0:00:15.840,0:00:18.100 Something called the Danish Twin Study 0:00:18.100,0:00:21.550 established that only about 10% of how 0:00:21.550,0:00:23.470 long the average person lives, within 0:00:23.470,0:00:25.869 certain biological limits, is dictated by 0:00:25.869,0:00:29.460 our genes. The other 90% is dictated by 0:00:29.460,0:00:32.380 our lifestyle, so the premise of Blue 0:00:32.380,0:00:34.030 Zone is if we can find the optimal 0:00:34.030,0:00:36.579 lifestyle of longevity, we can come up 0:00:36.579,0:00:39.670 with a de facto formula for longevity. 0:00:39.670,0:00:42.100 But, if you ask the average American what 0:00:42.100,0:00:43.809 the optimal formula of longevity is, they 0:00:43.809,0:00:45.370 probably couldn't tell you. They've 0:00:45.370,0:00:47.050 probably heard of the South Beach diet, 0:00:47.050,0:00:49.239 or the Atkins diet, and you have the USDA 0:00:49.239,0:00:52.120 food pyramid, there's what Oprah tells us, 0:00:52.120,0:00:55.420 there's what Dr. Oz tells us. The fact of 0:00:55.420,0:00:56.890 the matter is, there's a lot of confusion 0:00:56.890,0:01:00.249 around what really helps us live longer 0:01:00.249,0:01:03.760 better. Should you be running marathons 0:01:03.760,0:01:06.340 or doing yoga? Should you eat organic 0:01:06.340,0:01:09.940 meats or should you be eating tofu? When 0:01:09.940,0:01:11.530 it comes to supplements, should you be 0:01:11.530,0:01:14.200 taking them? How about these hormones or 0:01:14.200,0:01:17.440 resveratrol? And, does purpose play into it, 0:01:17.440,0:01:19.000 spirituality? And how about how we 0:01:19.000,0:01:22.150 socialize? Our approach to finding 0:01:22.150,0:01:24.250 longevity was to team up with National 0:01:24.250,0:01:25.900 Geographic and the National Institute on 0:01:25.900,0:01:28.780 Aging to find the four demographically 0:01:28.780,0:01:31.480 confirmed areas that are geographically 0:01:31.480,0:01:34.060 defined, and then bring a team of experts 0:01:34.060,0:01:35.830 in there to methodically go through 0:01:35.830,0:01:38.560 exactly what these people - to distill 0:01:38.560,0:01:40.870 down the cross-cultural distillation. 0:01:40.870,0:01:42.670 At the end of this, I'm going to tell you 0:01:42.670,0:01:45.190 what that distillation is but first, I'd 0:01:45.190,0:01:47.620 like to debunk some common myths when it 0:01:47.620,0:01:49.990 comes to longevity. The first myth is 0:01:49.990,0:01:52.990 if you try really hard, you can live to 0:01:52.990,0:01:57.490 be 100. False. The problem is: only about 0:01:57.490,0:02:00.580 one out of 5,000 people in America 0:02:00.580,0:02:03.430 live to be a hundred. Your chances 0:02:03.430,0:02:05.380 are very low, even though it's the 0:02:05.380,0:02:07.960 fastest growing demographic in America, 0:02:07.960,0:02:10.830 it's hard to reach 100. The problem is 0:02:10.830,0:02:14.670 that we are not programmed for longevity 0:02:14.670,0:02:17.849 We are programmed for something called 0:02:17.849,0:02:21.420 procreative success. I love that word, it 0:02:21.420,0:02:24.810 reminds me of my college days. 0:02:24.810,0:02:27.310 Biologists term procreative success to 0:02:27.310,0:02:29.379 to mean the age where you have children 0:02:29.379,0:02:31.870 and then another generation, the age when 0:02:31.870,0:02:33.730 your children have children. After that, 0:02:33.730,0:02:36.400 the effect of evolution completely 0:02:36.400,0:02:40.480 dissipates. If you're a mammal, if you're 0:02:40.480,0:02:43.540 a rat, or an elephant, or a human, or in 0:02:43.540,0:02:45.670 between, it's the same story. So, to make 0:02:45.670,0:02:48.190 it to age 100, you not only have to have 0:02:48.190,0:02:50.560 had a very good lifestyle, you also have 0:02:50.560,0:02:53.590 to have won the genetic lottery. The 0:02:53.590,0:02:56.230 second myth is there are treatments that 0:02:56.230,0:03:00.060 can help slow, reverse, or even stop aging. 