Straightforward Facts For Living Longer While Sustaining Your Health
There is quite a bit of talk about the eventual longevity pill, take it and extend your life span by twenty or thirty percent. When it comes to longevity, we are rapidly catching up to the future but let’s face it, for many of us this high expectation for such a simple method for extending our lives likely will not be available to us in time to make a difference. With that in mind, we need to do what we can the old fashion way – work at keeping young.
We can learn quite a bit from those people we read about who live well past the century mark. These super centenarians arrived at these ripe old ages not purely by accident. Genetics played a role but not as much of one as was once thought. They must be doing something else right to outlive the majority of the population so with that let us take a look at some of their secrets.
Weight Maintenance
Okinawa is made up of a group of tiny islands just off the coast of Japan and it is home to a large number of centenarians. It has been recorded that these island inhabitants have far fewer heart attacks and a full eighty percent less occurrence of breast and prostate cancer, few cases of diabetes and under half the number of ovarian and colon cancer patients than the rest of the planet. Experts believe their secret lies in consuming a nutrient laden diet while living in a stress free environment.
However, there is no need to jump a slow boat to Okinawa in order to enjoy these same results. By making small adjustments to your current lifestyle choices and daily regimens, you can make a significant impact on your health and well being right at home. You need to start as soon as you can – like right away since procrastinating will put you in an early grave – that alone should motivate you to action.
Centenarians on Okinawa appear lean and stay that way during their lifetime. They eat fewer calories than they work off every day; nevertheless, sustaining their fit body mass index [or BMI] is only part of the life extension plan for these folks. Keeping their weight at a stable level is just as vital.
Expert study has connected up and down dieting with increased chances of contracting hypertension, endometrial cancer, along with a prevalent amount of upper body fat that puts a person at risk of heart disease. If your dieting method resembles the proverbial yo-yo, rethink the way you are trying to lose weight and keep it off. If your BMI is over twenty five percent, you should begin to take serious measures to decrease that number by exercising more and eating less – it is that simple.
Be sure to make food choices and do exercises that you will be able to maintain for an extended time period, choose what is comfortable for you but make choices that are successful. Many experts believe a good way to lower your caloric intake is to simply reduce over time the portion sizes of what you currently eat.
Forget The Fountain Of Youth – Just Exercise Every Day
Okinawan residents are extremely fit people. Most of them take part in energy exerting activities such as gardening, doing customary dance regimens and exercise with traditional tai chi techniques – both young and very old. They do quite a bit of walking around their island habitat, trekking to a friend’s house or to religious services; this aids them by giving them more energy and adds to a sense of community. They continue with their routine because it is an integral part of their lifestyle. The Okinawans also get the majority of their exercise in the twilight hours, which assist in decompressing from their daily stressors, removing tension and readying their body for a restful sleep.
Take Pleasure In Eating – Try And Make It A Shared Experience
North Americans usually concentrate on finishing up their meals in quick time rather than enjoying this time. Brian Wilcox, M.D. and author of The Okinawa Diet Plan, and one of the authors of the famed Okinawan Centenarian Study, says that Americans prefer convenience when eating their meals, whereas Okinawans search for meaning.
Putting your feet under a table with friends and family takes the spotlight away from the food as a basis for emotional gratification. The goal should be training ourselves to eat our meals as if they were a social function, interacting with others we care for. This will mean we eat our food more slowly, which is essential, while allowing us to make better food choices. Mealtime should not just be about sitting and eating, it should involve the food preparation since making the meal in the first place will give it some meaning.
Try Seasonal Eating
Since we have an improved international food distribution network, we are able to eat tomatoes in January and enjoy winter squash in August. Okinawa being an island means these folks have a tendency to eat more local food so their diet regularly changes. This results in their food options being always fresh, ripened and full of flavor. The continuous altering of nutrients could have something to do with their amazing immunity to long term illnesses.
In North America, the ideal way to eat a seasonal diet is to purchase from the local farmer’s market or take a membership in a community run agriculture program. The groups are always local and you can purchase a “share” in a local farm. Your return is a weekly shipment of the farms freshly harvested haul.
Never Overdo It – Finish Your Meal Eighty Percent Full
The actor Ricardo Montalban was once asked how he kept such a muscular stomach, he replied that he always practiced “push aways” when eating. Basically, he always left food on his plate and pushed away from the table before he was filled up. How often have we said we were just stuffed after eating a meal? This is one phrase you would never hear in Okinawa. What you would hear though is the phrase Hara hachi bu, which means “eighty percent full.”
Think of hara hachi bu as a form of insurance against feeling disadvantaged. It takes approximately twenty minutes for your body’s system to indicate to your brain that the need for more food no longer exists at that time. Hara hachi bu allows the brain time to catch up. You should try several times during your meal to equate your hunger level on a scale of one to five [one being really hungry and five is stuffed full]. When you simply stop to reflect on your hunger, you are reducing the odds that you will eat beyond three points of that scale – good to know!
