Health and Longevity
Health and Longevity Lessons I Learned from Centenarians
Lifestyle habits play a crucial role in health span and lifespan.
Insights into the Lives of Centenarians
Centenarians have always attracted my attention and captured my interest from health, fitness, and longevity angles.
I had several friends who lived for over 100 years. They gave me unique perspectives on my health, fitness, and well-being. I shared stories of a few centenarian friends before.
In addition, I penned several articles about longevity touching on topics such as autophagy, balanced nutrition, caloric deficit, hormonal balance, moderate exercise, cellular detoxification, chronic stress, inflammation, structural damage, neuro-degenerative decline, and effects of metabolic syndrome, including diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, and cancers.
Our health span and lifespan require an optimal physical, mental, hormonal, and emotional balance.
Moderation in all good things was a pattern I captured via my observations and interviews with centenarians.
The most important finding was that lifestyle habits play a more critical role in health, fitness, and longevity, even though genetics also play a role.
In this article, I summarize six valuable lessons learned from centenarians. These lessons significantly impacted my health, fitness, and well-being.
Without going into scientific details, I focus on high-level aspects and provide some takeaway points for my readers.
1 — Remain Insulin Sensitive
An optimal metabolism is critical for health. Therefore, hormones play an essential role in metabolic activities. For example, insulin is a master hormone running the show for metabolism.
Insulin is an essential hormone with multiple functions. However, when the body overuses it, some complications might happen. Therefore, I keep highlighting insulin resistance as a vital health risk for awareness.
I discussed the importance of insulin resistance in several articles within the fat loss context. I also highlighted the side effects of insulin resistance for metabolic syndrome.
Interestingly, insulin resistance is the culprit of five critical risks of metabolic syndrome. In addition, insulin resistance is one of the major causes of the obesity pandemic. Thus, I see insulin resistance as the elephant in the room for various reasons.
As I pointed out in previous articles, addressing insulin resistance and shrinking our waistline makes it possible to reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome. When we resolve metabolic syndrome issues, we can also reduce the chances of cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, and some cancers.
Centenarians I interacted with related their health indicated that they live with insulin sensitivity. None of them had insulin resistance or experienced metabolic syndrome.
Their waistline was at the optimal size at older ages. Some of them had a bit of protective fat in their abdominal areas, which their medical professionals did not see as a health risk.
2 — Never Compromise Sleep
Restorative sleep is essential for maintaining excellent health. Without having a good night’s sleep, consistently meeting life’s challenges, and enjoying life can be tough and tricky.
Getting quality sleep can optimize our hormones. For example, quality sleep is a panacea to address elevated cortisol issues.
I mentioned the impact of cortisol on sleep quality in several articles. For example, this article points out The Critical Role of Cortisol in Sleep Disturbances, and Unless We Beat the Cortisol Monster, Fat Loss Remains a Dream.
When we have optimal cortisol, we can also improve our growth hormone, which is essential for health, well-being, and longevity. I shared the benefits of creating growth hormones via quality sleep.
Centenarians in my circles pay special attention to their sleep. Each one of them sleeps at least seven to eight hours each day. Some even sleep nine hours. If they miss a day, they take a 15-minute power nap.
They always listen to their body’s messages and address their sleep deprivation. More interestingly, they rise relatively early and expose their eyes to the sunlight first in the morning.
3 — Keep the Body and Brain Moving
Our bodies need movement to survive and thrive. We all have different exercise requirements based on our fitness level, age, sex, and several other factors. There is no one size fits everyone for workouts.
Most centenarians regularly move their body. They usually use natural exercises such as doing daily chores, gardening, and walking in nature with their friends.
They don’t follow strict and prescribed fitness regimes such as going to the gym and practicing body-building activities. They are happy with their body as is. But they refrain from fat accumulation, particularly excessive visceral fat.
Some centenarians do intense — short-burst — exercises without stressing their bodies too much. They all ensure that their sore muscles recover before attempting another fierce workout session. They all changed their routines after a half-century. So they perform more gentle exercises after 50.
One interesting observation I made about centenarians related to movement is dancing. They use dancing as a ritual and join social gathering with their partners to dance. I shared an article highlighting the importance of dancing for longevity and featuring some famous centenarian dancers.
While keeping their bodies active, centenarians also kept their brains occupied with multiple activities, preventing neurodegenerative diseases. Here are the ten tips to slow down dementia.
4 —Stay Connected with Nature
The modern world made it challenging to stay connected with nature. Living in big cities with a lot of traffic, noise, and environmental pollution increases our stress and adversely affects our health and well-being.