0:03:00.060,0:03:04.450 False. When you think of it, there's 99 0:03:04.450,0:03:06.790 things that can age us. Deprive your 0:03:06.790,0:03:08.799 brain of oxygen for just a few minutes, 0:03:08.799,0:03:10.599 those brain cells die, they never come 0:03:10.599,0:03:13.239 back. Play tennis too hard on your knees, 0:03:13.239,0:03:15.250 ruin your cartilage, that cartilage never 0:03:15.250,0:03:17.530 comes back. Our arteries can clog, our 0:03:17.530,0:03:19.629 brands can gunk up with plaque, and we 0:03:19.629,0:03:22.359 can get Alzheimer's. There's just too 0:03:22.359,0:03:24.629 many things to go wrong. Our bodies have 0:03:24.629,0:03:30.340 35 trillion cells. Trillion with a T. 0:03:30.340,0:03:33.569 We're talking national debt numbers here. 0:03:33.569,0:03:36.250 Those cells turn themselves over once 0:03:36.250,0:03:37.900 every eight years, and every time they 0:03:37.900,0:03:39.940 turn themselves over, there's some damage, 0:03:39.940,0:03:42.190 and that damage builds up, and it builds 0:03:42.190,0:03:44.410 up exponentially. It's a little bit like 0:03:44.410,0:03:47.019 the days when we all had Beatles albums 0:03:47.019,0:03:49.000 or Eagles albums and we'd make a copy of 0:03:49.000,0:03:51.010 that on a cassette tape and then let our 0:03:51.010,0:03:52.569 friends copy that cassette tape, and 0:03:52.569,0:03:54.760 pretty soon, with successive generations, 0:03:54.760,0:03:56.709 that tape sounds like garbage. 0:03:56.709,0:03:58.359 Well, the same things happened to 0:03:58.359,0:04:01.060 ourselves. That's why a 65 year old 0:04:01.060,0:04:04.239 person is aging at a rate of about 125 0:04:04.239,0:04:07.590 times faster than a 12 year old person. 0:04:07.590,0:04:11.410 So, if there's nothing you can do to slow 0:04:11.410,0:04:13.629 your aging or stop your aging, what am I 0:04:13.629,0:04:16.000 doing here? Well, the fact of the matter 0:04:16.000,0:04:18.970 is the best science tells us that the 0:04:18.970,0:04:22.419 capacity of the human body-my body, your 0:04:22.419,0:04:25.539 body-is about 90 years, a little bit more 0:04:25.539,0:04:28.990 for a women. But, life expectancy in this 0:04:28.990,0:04:32.740 country is only 78. So, somewhere along 0:04:32.740,0:04:35.770 the line, we're leaving about 12 good 0:04:35.770,0:04:37.229 years on the table. 0:04:37.229,0:04:38.360 These are years 0:04:38.360,0:04:40.789 that we could get, and 0:04:40.789,0:04:43.699 research shows that they would 0:04:43.699,0:04:46.009 be yours largely free of chronic 0:04:46.009,0:04:48.379 disease, heart disease, cancer, and 0:04:48.379,0:04:52.189 diabetes. We think the best way to get 0:04:52.189,0:04:54.110 these missing years is to look at the 0:04:54.110,0:04:55.400 cultures around the world that are 0:04:55.400,0:04:58.069 actually experiencing them-areas where 0:04:58.069,0:05:00.409 people are living to age 100 at rates up 0:05:00.409,0:05:03.110 to 10 times greater than we are, areas 0:05:03.110,0:05:05.240 where the life expectancy is an extra 0:05:05.240,0:05:06.740 dozen years and the rate of middle-aged 0:05:06.740,0:05:09.020 mortality is a fraction of what it is in 0:05:09.020,0:05:12.529 this country. We found our first "blue 0:05:12.529,0:05:15.710 zone" about 125 miles off the coast of 0:05:15.710,0:05:18.229 