Author: Azriel ReShel
Source: Upliftconnect.com
We all inhabit this beautiful blue planet, breathe the same air, eat food grown on our world's surface and drink fresh water sourced from the Earth, yet some people are a whole lot healthier than others, and in fact, live decades longer.
These are people who live in what has become known as 'Blue Zones' across the globe and we can learn a lot from their way of life. These zones describe the characteristic lifestyles and the environments of the world's longest-lived people and, remarkably, the average person's life expectancy could increase by 10-12 years by adopting a Blue Zones lifestyle.
The concept of blue zones grew out of the demographic work of Gianni Pes and Michael Poulain, who identified Sardinia's Nuoro province as the region with the highest concentration of male centenarians in the world. Dan Buettner studied and then expanded on this research, identifying five geographic areas where people live, statistically, the longest. The areas are sprinkled across the planet and include villages in Greece, Costa Rica, Italy, Japan, and California.
Author of Blue Zones, Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest, Dan Buettner offers an explanation, based on empirical data and firsthand observations, as to why these populations live healthier and longer lives. He and his team joined up with National Geographic to find the world's longest-lived people and study them. They worked with a team of demographers to find pockets of people around the world with the highest life expectancy, or with the highest proportions of people who reach age 100.
The result was five places that met their criteria:
Barbagia region of Sardinia - Mountainous highlands of inner Sardinia with the world's highest concentration of male centenarians.
Ikaria, Greece - Aegean Island with one of the world's lowest rates of middle age mortality and the lowest rates of dementia.
Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica - World's lowest rates of middle age mortality and the second highest concentration of male centenarians.
Seventh Day Adventists - Highest concentration is around Loma Linda, California. They live 10 years longer than their North American counterparts.
Okinawa, Japan - Females over 70 are the longest-lived population in the world.
Following their discoveries, they assembled a team of medical researchers, anthropologists, demographers, and epidemiologists to search for evidence-based common denominators amongst these five places, to work out what was creating a long life.
People who live in the 'Blue Zones' live in different parts of the world, but their lifestyles have nine key things in common. Try these tips for living a longer, healthier, happier life:
