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