Italy on the island of Sardinia-and not 0:05:18.229,0:05:20.120 the entire island, the island's about 1.4 0:05:20.120,0:05:21.590 million people-but only up in the 0:05:21.590,0:05:23.090 highlands, an area called the Nuoro 0:05:23.090,0:05:25.219 province. Here, we have this area 0:05:25.219,0:05:27.259 where men live the longest, about ten 0:05:27.259,0:05:28.939 times more centenarians than we have 0:05:28.939,0:05:30.650 here in America. This is a place 0:05:30.650,0:05:32.539 where people not only reach age 100, they 0:05:32.539,0:05:35.120 do so with extraordinary vigor, places 0:05:35.120,0:05:36.889 where 102 year olds still ride their 0:05:36.889,0:05:40.490 bike to work, chop wood, and can beat a 0:05:40.490,0:05:44.690 guy 60 years younger than them. Their 0:05:44.690,0:05:46.310 history actually goes back to about the 0:05:46.310,0:05:47.810 time of Christ, it's actually a Bronze 0:05:47.810,0:05:50.180 Age culture that's been isolated. Because 0:05:50.180,0:05:52.240 the land is so infertile, they're largely 0:05:52.240,0:05:54.710 shepherds which occasions regular low 0:05:54.710,0:05:57.379 intensity physical activity. Their diet 0:05:57.379,0:05:59.990 is mostly plant-based, accentuated with 0:05:59.990,0:06:01.490 foods that they can carry into the 0:06:01.490,0:06:03.560 fields. They came up with an unleavened 0:06:03.560,0:06:06.289 whole-wheat bread called nota música 0:06:06.289,0:06:08.900 made out of durum wheat, a type of cheese 0:06:08.900,0:06:12.319 made from grass-fed animals so it's 0:06:12.319,0:06:15.319 high in omega-3 fatty acids 0:06:15.319,0:06:17.419 instead of omega-6 fatty acids from 0:06:17.419,0:06:20.479 corn-fed animals, and a type of wine that 0:06:20.479,0:06:23.000 has three times the level of polyphenols 0:06:23.000,0:06:24.620 than any known wine in the world, 0:06:24.620,0:06:27.560 it's called Cannonau. But, the real secret 0:06:27.560,0:06:29.689 I think lies more in the way that they 0:06:29.689,0:06:31.279 organize their society, and one of the 0:06:31.279,0:06:33.500 most salient elements of the Sardinian 0:06:33.500,0:06:36.819 society is how they treat older people. 0:06:36.819,0:06:39.319 You ever notice here in America, social 0:06:39.319,0:06:41.860 equity seems to peak at about age 24? 0:06:41.860,0:06:44.930 Just look at the advertisements. Here in 0:06:44.930,0:06:46.849 Sardinia, the older you get, the more 0:06:46.849,0:06:49.399 equity you have, the more wisdom you're 0:06:49.399,0:06:52.100 celebrated for. You go into the bars in 0:06:52.100,0:06:53.660 Sardinia and instead of seeing the Sports 0:06:53.660,0:06:55.370 Illustrated swimsuit calendar, you see 0:06:55.370,0:06:57.850 the centenarian of the month calendar. 0:06:57.850,0:07:00.470 This, as it turns out, is not only good 0:07:00.470,0:07:02.570 for your aging parents, to keep them 0:07:02.570,0:07:04.760 close to the family, it imparts about 0:07:04.760,0:07:06.170 four to six years of extra life 0:07:06.170,0:07:08.960 expectancy. Research shows it's also good 0:07:08.960,0:07:10.580 for the children of those families who 0:07:10.580,0:07:12.650 have lower rates of mortality and lower 0:07:12.650,0:07:14.570 rates of disease. That's called the 0:07:14.570,0:07:18.230 grandmother effect. We found our second 0:07:18.230,0:07:19.820 Blue Zone on the other side of the 0:07:19.820,0:07:22.430 planet about eight hundred miles south 0:07:22.430,0:07:26.600 of Tokyo on the archipelago of Okinawa. 