Not long ago, I read an old Jewish proverb that I related to health. It told the story of a naive young man who, not realising how it might affect his life, visited a prostitute. The proverb concluded that the house of the prostitute was actually a highway.
Yet it was a house!
The point the writer of this proverb was making was that this young man was NOT just visiting a house, he was actually stepping onto a highway – and highways lead somewhere.
Perhaps the man did not realise this, but the writer knew it and was warning future readers.
Our healthy choices
Our actions now are the same. With most choices we make NOW, we are actually stepping onto a highway – and a highway goes somewhere. This is nowhere more true than with health choices.
I have heard many people ruminate about how they look forward to playing with their grandchildren – but regular exercise is not something for them.
They want to avoid Alzheimer’s – but eating a diet low in inflammatory foods – well – that’s something to start in the future.
No one wants to have a heart attack and die young but many don’t have time to put stress management practices and rest times in place. They do not have the time to step onto their own health highway.
In this post I want to look at some more unusual things you can do NOW – to help you to step onto the highway that will lead – not to early death and disability – but to a longer, more productive life.
Healthy Diet
Eat more beans and lentils. Beans and lentils are the #1 food of the Blue Zones – the areas of the world where the largest concentrations of healthy centenarians live.
Ancient Romans even called their children legume-based names: Lentulus (lentil), Fabius (fava), Piso (pea), Cicero (chickpea). Israeli researchers found fava seeds at a 10,000-year-old archaeological site.
<This study> of 785 people in Japan, Sweden, Greece and Australia showed legumes to be the main predictor of how long a person will live. In other words, once you start eating beans or lentils daily, you have firmly placed both feet on the start of the health highway.
Notably, other food groups (vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, nuts, grains) were NOT found to be consistently significant in predicting survival.
Work up to a full cup of legumes each day – that’s what the longest-lived people eat. Eat them as hummous, in soups, stews and salads. You can download six great bean recipes at the form on the bottom of this page.
To avoid gas:
- Slowly add beans into your diet – the gas problem usually evaporates after a week or so of regular bean-eating.
- Cooking beans with spices like turmeric, ginger or fennel. These spices also add complex flavour profiles to any dish! The Indian spice, asafoetida, also helps.
Drink your coffee! Drinking 2 – 3 cups coffee – caffeinated OR decaffeinated, daily, was associated with higher mortality in this meta-analysis of three large studies observing 208, 501 people altogether over many years. You can read about it <here>. Slowly weaning off the sugar and switching to non-dairy milk is the way to get these positive results.
Movement
Not structured exercise, but N.E.A.T (Non–Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) – constant movement as part of everyday life. This is the opposite of a lot of sitting and standing still. NEAT could be yard work, walking to work, housework or even fidgeting – and these all make a real difference to our long term health. <This study> showed that even sitting and lying around too much (as in hospital after an operation) causes DNA changes within days.
Adding a total of about two and a half hours of standing and light walking around the house or office is needed daily. Another tip is to stand up and move for five minutes for every thirty minutes you sit.
Get a dog. Pets like cats and dogs help with loneliness and therefore, happiness, but getting a dog also encourages people to walk regularly. Having a dog leads you onto the health highway.
Many years ago, our family had a fluffy dog that walked quite slowly, and an old dog who did not like to venture beyond the backyard. I knew I needed to do more walking, and, when the old dog died, made the decision to buy an active dog who I would then need to take for walks. Eight years later, with two such dogs, I have never looked back. It was one of the very best decisions for health I have made.
Fresh air
Owning a dog does not only encourages people to walk more, but to walk more – outdoors. <This study> showed that getting outside regularly in clean air is estimated to add 5 years to your life.
Taking walks, biking and running outdoors in CLEAN air, rather than just on a treadmill or spin bike, has benefits.
Air pollution kills about seven million people worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). It causes heart disease, lung cancers and respiratory infections. It is estimated that 50,000 – 100,000 lives could be saved in China alone in this year because of cleaner air in cities; the COVID pandemic has led to factory closures, has lowered vehicle emissions and thus, brought cleaner air. Result – fewer deaths overall! COVID-19 has saved lives in China.
Clean water
We all know that drinking contaminated water shortens lifespan exponentially. But did you know that the essential trace elements in water are also valuable in extending our lives – and another reason to drink enough water. <This study> showed that concentrations of Magnesium, Strontium and Selenium in drinking water were particularly common in areas of many centenarians in China. (The study further showed, however, that trace elements in food eaten were more important because of the higher concentrations of the elements).
Manage stress
Become a Volunteer – People who volunteer tend to lose weight, have lower rates of heart disease, and report higher levels of happiness. Notably, those who volunteer are also actively building community – another factor in longevity.
Research at Yale University showed that the greater number of people we help over a day, the higher our sense of well-being and overall mental health. In fact, stress had next to no impact on people engaging in kind deeds. You can read <here> about how doing 2 hours of volunteer work a week slows the decline in self-reported health and functioning levels, slows the increase in depression levels, and improves mortality rates for those who volunteer.
Maybe Jesus’ one command – to ‘love one another’ – was not just for the ‘others’.
Purpose. Having a purpose in life is a proven link to living longer. What’s the most likely demographic to live past 100? Women who’ve had children after 40. <This study> showed that people without a purpose were more than twice as likely to die than those with an aim and goals. Purpose proved to be more indicative of longevity than gender, race, or education levels, and more important for decreasing risk of death than drinking, smoking, or exercising regularly. This may be an unexpected on-ramp to the health highway – but it is a proven one.
Sunshine
Even though studies show that people who get out in the sun appear to increase lifespan by between seven months and two years only, Vitamin D status is very clearly linked <in this study> to metabolic syndrome, (which includes obesity, cardiovascular disease and T2 diabetes), all of which shorten life. As skin-cancer rates rise in those spending more time in the sun, raising Vitamin D levels with supplementation seems beneficial. <This post> talks about the foods to eat in order to protect your skin from the damage of sun exposure – while benefitting from the Vitamin D obtained.
Sleep
Do your best to always sleep 7.5 hours a night, which helps keep your immune system functioning at its best.
<This study> showed that lack of sleep (only 5 hrs/night) can more than double the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and also have a big impact on developing hypertension as well as Type 2 diabetes.
Get on your own health highway
Even instigating a few of these healthy habits can put us on a new road – a health highway that leads to a longer, healthier life. Just pick one that appeals to you – and take that first step.
(You can pick up a poster of these seven most important pillars of health at the pop-up form on this page. Please refresh the page if it has disappeared already.)
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