The beauty of moving naturally, i.e. walking and gardening, is they're low impact. You're less likely to fall down and break a hip. Setting up your life so you're nudged into general physical activity every day is a strategy for your entire life from age 10 to 100.

Dan Buettner

Categorized in : Moving Fall Gardening

Have fun, be active. Ride a bike instead of driving, for example.

Dan Buettner

driving example fun

If one fails to develop goals that give meaning to one’s existence, if one does not use the mind to it’s fullest, then good feelings fulfill just a fraction of the potential we possess. True happiness involves the pursuit of worthy goals. Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.

Dan Buettner

goal dream giving

The people you surround yourself with influence your behaviors, so choose friends who have healthy habits.

Dan Buettner

healthy-habits influence people

Life expectancy in America is about 79, we should be able to live to 92. Somewhere along the line, we're leaving 13 years on the table. So my quest is -- how do we get those extra 13 years? And how do we make those extra 13 years good years?

Dan Buettner

life america years

Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile.

Dan Buettner

be-kind vegetables people

The longest-lived people eat a plant-based diet. They eat meat but only as a condiment or a celebration. Nothing they eat has a plastic wrapper.

Dan Buettner

celebration meat people

Walking is the only way proven to stave off cognitive decline - it works.

Dan Buettner

decline walking way

I wake up in the morning and I see that flower, with the dew on its petals, and at the way it's folding out, and it makes me happy, she said. It's important to focus on the things in the here and now, I think. In a month, the flower will be shriveled and you will miss its beauty if you don't make the effort to do it now. Your life, eventually, is the same way.

Dan Buettner

flower morning thinking

Gratitude always comes into play; research shows that people are happier if they are grateful for the positive things in their lives, rather than worrying about what might be missing.

Dan Buettner

thanksgiving appreciation inspirational

I think we need to think about our physical activity as a reward, as something enjoyable and something we look forward to doing, not something that we regard as self-flogging.

Dan Buettner

enjoyable thinking

The gym and the treadmill is a good idea. But the problem is we spend so much effort in marketing messaging, deluding people into thinking if you get on your treadmill or you go to the gym, that's what you need. People who join a gym, the vast majority of them have quit within nine months and almost all of them have quit within two years. So if it's a longevity strategy, does not work.

Dan Buettner

effort people thinking

A long healthy life is no accident. It begins with good genes, but it also depends on good habits.

Dan Buettner

healthy life-is long

True happiness involves the pursuit of worth goals; without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.

Dan Buettner

goal dream being-happy

Inconvenience yourself: ditch the remote, the garage door opener, the leaf-blower; buy a bike, broom, rake, and snow shovel.

Dan Buettner

rakes doors snow

Drink without getting drunk Love without suffering jealousy Eat without overindulging Never argue And once in a while, with great discretion, misbehave

Dan Buettner

drunk suffering arguing

The more things for which you develop a fondness the richer the life you live.

Dan Buettner

fondness

Diet and supplements and exercise programs aren't what is achieving longevity. Having a faith-based community can add four to 14 years.

Dan Buettner

community exercise years

I live on the water. I live in a neighborhood that's consummately connected to my neighbors. I bump into them every day. I can bike to work.

Dan Buettner

neighbor bumps water

You rarely get satisfaction sitting in an easy chair. If you work in a garden on the other hand, and it yields beautiful tomatoes, that's a good feeling.

Dan Buettner

yield garden beautiful

Kids in a home with grandparents are healthier.

Dan Buettner

grandparent home kids