When we look at the Blue Zone studies, those centenarians live well-connected with nature. They produce their own food and usually eat organic food from their garden or farms.
Many research papers on mental health highlighted the importance of connecting with nature to improve mood. People living in areas with forests, rivers, beaches, gardens, wetlands, and parks have a better mood and attitude than others living in crowded cities.
Many centenarians in my social circles walk on the beach, gardens, and parks. Some love swimming in the sea and lakes. Most of them use gardening as their hobby. Some of them mentioned the contributions of organic herbs they produce to their longevity.
5 — Enrich the Brain with Social Connections
Centenarians pay special attention to meaningful social connections. They engage in community activities as volunteers. Conversations with family members, friends, and even strangers are a habit for them.
The importance of social connections for longevity is also well documented in the Blu-zone studies where most centenarians live. Famous Blue Zones are Sardinia, Ikaria, Nicoya, Okinawa, and Loma Linda.
Every centenarian I met listened carefully to the conversation partners showing empathy and compassion for their concerns. They are easygoing. They refrain from judgment and conflict. In addition to learning from their wisdom, having conversations with centenarians was an extra pleasure for me. Their optimistic mindset inspired and motivated me to model them.
Through my studies in cognitive science, I learned that meaningful connections could optimize neurochemicals in the brain. Thus, these pleasant conversations can increase our joy.
In addition, meaningful connections open the communication channel. Therefore, they improve our relationships with others. I introduce the importance of social intelligence in an article titled How to Be Socially Intelligent: My observations and interactions with socially intelligent leaders in multicultural environments.
6 — Slow Down for Optimal Recovery
Life is not a competition, in my opinion. It is a journey.
When we compete with others and act too intensely in our daily activities, we may miss many important and subtle messages from our bodies and the environment. Replacing envy with admiration can help us slow down significantly as we don’t feel the urge to compete unnecessarily.
As mentioned in the previous point, centenarians living in the Blue Zones have a relaxed lifestyle. They don’t rush. They cherish every moment with their loved ones living with appreciation and gratitude. T
hey participate in various activities, usually staying in a flow state in my observations. I loved listening to humming sounds from some centenarians while they worked.
A relaxed lifestyle can help us control our stress. As previously mentioned, stress is the root cause of many debilitating health conditions.
When we slow down, the body can recover from injuries and the effects of stress. Thus, we prevent chronic stress. Controlling our stress can also reduce chronic inflammation and improve our immune system.
All centenarians highlighted the importance of slowing down and cherishing moments as a precious gift. They know that life is fleeting.
Their caring attitude toward others and self-compassion enable them to have these special moments.
I discussed the importance of slowing down in this article titled Five Tips to Slow Down, Lose Fat, and Enjoy Life. The good news is that when we slow down and recover from damage, we can lose unwanted weight, especially visceral fat from the abdominal region.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Living a long life is a desire for many people. However, I think living a healthy and happy life is more important.
Life on this earth is temporary. We will all die one day. No one lived over 120 years based on current records and capability, even though some scientists hypothesize living for 1,000 years.
Studying longevity from various angles gave me valuable insights into health, mental health, fitness, and overall well-being. They always forgive their mistakes and others.
In addition to reviewing hundreds of papers about longevity, the best contributor to my knowledge was observing the lives of centenarians in my circles and learning from their habits.
They become a source of inspiration for me as they keep their bodies and brains active while beautifully interacting with their environments.
There are many more lessons I learned and recorded in my journal from centenarians. I will share them in my relevant stories.
However, in this article, I only touched on six broad categories to give some perspectives on centenarians’ exciting and insightful lives.
Here are the takeaway points of this article.
1 — Slow down for optimal recovery and enjoy every moment.
2 — Make meaningful connections with others and enrich relationships.
3 — Connect with nature in immediate and extended environments.
4 — Keep the body moving with joyful workouts and daily chores.
5 — Get high-quality and restorative sleep daily.
6 — Stay insulin sensitive by controlling blood sugar, stress, and inflammation.
I aim to increase the hormonal intelligence of my readers and write about neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, glutamate, and histamine.
One of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.
Here’s How I Got Healthier and Smoother Skin via 5 Lifestyle and Holistic Health Methods.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
Petechiae, ALS, Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Thyroid Disorders, Anemia, Dysautonomia, cardiac output, and urinary track disorders.
I also wrote about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:
Lutein/Zeaxanthin, Phosphatidylserine, Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, and other nutrients.
Disclaimer: My posts do not include professional or health advice. I only document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives to provide information and create awareness.
As part of my creative non-fiction writing goals, I’d like to share a few stories that might warm our hearts with a bit of humor into weighty topics.
Sample Humorous Stories
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