Consider Caloric Mass Of Food
The citizens of Okinawa might be consuming less calories, but they a still ingesting more food. Do not be confused by this. The significant foods eaten by Okinawans are less calorically concentrated. The foods contain more nutrients, but also more mass and fewer calories per gram. Vegetables contain the fewest calories that you can consume. Fruits come in second, followed by whole grains. Then you have proteins such as skinless chicken [white meat], pork tenderloin, extra lean beef and then seafood.
These are followed by fattier proteins such as dark meat poultry including skins, fatty beef and pork cuts. The foods with the most calories are fats, oils and sugar varieties. In order to reduce caloric density in the food you eat, matching up with the Okinawan diet as closely as you can, you must reduce your intake of the dense caloric foods and add lesser calorie dense foods to your diet like vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Vegetables and seafood make up the larger part of the Okinawan diet.
You will not only feel fuller when eating fewer calories, a diet laden with fruits and vegetables will cut your risk of chronic illnesses considerably. Eating twenty five grams of whole grains each day can decrease your chances of coronary heart disease by fifteen percent. This type of diet is also rich in antioxidants that will aid in reducing cell damage due to free radicals.
Try Cutting Meat From Your Diet
Much of what the average Okinawan eats is protein based soy, which is laden with antioxidant power. One more vital protein they eat is seafood, supplying them with plenty of omega 3 fatty acids. These are the superhero fats that safeguard against everything from heart disease and depression to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. They are naturally capable of reducing inflammation in arteries. There is a benefit for every kind of protein eaten by Okinawans.
Soy protein supplies phytochemicals; legumes that encompass soybeans and lentils, offer fiber and antioxidants, while seafood brings the healthy fats to the table. These are some advantageous spin-offs that aid the people of Okinawa toward a longer life and less disease. In simple terms, they get more bang for their protein buck than westerners do.
Rather than eating a beef patty, try adding a veggie burger or salmon patty into your bun for a change of pace. When eating out, order the shrimp chow mein rather than the pork. Find a soy product that you enjoy eating and add it to your weekly diet several times. [Steamed edamame pods brushed with toasted sesame seeds are very good!]
Secrets For A Long Life
Get To Bed Earlier
In 2002, a study was released in print in the Journal Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, which showed the Okinawan super seniors troubled by hardly any sleep disturbances when evaluated against their Japanese compatriots from urbanized centers. Okinawans simply go to sleep earlier, directing experts to the conclusion that keeping late hours and waking up early could be hazardous to physical as well as mental health.
Burning the candle at both ends from time to time will not put you in an early grave; however, you need to understand what is being sacrificed. Investigations into a lack of sleep show it can result in eating too much, a lowered cognitive ability and even depression. Starting a nightly regimen that aids you in calming down could mean you get to bed earlier and you settle down quicker. Shut the television off and begin a nightly routine that relaxes you so you can easily fall asleep.
If your daytime stressors give you an active mind, try deep breathing and meditation under the covers, write in a diary about what is troubling you or simply read a book for a few minutes. Residents of Okinawa will usually have quick naps during the day. Your sleep requirements are a personal thing, but having a tough time getting up each morning is a good indication you need more sleep.
Nurture A Feeling Of Being Empowered
The Okinawan oldsters can be heard referring to themselves as having “gujah” – or having ownership of a strong willed nature. These centenarians have a way of being quite overriding and want things their own way. By maintaining this strong personality, it means they must do whatever they can to get things done their way. Doing this means being personally responsible for your success as well as any failures that result. Essentially this means, whatever the objective is, be it losing weight or being good at your job, or raising responsible, hard working offspring, you must face the challenge knowing full well that it is you who is solely responsible for the outcome. This kind of fortitude will assist you in winning.
Try Not To Worry As Much
Okinawan seniors are very flexible and this means they are quite strong when things so not turn out as they had expected. When things do not go your way and you are challenged by impediments, these can keep you mentally resilient and strong cognitively. It works as a mind agility test. When things do not go as planned, this type of hardiness can be a significant partner to you. Taking the good from the experience and learning from it is more important than focusing on the cause of the defeat. You simply learn from the mistakes and try once again.
Cultivate and nurture a social network
Strong centenarians from around the world all seem to have a strong social community in common. They attend church services or go to adult community centers quite a bit. Though they live an independent lifestyle, it has a foundation in community. Unfortunately, and a bit paradoxically, many centenarians end up outlasting their children; this means neighbors, friends and acquaintances end up being their lifelines.
Living A Spiritual Existence
The Okinawans have a lot of time for spiritual awareness and perhaps for this reason centenarians are extremely good at “not sweating the small stuff” that occurs on a day to day basis. Faith and theology are what keep centenarians centered and safeguarded from life’s trying times. If you are not part of a faith based group, you should source out a method of interacting with people on your same wavelength – joining a book club or local community theatre as examples.
Staying connected to the world is important so reading current events in the newspaper or surfing the Internet are great ways to stay up to date.
Fri, Feb 26, 2010
Anti Aging, Anti Aging Theories, Gerontology, Longevity