar control and lowers production of free radicals. The more calories we consume, the more calories we need to burn, and the more free radical molecules are created that attack our cells, damaging body tissue, thereby contributing to aging and disease. Does this mean we should eat less food? No. It means we should eat less “calorie-dense” food. According to medical anthropologist and gerontologist Dr. Craig Wilcox, this Okinawan practice of caloric restriction can prolong life and vitality.

Conscious Eating, Conscious Breathing

We must eat consciously rather than rush or gorge. If we eat until we’re full, we’re already over capacity. We must also consider the times of day that we eat as well as a slower pace at which we should eat. Our nervous system that manages our reaction to stress, also regulates our digestion, and therefore impacts how well we digest and metabolize our food.

We also have to remember to breathe. That may sound silly, but conscious breathing is essential. Are you a deep breather or shallow breather? Those who suffer from sleep apnea at night, tend to not be the healthiest breathers during the day either. How quickly do you breathe? Slow…down.

race car
Photo by Photopum Ranaroja, unsplash

Think of a car. When you drive faster, you burn more gas, more quickly. The added pressure decreases fuel economy. Similarly, the added metabolic “pressure” required to burn a greater caloric intake, over time, causes a higher rate of wear and tear. As much as we hate the slow Sunday drivers, they’re usually the ones who get the last laugh as they coast by while we’ve been pulled over to the side of the highway for speeding well above the limit.

Eating can be merely a caloric manifestation of stress. There are far more over-riding intangibles. How do we manage those stressors? Chances are, if we do that well, we live longer. It’s that simple. So many of the issues we have of weight and body image have to do with the emotional sphere in which we reside. Okinawans are not concerned with “tension” or “urgency” as much as with developing “self-confidence” and “self will.” They place high value on behaviour, attitude and coping skills that lead to stress reduction.

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It’s not the stressors themselves that are harmful, but our reaction to them, and how we breathe through them.

Okinawans emphasize positivity, laughter, optimism, flexibility and adaptability. Exercise helps eliminate by-products of stress by releasing endorphins. Meditation quiets the mind and is heart-healthy, because in slowing ourselves down we reduce the bio-chemical effects of stress. Stress-related diseases are not only effects of aging, they are also causes of aging.

Ogimi Village, Okinawa
Minei Yoshiko and Taira Sumiko, Ogimi Village, Okinawa

Ikigai

The elderly in Okinawa choose to focus on positive social connections for physical and psycho-spiritual well-being. They maintain moai, social support networks, and yuimaru, the practice of sharing, helping others and looking out for each other. Their customs of mutual-help encourage strong relationships within their community, as well as individual independence. For cardiologist and geriatrician Dr. Makoto Suzuki, these “environmental factors are more important than hereditary factors” in affecting the strength and resiliency of the immune system.

A key factor for spiritual health and minimizing stress has to do with the Okinawan concept of ikigai, a reason for living; a reason to get up in the morning. Between working in the fields, Minei Yoshiko, 93, and Taira Sumiko, 95, (at the time of this photo) pray to their ancestors and also volunteer at the local school. Their low levels of negative emotion, and high levels of social and spiritual contact contribute to their contentment and sense of ongoing purpose.

When I ask if they have any stress in their lives, they laugh and tell me about their kids, but just as in their caloric practice of hara hachi bu, they don’t stress until exhaustion, or let anything overwhelm them. They apportion how much stress they will intake, and prioritize when and how to respond, incorporating their daily routines and rituals that include support systems to share the load.

father and son
Father and Son

When I ask how they handle their stress, they talk about singing, dancing and golf. Sleep is essential, and they enjoy morning tea and reading the newspapers. They also exercise, practice morning stretches, eat the vegetables they plant in the fields and greet children on their way to school. Our interview is conducted over a bowl of doughnuts, so I ask: “Don’t you worry about these?” To which Minei-san replies, “I’m too old to worry,” and Taira-san begins singing the Okinawan classic Nan Kuru Naisa, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

Recalibrate

It’s not just about physical diet and exercise; it’s about mental and emotional diet and exercise. High stress creates slow burn. Manage the stressors and you ameliorate the stress. Don’t drive with a heavy foot. Take your foot off the gas. You’ll stay in better shape, and you’ll last longer and stronger.

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