0:07:26.600,0:07:29.840 Okinawa is actually 161 small islands, 0:07:29.840,0:07:31.340 and in the northern part of the main 0:07:31.340,0:07:33.860 island, this is ground zero for world 0:07:33.860,0:07:36.860 longevity. This is the place where the 0:07:36.860,0:07:39.650 oldest living female population is found. 0:07:39.650,0:07:41.450 It's a place where people have the 0:07:41.450,0:07:43.610 longest disability-free life expectancy 0:07:43.610,0:07:46.700 in the world. They have what we want. They 0:07:46.700,0:07:48.500 live a long time and tend to die in 0:07:48.500,0:07:50.630 their sleep very quickly, and often, I can 0:07:50.630,0:07:54.440 tell you, after sex. They live about seven 0:07:54.440,0:07:55.490 good years longer than the average 0:07:55.490,0:07:59.030 American five, times as many centenarians 0:07:59.030,0:08:01.280 as we have in America, 1/5 the rate 0:08:01.280,0:08:04.040 of colon and breast cancer-big killers 0:08:04.040,0:08:06.680 here in America-and 1/6 the rate of 0:08:06.680,0:08:08.840 cardiovascular disease. The fact that 0:08:08.840,0:08:11.300 this culture has yielded these numbers 0:08:11.300,0:08:13.310 suggests strongly they have something to 0:08:13.310,0:08:16.850 teach us. What do they do? Once again, a 0:08:16.850,0:08:20.000 plant-based diet full of vegetables with 0:08:20.000,0:08:22.100 lots of color in them, and they eat about 0:08:22.100,0:08:25.510 eight times as much tofu as Americans do. 0:08:25.510,0:08:28.700 More significant than what they eat is 0:08:28.700,0:08:31.310 how they eat it. They have all kinds of 0:08:31.310,0:08:33.049 little strategies to keep from 0:08:33.049,0:08:35.270 overeating which, as you know, is a big 0:08:35.270,0:08:37.640 problem here in America. A few of the 0:08:37.640,0:08:39.740 strategies we observe: they eat off of 0:08:39.740,0:08:41.870 smaller plates, they tend to eat fewer 0:08:41.870,0:08:44.059 calories at every sitting, instead of 0:08:44.059,0:08:46.070 serving family style where you can sort 0:08:46.070,0:08:48.260 of mindlessly eat as you're talking, they 0:08:48.260,0:08:50.420 serve at the counter, put the food away, 0:08:50.420,0:08:52.640 and then bring it to the table. They also 0:08:52.640,0:08:54.470 have a 3,000 year old adage 0:08:54.470,0:08:55.640 which I think is the greatest 0:08:55.640,0:08:57.770 diet suggestion ever invented, it was 0:08:57.770,0:09:00.950 invented by Confucius, and that diet is 0:09:00.950,0:09:03.320 known as the Hara Hachi bu diet. It's 0:09:03.320,0:09:05.360 simply a little saying these people say 0:09:05.360,0:09:05.960 before 0:09:05.960,0:09:08.300 to remind them to stop eating when their 0:09:08.300,0:09:10.640 stomach is 80 percent full. It takes 0:09:10.640,0:09:12.170 about a half hour for that full feeling 0:09:12.170,0:09:13.640 to travel from your belly to your 0:09:13.640,0:09:16.400 brain, and by remembering to stop at 80 0:09:16.400,0:09:18.290 percent, it helps keep you from doing 0:09:18.290,0:09:21.200 that very thing. But, like Sardinia, 0:09:21.200,0:09:23.120 Okinawa has a few social constructs that 0:09:23.120,0:09:26.870 we can associate with longevity. We know 0:09:26.870,0:09:29.900 that isolation kills. 15 years ago, the 0:09:29.900,0:09:31.600 average American had three good friends. 