This reinforces the health of all involved by ensuring a reoccurring transition of healthy behaviors between generations. The specific faith does not appear to matter, as long it brings a sense of purpose where like-minded people are working together for something that is bigger than themselves.įinally, because of the strong sense of purpose and community that is apparent in these places, subsequent generations are born into social circles that support the same sense of community and the same social behaviors. Secondly, many people within these areas belong to some sort of faith.
They strongly commit to a life partner and invest in an extremely large amount of time and love into their kids. They keep their aging parents and grandparents nearby, or even in the home with them. Instead, they prioritize real connections with other people from their community.įirstly, they put their families first. See, people who live in blue zones rarely use social media. One key area where you might notice a marked difference between people who live in blue zones and people who live in more ‘urbanized’ areas of the world comes down to social connection. Related Article: Can Any Amount of Alcohol Be Part of a Clean Lifestyle? Social connection This obviously stops overeating, while aligning with their conservative and sometimes sparse way of life.Īll of which creates a diet that could be described as half vegetarian, half paleo, all healthy. As a result, the wine is generally organic and ‘cleaner’, in which it contains less chemicals and more antioxidants.Īs such, the type of wine is probably just as important as the amount.įinally, they also seem to abide by the 80% rule, where they cease eating as soon as they are 80% full. While this is something that is often recommended, I also want to highlight than many of the wines drunk in this area are produced using more traditional wine making practices. Interestingly, they do tend to drink a fair amount of tea (both black and white), keep their dairy intake to a minimum, only eat sourdough bread (and even then, only on the odd occasion), and consume almost no sugar.įurthermore, many of them also consume red wine regularly – albeit in moderation. They only consume meat 3-5 times per month, very rarely eat eggs, and almost never eat fish. They eat beans and nuts daily, consume mostly whole grains and avoid unprocessed wheat. Most people who live in blue zones eat a very plant based diet.
When it comes to food, this one is slightly more in line with what we would expect – albeit maybe a little more restrictive. Moreover, they tend to rely on human powered means of transportation such as walking and cycling, rather than cars and buses.Īll of which means they are moving for most of the day – which is in stark contrast to most of us.
They wash their clothes by hand, and fix things around the house when needed. Instead, they live in environments that force physical activity.Īs part of their normal day, they are out in the garden growing the vegetables that will feed their families. It looks as if the oldest individuals within these blue zones do not lift weights, perform interval training, or even join gyms. Given the apparent benefits of structured exercise programs on health and longevity in the western world, it would be logical to assume that people who live in blue zones would be exercise addicts – but this does not appear to be the case. In fact, scientists from all walks of life worked extremely hard to identify the lifestyle characteristics that could explain their abnormally long lifespans (Hitchcott, 2018 Doolittle, 2020).Īnd the results were interesting to say the least. Once these blue zones were identified, they become a serious area of interest amongst researchers across the globe. No, that is not a typo – ten times more likely. To date, there has been five distinct areas that have been identified as blue zones:īy analyzing epidemiological data, statistics, birth certificates, and a host of other research in great detail, these specific areas were dubbed Blue Zones – where the people living there are ten times more likely to reach 100 years of age than in the United States. In short, blue zones are specific regions of the world where people tend to live much longer than average (Buettner, 2016). What are ‘Blue Zones’ and where are they? Which is why people are looking to “Blue Zones” for the answers. It is estimate that between 20 and 25% of your longevity is dictated by your genes – which means that more than 75% is dictated entirely by your lifestyle factors.Īnd while research has given you some insight into how you can alter your lifestyle to maximize your lifespan and mitigate the aging process, they are not there yet.