HOW TO LIVE A LONG AND ADVENTUROUS LIFE
British Columbians are Living Longer
At the present
time, British Columbia has the highest life expectancy in Canada at 79.1 on
average for men and women combined. A
study looking at Canadians from 1990 to 1997 also found that most people are
staying healthier as they grow older.
I’ll offer a
few ideas below on how others have managed to live long and interesting lives.
Eat Like an Okinawan
Okinawa is one
of the Ryukyu Islands south of Japan.
The people there are being studied because they have the longest
disability-free life expectancy in the world and also the highest percentage of
centenarians.
The average
citizen consumes at least seven servings of vegetables daily, and an equal
number of grains (in the form of noodles, bread and rice). They have two to four servings of fruit,
plus tofu and other forms of soy, green tea, seaweed and fish rich in omega-3s.
Vegetables,
grains and fruits make up 72 % of the diet by weight. Soy and seaweed provide
another 14%, fish about 11 %, and meat, poultry and eggs, only 3 %.
Okinawans do
drink alcohol; the women at one drink a day and the men at two.
Most practice
martial arts and traditional dance. They garden and walk. Even at age 100, they
look lean and healthy. The health-care
system is good and covers everybody and the status of women is high.
Good Health Practices
A few years
ago I participated in a testing system that would advise you on how to live a
long and healthy life. They had
completed a study involving 6900 people over a 15-year period. Seven basic health practices were identified
that were good predictors of health and longevity.
1. Not Smoking.
2. Regular Aerobic Exercise
3. Light or non-drinking
4. 7 or 8 hours of Sleep daily
5. Body Composition in Desirable
Range
6. Eat a Good Breakfast Daily
7.Avoid Frequent (unhealthy)
Snacking
They found
that on the average, a healthful lifestyle added 11 to 12 years of life
compared to people not following a healthy lifestyle.
Georgia O’Keeffe
She was born
in 1887 and died in Santa Fe in 1986 at 99 years old. She became one of the most original and important artists in
modern American painting. She also
lived all of
her life in a unique and healthy way.
“As
well as eating many vegetables prepared in a nutritious way, Miss O’Keeffe exercised daily.”
Her attitude
to aging:
“I’ve done alright on
my other paths of life, but this last one - this ancient one - it’s harder to find things to do as
good as being on top of a mountain.”
The path to a long and healthy life involves some good luck
and a few sacrifices.
The only way to keep
your health is to
eat what
you don’t want,
drink what
you don’t like,
and do what
you’d rather not.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
You
can live to be a hundred if you
give up all
the things that make you
want to
live to be a hundred.
Woody Allen
“Health
nuts are going to feel stupid someday,
lying in
hospitals dying of nothing.”
Redd Foxx
“...you don’t get to
choose how you’re going to die, or when.
You can
only decide how you’re going to live. Now!”
Joan Baez
Jackrabbit Johannson
He lived to be
111 years old and he was still able to move on skis at 109 years old. He gave this advice at 103:
“The secret to a long
life is to stay busy, get plenty of exercise and don’t drink too much.
Then again,
don’t drink too little.”
He was born in
Norway in 1875 and then moved to U.S. at 27 years old and later Canada, living
in Montreal and the Laurentians until 1986.
He enjoyed
hiking and cross-country skiing for all of his life. He was still able to hike at 90 and ski when he was over 100.
Even in 1901
he realized that America was becoming a nation of spectators more so than in
Norway where sport meant personal exertion and strenuous exercise ‘above all
having fun doing it.”
At 90 he was
asked for his recipe for a long and eventful life:
“Just take things as
they come. Don’t overdo. Don’t overeat. Get plenty of exercise and plenty of sleep...and having a small drink,
and enjoying it, but only one
a day.”
At 109 years
he was living in an old folks home with people 20 to 30 years younger than him but they had lost their
‘spark or sense of adventure.’ He tried
to teach the staff that ‘everybody needs exercise and a chance to breath fresh
air.’ One of his daughters would pick
him up to spend every weekend in the Laurentians.
Another of his
quotations I like is:
“A warm hearth and
good health, that’s half of a good life.
The other
half is companionship.”
Aimless Sloth For a Longer Life?
In May of
2001, Peter Axt, a 60- year- old zoologist made the media by saying that ‘No
top sportsman has lived to a very advanced age.’ He and his daughter have
written a book, On the Joy of Laziness, which
says that there are three keys to a long life:
to play less
sport, to reduce stress and to eat less food.
He offers an
Italian village with an unusually high number of centenarians as an
example. No one runs, siestas stretch
through the afternoon from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm and the main activity seems to be
playing chess or gossiping.
His research
indicated that those who wake up before 7:20 am live shorter lives than late
risers. He states, “In 1910, people
used to sleep nine hours a day; now we sleep for seven, a destructive
development.”
He also says,
“I like to jog gently for 20 minutes three or four times a week.”
I don’t think
there was unbiased research to support his opinions and I didn’t notice any
impact beyond the news of that day.
In the same
article it was mentioned that Danish researchers announced last year (2000)
that joggers lived up to seven years longer than their sedentary counterparts,
based on a 25-year study of 20,000 Danes.
Tough choice,
to jog or have a nap this afternoon?
Tips from Centenarians and others:
“Keep
breathing.”
Fred Benson,
asked at 101 years if he had any longevity advice.
Life Magazine,
1997.
Eva Krenzel
lived to 105 years in Alberta. Asked
for the key to living a long life, she answered: “I do what I feel, I do what I want - it’s all nice.”
Zelda McCague
died in Ontario this year at 113 years old.
She attributed her long life to eating small meals and abstaining from
alcohol and cigarettes.