0:09:31.600,0:09:33.740 We're down to one and a half right now. 0:09:33.740,0:09:36.440 If you were lucky enough to be born in 0:09:36.440,0:09:39.140 Okinawa, you were born into a system 0:09:39.140,0:09:41.540 where you automatically have a half a 0:09:41.540,0:09:43.100 dozen friends with whom you travel 0:09:43.100,0:09:46.310 through life. They call it a moai, and if 0:09:46.310,0:09:48.200 you're in a moai, you're expected to share 0:09:48.200,0:09:50.990 the bounty if you encounter luck, 0:09:50.990,0:09:54.410 and if things go bad-a child gets sick, a 0:09:54.410,0:09:56.630 parent dies-you always have somebody who 0:09:56.630,0:09:59.930 has your back. This particular moai, these 0:09:59.930,0:10:01.880 five ladies have been together for 0:10:01.880,0:10:04.400 97 years. Their average age is 0:10:04.400,0:10:08.000 102. Typically in America, 0:10:08.000,0:10:11.020 we've divided our adult life up into two 0:10:11.020,0:10:12.320 sections. 0:10:12.320,0:10:15.260 There's our work life, where we're 0:10:15.260,0:10:18.200 productive, and then one day, boom, we 0:10:18.200,0:10:21.910 retire. And typically that has meant 0:10:21.910,0:10:24.440 retiring to the easy chair or going down 0:10:24.440,0:10:28.670 to Arizona to play golf. In the Okinawan 0:10:28.670,0:10:30.170 language, there's not even a word for 0:10:30.170,0:10:33.910 retirement. Instead, there's one word that 0:10:33.910,0:10:36.920 imbues your entire life, and that word is 0:10:36.920,0:10:39.620 ikigai. Roughly translated, it means 0:10:39.620,0:10:42.350 "the reason for which you wake up in the 0:10:42.350,0:10:45.530 morning." For this 102 year-old karate 0:10:45.530,0:10:49.220 master, his ikigai was carrying forth 0:10:49.220,0:10:51.320 this martial art. For this 100 year old 0:10:51.320,0:10:53.600 fisherman, it was continuing to catch 0:10:53.600,0:10:55.580 fish for his family three times a week. 0:10:55.580,0:10:57.200 And this is a question- the National 0:10:57.200,0:10:58.960 Institute on Aging actually gave us a 0:10:58.960,0:11:01.310 questionnaire to give these centenarians, 0:11:01.310,0:11:02.840 and one of the questions-they were very 0:11:02.840,0:11:04.580 culturally astute to people with the 0:11:04.580,0:11:06.050 questionnaire-one of the questions was 0:11:06.050,0:11:09.170 "What is your ikigai?" They instantly knew why 0:11:09.170,0:11:12.620 they woke up in the morning. For this 0:11:12.620,0:11:14.210 102 year old woman, her ikigai 0:11:14.210,0:11:18.430 was simply her great-great-great 0:11:18.430,0:11:20.210 granddaughter, 0:11:20.210,0:11:22.550 two girls separated an age by 101.5 0:11:22.550,0:11:25.580 years, and I asked her 0:11:25.580,0:11:26.330 what it felt like 0:11:26.330,0:11:28.580 to hold a great-great-great 0:11:28.580,0:11:30.590 granddaughter, and she put her head back 0:11:30.590,0:11:32.660 and she said it feels like leaping into 0:11:32.660,0:11:34.870 heaven. I thought that was a wonderful 0:11:34.870,0:11:38.810 thought. My editor at Geographic wanted 0:11:38.810,0:11:40.940 me to find America's Blue Zone, and for a 0:11:40.940,0:11:42.590 while, we looked on the prairies of 0:11:42.590,0:11:44.660 Minnesota where actually, there's a very 0:11:44.660,0:11:47.030 high proportion of centenarians, but 0:11:47.030,0:11:50.650 that's because all the young people left. 0:11:51.790,0:11:55.010 So we turned to the data again and we 0:11:55.010,0:11:57.410 found America's longest-lived population 0:11:57.410,0:11:59.680 among the seventh-day adventists 0:11:59.680,0:12:01.760 concentrated in and around Loma Linda, 0:12:01.760,0:12:05.390 California. Adventists are conservative 0:12:05.390,0:12:08.780 Methodists. They celebrate their Sabbath 0:12:08.780,0:12:11.930 from sunset on Friday till sunset on 0:12:11.930,0:12:15.500 Saturday, a 24-hour sanctuary in time, they 0:12:15.500,0:12:18.080 call it. They follow five little 0:12:18.080,0:12:21.500 habits that convey some extraordinary 0:12:21.500,0:12:24.080 longevity, comparatively speaking. In 0:12:24.080,0:12:26.810 America, life expectancy for