5 lifestyle habits that can help you live to 100, according to leading longevity researchers

There is a steady interest – from everyday people to researchers alike – in what it takes to live a long, healthy life. From cookbooks to research papers to the hundreds of articles you can find with a quick Google search, the amount of information to dig through and advice to find can be overwhelming. .

But there are simple steps you can take and simple changes to implement if you hope to live to 100.

For almost two years, I have been reporting on longevity and lifestyle choices that seem to help people live longer. Here are five unique traditions.

1. Eat healthy food

“Food is the most important thing” for longevity, Valter Longo who has studied longevity for nearly 20 years, told CNBC Do It earlier this year.

Many experts who study the world’s longest living peoples could not emphasize enough how much the food you eat can affect your health. An eating pattern similar to the Mediterranean diet is what longevity experts highly recommend.

According to Longo and Dan Buettner, a longevity expert who consults with centenarians and travels to gray areas, a long-term diet should be plant-based and include:

• Legumes, especially beans
• Nuts
• Whole grains such as oats
• No red meat
• Healthy vegetables, especially leafy greens

“I recommend 12 hours of fasting every day. Let’s say you eat between 8 am and 8 pm [or] 7 in the morning [and] 7 pm,” Longo said. Buettner also eats within a 10- or 12-hour window, according to his interview with Make It in March.

2. Move your body regularly

Some longevity experts recommend daily exercise, and others recommend daily movement with minimal physical activity.

Strength training twice a week and aerobic exercise three times a week, even 10 minutes a day, is one of the daily practices that increase a person’s chances of living to 90, according to the New England Centenarian Study.

In blue areas,​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​is has is is has has has has been in the past 2017​​​​ Zones.” Traditionally, residents of the blue zones travel from place to place, build things with their hands and tend to their gardens, he said, which allows them to do physical exercise. less every day.

3. Believe in something

By the end of 2023, Buettner had interviewed 263 people in his lifetime. All but five of the centenarians were members of a religious organization, he wrote in this Make It article.

“People who go to church, temple or mosque live somewhere between four and fourteen years longer than people who have no religion,” Buettner said on the episode of “Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris.”

It turns out that people who have a faith or philosophy of life are also happier than those who don’t, according to Arthur C. Brooks, a leading happiness expert who teaches a free, online course on the concept of happiness at Harvard . When you follow a religion or a spiritual practice, to help you find the purpose of life, he explained his way.

4. Maintain good relations

Having good relationships in your life is the No. 1 thing that can help you live a long, happy life, according to an 86-year-old Harvard study. But crossing those connections and strengthening them is just as important, what researchers call “social well-being.”

“Whether it’s a thoughtful question or a moment of concentration, it’s never too late to deepen the relationships that matter to you,” wrote Marc Schulz and Dr. Robert Waldinger, Harvard academic director, in 2023.

Taking care of social relations is also a value of centenarians in blue areas. “People in Blue Zones put their partners first, nurture their relationships and invest in them,” Buettner said in his book. “Having the right friends, that’s the big secret to helping these people in the Blue Zones do the right things and avoid the wrong things.”

5. Prioritize your purpose and lifelong learning

Okinawa, Japan, one of the blue areas with the most centenarians, ikigai, which loosely translates to “the joy of being busy” is a great value. So much so that the book “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life” is one of the most popular books on longevity and an international bestseller.

Ikigai is about finding your purpose and committing to it every day. And that’s what Buettner recommends doing for longevity: “People with a purpose live about eight years longer than people without a rudder.”

There are seven habits researchers in the 86-year-old Harvard Study of Aging Development discovered lead to “happy and healthy old age instead of ending up sad and sick,” the study Brooks’ excitement explained. One of those practices is fostering a growth mindset by investing in lifelong learning and education.

“Happy and healthy aging, rather than sadness and illness, is at least under some personal control,” Dr. George E. Vaillant, a former dean and one of the pioneers of the study, told the Harvard Gazette in 2001.

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