Harold
Stilson, who turned 101 years old this year, holds the record for the oldest
person to make a hole-in-one. He used a
4-iron to ace the 108-yard hole. He has
made 6 of them to date, all since turning 71.
“An unused
engine rusts. A still stream stagnates. An untended garden tangles.
Much of
what we pass as age is disuse.”
Walter M. Bortz II, M.D.
Mrs. Morris
died at 114 years old in Stove, England.
She attributed her longevity
to whiskey and
cooked onions.
CBC
Radio, November 2, 2000.
Researchers
are finding increasing evidence that the two best antidotes to aging are diet and exercise - and
that it is never too late to start...You may add not just more life to your years, but more years to your life.”
Judy Foreman, The Boston Globe, 1992.
Celia Franca,
Founder of the National Ballet of Canada, taught Karen Kain. In reply when asked her favourite meal:
“A fresh green salad
with tomatoes and vegetables.”
Peter Sellers,
the comedic talent in The Pink Panther
movies, didn’t want to exercise once in his life.
In 1964, he
survived 13 heart attacks in 48 hours.
These attacks continued to plague him until he finally succumbed in
1980, in his favourite suite at the Dorchester Hotel. He was 54.
Margaret
Mitchell, who wrote ‘Gone With the Wind,” was known for smoking 3 packs of
cigarettes a day and drinking great quantities of alcohol to no apparent ill
effect.
Then again,
she died at 49 years old after 3 automobile accidents, 2 horseback falls and
severe burns when her clothes caught on fire.
The Hemingway Lifestyle
Ernest
Hemingway lived from 1899 to 1961, taking his own life at 62 years. At the time he was anxiety-ridden and
depressed and had been hospitalized twice where he received electroshock
treatments. Though not a long life, it
was certainly filled with adventure and he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in
Fiction in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was six feet tall, huge chested,
handsome, ebullient, a hunter, a fisherman, a skier, a swimmer, a cyclist, a
boxer, and a drinker.
At the
completion of this article I make the point that an aging body has a better
chance of being fit if injuries have been avoided. Hemingway is a good example of what not to do. He had kidney
trouble from fishing in chill Spanish waters, a torn groin muscle from
something unspecified, a finger gashed to the bone from a mishap
with a punch
bag, and lacerations of the arms, legs and face from thorns and branches when
carried through a Wyoming wood on a runaway horse. Also in Wyoming, he was
blinded by
oncoming headlights and swerved his Ford into a ditch, where it lay on top of
him. He had also had an anthrax
infection and a huge glass gash in his forehead.
In 1954 he was
involved in two small plane accidents in Africa taking on several more
injuries. While recovering, a month
later, he was helping to put out a brush fire and he fell into it emerging with
second degree burns on his legs, arms, chest and lips. For therapy, he flew to Venice for chilled
champagne in the morning, bed in the afternoon and pills by the handful.
The preferred
Hemingway breakfast in Africa:
“...an egg sandwich
with the egg fried firm with either ham or bacon and a sliced raw onion. If there
was any fruit I would have some and first I would have a bottle of Tusker beer,”
True At First Light.
“...a
man with a taste for Bermuda onions and red wine for breakfast, with dollops of chutney and mustard pickle on his
morning meat, and marmalade on rank
bearsteaks.”
Ernest Hemingway and His
World, Anthony Burgess
Snacking With Apples
On most days you will find me with an apple in my knapsack
for a snack in the 3:00 pm area.
Canadians are currently consuming only 20 pounds of fresh apples per
person per year - less than an apple a week and much less than the donuts we
are eating.
Apples are fat free and carry only 80 calories. They contain naturally occurring chemicals
called flavenoids and many antioxidant phytochemicals, which may reduce the
risk of heart disease and inhibit the development of certain cancers. They contain potassium and soluble and
insoluble fibre.
A banana or any other fruit would likely work as well.
Make a Contribution
“The things that make
our lives precious are things that make us feel
we have
done something valuable;
there’s a
sense of self-worth that comes from contributing to the world.”
Margie
Gillis
Canadian
Dancer
Danny’s Top 10 Ways to Live a Long & Interesting Life:
1. Fresh Fruit
is the secret of longevity.
2. “Movement is life.” Aristotle
3. Adventure -
Plan unique excursions on an annual basis.
Hopefully, there will be some hiking, cycling, skiing, tennis, golfing,
or other sports in the itinerary.
4. ‘Eat lotsa
Fish.’
5. Stay within
10 pounds of your ideal body weight and avoid large fluctuations.
6. Make a
contribution to the community you live in.
7. There is no
quick fix to becoming or remaining fit and healthy. If a person has taken 5 years to grow out of shape, this cannot
be corrected in 5 weeks of good behaviour.
It might be more successful to allow one year of quality fitness and
lifestyle effort for every 3 years of neglect.
8. As the body
ages, the fittest body is the one that has been well managed over time, without
injury if possible.
9. “Never, never, never, never, never, never,
give up.” Winston Churchill’s
message when invited back to his old school to address the graduating
class. Certainly good advice in the
battle to find and live a healthy lifestyle.
10. “Life is the sum of all your choices.” A. Camus
Some of those choices are how you will eat,
drink and move on a daily basis.
‘A
votre sante.’ Danny Peart
B.A./B.P.H.E.
References:
1. Wellness
Letter, University of California, Berkeley. Volume 17, Issue 12, September
2001. Eat Like an Okinawan
2.
www.okinawaprogram.com
3.
Encyclopedia Britannica for brief biographies of Hemingway and Georgia
O’Keeffe.
4. Ernest
Hemingway and His World, Anthony Burgess, Scribner’s, 1985.
5. The
Legendary Jackrabbit Johannsen, Alice Johannsen, McGill-Queen’s, 1993.