the 0:12:26.810,0:12:29.690 average woman is 80, but for an Adventist 0:12:29.690,0:12:33.380 woman, their life expectancy is 89, and 0:12:33.380,0:12:34.910 the difference is even more pronounced 0:12:34.910,0:12:37.010 among men, who are expected to live about 0:12:37.010,0:12:39.740 11 years longer than their American 0:12:39.740,0:12:41.720 counterparts. Now, this is a study that 0:12:41.720,0:12:45.020 followed about 70,000 people for 30 0:12:45.020,0:12:45.500 years, it's a 0:12:45.500,0:12:47.270 sterling study, and I think it 0:12:47.270,0:12:50.090 supremely illustrates the premise of 0:12:50.090,0:12:52.700 this Blue Zone project. This is a 0:12:52.700,0:12:55.100 heterogeneous community, it's white, black, 0:12:55.100,0:12:58.010 Hispanic, Asian. The only thing they have 0:12:58.010,0:12:58.610 in common 0:12:58.610,0:13:01.220 are a set of very small lifestyle habits 0:13:01.220,0:13:03.470 that they follow ritualistically for 0:13:03.470,0:13:05.720 most of their lives. They take their diet 0:13:05.720,0:13:08.570 directly from the Bible: Genesis chapter 0:13:08.570,0:13:11.990 1 verse 26, where God talks about legumes 0:13:11.990,0:13:14.990 and seeds, and on one more stands about 0:13:14.990,0:13:17.780 green plants, ostensibly missing is meat. 0:13:17.780,0:13:20.150 They take the sanctuary in time very 0:13:20.150,0:13:24.170 serious. For 24 hours every week, no 0:13:24.170,0:13:26.120 matter how busy they are, how stressed 0:13:26.120,0:13:28.190 out they are at work, where the kids need 0:13:28.190,0:13:30.680 to be driven, they stop everything and 0:13:30.680,0:13:33.020 they focus on their, God their social 0:13:33.020,0:13:33.769 network, and then 0:13:33.769,0:13:35.829 hardwired right in the religion are 0:13:35.829,0:13:38.959 nature walks. The power of this is 0:13:38.959,0:13:40.579 not that it's done occasionally, the 0:13:40.579,0:13:43.429 power is it's done every week for a 0:13:43.429,0:13:44.779 lifetime. None of it's hard, 0:13:44.779,0:13:47.749 none of it costs money. Adventists also 0:13:47.749,0:13:49.369 tend to hang out with other Adventists, 0:13:49.369,0:13:51.709 so if you go to an Adventist party, you 0:13:51.709,0:13:53.509 don't see people swallowing Jim Beam or 0:13:53.509,0:13:56.389 rolling a joint, instead, they are talking 0:13:56.389,0:13:58.790 about their next nature walk, exchanging 0:13:58.790,0:14:01.639 recipes, and yes, they pray, but they 0:14:01.639,0:14:03.679 influence each other in profound and 0:14:03.679,0:14:07.459 measurable ways. This is a culture that 0:14:07.459,0:14:08.949 has yielded Ellsworth Wareham. 0:14:08.949,0:14:12.049 Ellsworth Wareham is 97 years old. He's a 0:14:12.049,0:14:15.259 multi-millionaire, yet when a contractor 0:14:15.259,0:14:18.259 wanted six thousand dollars to build a 0:14:18.259,0:14:19.970 privacy fence, he said, "for that kind of 0:14:19.970,0:14:22.160 money, I'll do it myself." So, for the next 0:14:22.160,0:14:23.959 three days, he was out shoveling cement 0:14:23.959,0:14:27.259 and hauling poles around and predictably 0:14:27.259,0:14:29.959 perhaps, on the fourth day, he ended up in 0:14:29.959,0:14:34.790 the operating room, but not as the guy on 0:14:34.790,0:14:36.889 the table, the guy doing open-heart 0:14:36.889,0:14:41.839 surgery. At 97, he still does 20 0:14:41.839,0:14:45.529 open-heart surgeries every month. 0:14:45.529,0:14:48.920 Ed Rawlings, 103 years old now, an active 0:14:48.920,0:14:51.259 cowboy, starts his morning with a swim, 0:14:51.259,0:14:52.939 and on the weekends, he likes to put onto 0:14:52.939,0:14:53.540 boards, 0:14:53.540,0:14:57.199 throw up rooster tails. And then Marge 0:14:57.199,0:15:00.170 Detange is 104, her 0:15:00.170,0:15:01.459 grandson actually lives in the Twin 0:15:01.459,0:15:03.290 Cities here. She starts her day with 0:15:03.290,0:15:05.540 lifting weights, she rides her bicycle, 0:15:05.540,0:15:08.679 and then she gets in a rootbeer-colored 0:15:08.679,0:15:12.019 1994 Cadillac Seville and tears down the 0:15:12.019,0:15:13.999 San Bernardino freeway, where she still 0:15:13.999,0:15:15.679 volunteers for seven different 0:15:15.679,0:15:19.730 organizations. I've been on 19 hardcore 0:15:19.730,0:15:21.379 expeditions. I'm probably the only person 0:15:21.379,0:15:23.209 you'll ever meet who rode his bicycle 0:15:23.209,0:15:25.369 across the Sahara Desert without 0:15:25.369,0:15:28.129 sunscreen, but I'll tell you there was no 0:15:28.129,0:15:29.689 adventure more harrowing than riding 0:15:29.689,0:15:34.369 shotgun with Marge Detange. "A stranger's a 0:15:34.369,0:15:37.360 friend I haven't met yet," she'd say to me. 0:15:37.360,0:15:40.730 So, what are the common denominators in 0:15:40.730,0:15:42.769 these in these three cultures? What are 0:15:42.769,0:15:45.470 the things that they all do? We 0:15:45.470,0:15:47.390 managed to boil it down to 0:15:47.390,0:15:50.000 nine. In fact, we've done two more blue zone 0:15:50.000,0:15:52.910 expeditions since this, and these common 0:15:52.910,0:15:55.400 denominators hold true. The first 0:15:55.400,0:15:58.510 one, and I'm about to utter a heresy here: 0:15:58.510,0:16:02.330 none of them exercise, at least the way 0:16:02.330,0:16:04.880 we think of exercise. Instead, they set up 0:16:04.880,0:16:06.860 their lives so that they're constantly 0:16:06.860,0:16:10.210 nudged into physical activity. These 0:16:10.210,0:16:12.230 100 year old Okinawan women are 0:16:12.230,0:16:13.940 getting up and down off the ground-they 0:16:13.940,0:16:17.440 sit on the floor 30 or 40 times a day. 0:16:17.440,0:16:19.610 Sardinians live in vertical houses-up 0:16:19.610,0:16:22.130 and down the stairs. Every trip to the 0:16:22.130,0:16:23.930 store or to church or to a friend's 0:16:23.930,0:16:27.170 house occasions a walk. They don't have 0:16:27.170,0:16:28.910 any conveniences. There's not a button to 0:16:28.910,0:16:30.680 push to do yard work or house work. If 0:16:30.680,0:16:32.450 they want to mix up a cake, they're doing 0:16:32.450,0:16:35.420 it by hand. That's physical activity, that 0:16:35.420,0:16:37.250 burns calories just as much as going 0:16:37.250,0:16:39.500 on the treadmill does. When they do 0:16:39.500,0:16:41.240 do intentional physical activity, it's 0:16:41.240,0:16:44.210 things they enjoy. They tend to walk -the 0:16:44.210,0:16:46.220 only proven way to stave off cognitive 0:16:46.220,0:16:48.410 decline, and they all tend to have a 0:16:48.410,0:16:51.980 garden. They know how to set up their 0:16:51.980,0:16:53.570 life in the right way so they have the 0:16:53.570,0:16:55.640 right outlook. Each of these cultures 0:16:55.640,0:16:58.160 take time to downshift. The Sardinians 0:16:58.160,0:17:00.710 pray, the seventh-day adventists pray, the 0:17:00.710,0:17:02.320 Okinawans have this ancestor veneration. 0:17:02.320,0:17:04.730 But, when you're in a hurry or stressed 0:17:04.730,0:17:06.230 out, that triggers something called the 0:17:06.230,0:17:07.880 inflammatory response, which is 0:17:07.880,0:17:09.650 associated with everything from 0:17:09.650,0:17:11.540 Alzheimer's disease to 0:17:11.540,0:17:14.209 cardiovascular disease. When you slow 0:17:14.209,0:17:16.190 down for 15 minutes a day, you turn that 0:17:16.190,0:17:18.220 inflammatory state into a more 0:17:18.220,0:17:20.930 anti-inflammatory state. They have 0:17:20.930,0:17:23.449 vocabulary for sense of purpose. Ikigai, 0:17:23.449,0:17:26.060 like the Okinawans. The two 0:17:26.060,0:17:27.709 most dangerous years in your life are 0:17:27.709,0:17:30.740 the year you're born, because of infant 0:17:30.740,0:17:33.500 mortality, and the year you retire. If 0:17:33.500,0:17:35.060 people know their sense of purpose and 0:17:35.060,0:17:36.740 they activate it in their life, that's 0:17:36.740,0:17:38.360 worth about seven years of extra life 0:17:38.360,0:17:39.470 expectancy. 0:17:39.470,0:17:42.170 There's no longevity diet, instead these 0:17:42.170,0:17:44.510 people drink a little bit every day-not 0:17:44.510,0:17:46.780 a hard sell to the American population. 0:17:46.780,0:17:49.010 They tend to eat a plant-based diet. 0:17:49.010,0:17:50.930 Doesn't mean they don't eat meat, but 0:17:50.930,0:17:53.030 lots of beans and nuts. And, they have 0:17:53.030,0:17:54.530 strategies to keep from overeating- 0:17:54.530,0:17:57.320 little things that nudge them away from 0:17:57.320,0:17:59.180 the table at the right time. And then, the 0:17:59.180,0:18:00.740 foundation of all this is how they 0:18:00.740,0:18:01.460 connect. 0:18:01.460,0:18:03.620 They put their families first, take care 0:18:03.620,0:18:04.880 of their children and their aging 0:18:04.880,0:18:07.400 parents. They all tend to belong to a 0:18:07.400,0:18:09.890 faith-based community, which is worth 0:18:09.890,0:18:12.020 between four and fourteen extra years of 0:18:12.020,0:18:13.970 life expectancy if you do it four times 0:18:13.970,0:18:16.670 a month. And, the biggest thing here is 0:18:16.670,0:18:20.300 they also belong to the right tribe. They 0:18:20.300,0:18:22.940 were either born into or they 0:18:22.940,0:18:25.400 proactively surrounded themselves with 0:18:25.400,0:18:28.310 the right people. We know from the 0:18:28.310,0:18:30.230 Framingham studies that if your three 0:18:30.230,0:18:32.870 best friends are obese, there's a 50% 0:18:32.870,0:18:34.810 better chance that you'll be overweight. 0:18:34.810,0:18:37.970 So, if you hang out with unhealthy people, 0:18:37.970,0:18:39.560 that's going to have a measurable impact 0:18:39.560,0:18:41.720 over time. Instead, if your 0:18:41.720,0:18:45.590 friends' idea of recreation is physical 0:18:45.590,0:18:47.990 activity: bowling or playing hockey or 0:18:47.990,0:18:50.870 biking or gardening. If your friends drink a 0:18:50.870,0:18:52.460 little but not too much and they eat 0:18:52.460,0:18:53.810 right and they're engaged and they're 0:18:53.810,0:18:56.510 trusting and trustworthy, that is going 0:18:56.510,0:18:58.360 to have the biggest impact over time. 0:18:58.360,0:19:00.860 Diets don't work. No diet in the history 0:19:00.860,0:19:02.060 of the world has ever worked for more 0:19:02.060,0:19:05.570 than 2% of the population. Exercise 0:19:05.570,0:19:07.070 programs usually start in January, 0:19:07.070,0:19:09.830 they're usually done by October. When it 0:19:09.830,0:19:11.300 comes to longevity, 0:19:11.300,0:19:14.480 there is no short-term fix, a pill, or 0:19:14.480,0:19:17.600 anything else. But, when you think about 0:19:17.600,0:19:21.230 it, your friends are long-term adventures, 0:19:21.230,0:19:23.270 and therefore, perhaps the most 0:19:23.270,0:19:25.340 significant thing you can do to add more 0:19:25.340,0:19:27.770 years to your life and life to your 0:19:27.770,0:19:31.510 years. Thank you very much.