Life expectancy can be increased with simple steps and changes. This guide will help you find ways to increase your life expectancy, improve your health, and feel comfortable as you age. Let's start with the easiest: increasing your life expectancy with sunshine.
Go abroad for a longer period to increase life expectancy.
Life expectancy can be increased simply by getting outside. See, what happens when you go outside is that your skin is exposed to sunlight. This exposure stimulates your skin cells to produce vitamin D. This vitamin (which is actually a hormone, but you don't need to worry about that here) is essential for bone health and turns out to be important in getting rid of Depression Heart disease anddiabetes And about everything.
Some estimate that 50% of adults have low vitamin D levels because we simply don't exceed that amount (we don't prefer sitting by a window, and the glass filters out too much sunlight). This is a shame because maintaining vitamin D levels should be the easiest and cheapest way to improve your health and increase your life expectancy.
Just 15 minutes a day outside and exposing your hands and face to sunlight is enough to maintain vitamin D levels in most cases.
If you're concerned about your vitamin D levels, your doctor can order a simple blood test to tell you if your levels are low. If you can't get outside enough for some reason, there are vitamin D supplements you can take (but getting outside is a better option, if possible).
Seniors need to pay special attention to their vitamin D levels. If you're a caregiver, be sure to help your loved one get outside a little each day. Not only will this improve their vitamin D levels, it can also improve sleep because sunlight also regulates another hormone in the body called melatonin, which controls your sleep cycle.
going out with friends
Life expectancy can be increased by hanging out with friends and family. The more connected someone is, the better their overall health. Establishing positive relationships with a spouse, friends, or family is the best way to bond.
We're not sure why relationships play such a role in health and life expectancy. People with positive relationships are likely less likely to engage in risky behaviors and more likely to take care of themselves. Having people around you may reduce the impact of stress on your health.
People who engage in “meaningful” relationships have better health and better life expectations.
One way to improve your relationships with people is to get into the habit of telling good stories. Stories are how we connect with each other, and telling a good story strengthens connections. I can't count the number of times I've been on the phone with someone and just talked about the weather or gave dry updates on my family. Instead, I should be telling a story about something funny my kids did or something crazy that happened at work. Stories keep relationships alive.
So make more time for friends and family. Do things together (create stories together), and make a real effort to improve your communication with them (whether by email, phone, or in person) by always having a good story ready to tell.
Improve life expectancy with daily exercise.
Improve your life expectancy with a daily exercise commitment. Why daily? Well, after carefully considering all the research and exercise recommendations out there and knowing a bit about how people form habits, I have to conclude that committing to daily exercise is a great way to improve your life expectancy, your health, and your energy levels. Here's why:
A study showed that people who exercise vigorously for 3 hours a week have DNA and cells that are 9 years younger than those who do not exercise. Three hours a week is just over 30 minutes a day.
Forget studying, though. What I know (from personal experience and observing others) is that if you go more than two days without exercising, you're at high risk of falling off your routine. Somehow, it's very easy to go from three days of no exercise to three weeks of no exercise to three months of no exercise.
The easiest way to establish an exercise habit is daily repetition. When you promise yourself to exercise every day, you can skip a day after that, then return to the program the next day. If you exercise three times a week, for example, skipping Friday, you'll go from Wednesday to Monday without exercising—a total of four days without exercising (very dangerous, from a habit-building perspective). For life expectancy, it's more important to exercise year after year than to exercise sparingly, starting with intense exercise followed by no exercise.
Another reason I feel daily exercise is important is that it will help improve your sleep and energy levels. It's important to stretch your entire body every day. Remember, daily exercise doesn't mean going to the gym every day. Home exercises, like yoga, stretching, free weights, and more, can be incredibly effective.
Flossing daily for longer than expected
The fact that daily flossing can extend life expectancy falls into the category of weird but true.
The thread does two things: it prevents gum disease (This is fairly obvious), and prevents heart disease (not so obvious). Preventing both together is what adds years to your life.
When using floss, it helps to: Prevent gingivitisThis is a good thing. What happens when your gums become inflamed is that you have a chronic bacterial infection in your mouth. This damages your arteries through two mechanisms: The bacteria find their way into the arteries and clog them (causing plaque), and your body mounts an immune response to the bacteria in your mouth, causing inflammation (which in turn can narrow your arteries). This makes it harder for your heart to do its job and can lead to heart disease.
There's some debate about how many years you can gain with heart disease. Dr. Perls says 1.5 years, while Dr. Rosen says 6 years. Both of these doctors are gerontologists (aging docs) and have written popular books on aging and life expectancy (see reviews: Living To 100, RealAge, and You! Staying Young). Who's right? It doesn't matter. Flossing is good for your posture and good for your heart, so we should all be doing it.
Of course, this is easier said than done. How do you get into the solid flossing habit? First, you need to make sure you have some floss. There are tons of different types of floss (flavored, unflavored, strings, strips, and so on). Choose some and try them. Next, you have to remember. Put your floss on top of the toothpaste. It's hard to forget that way. Then just do it. You already have the habit of brushing your teeth at least twice a day (don't you? Please say yes), so just associate the flossing habit with it.
More married life for a longer period than expected
Life expectancy can be increased by having more sexual relations.
In one study, men with high orgasm frequency showed a 50% reduction in mortality.
This is good news, especially as the medical community addresses issues related to sex and aging.
Why sex should be linked to life expectancy is something of a mystery. Of course, it's possible that healthier people are more likely to have sex, and the findings linking sex and life expectancy reflect this, but I think there's more to it.
We've seen elsewhere that having good, positive relationships is linked to longer life expectancies. Perhaps sex is a marketplace for good, positive relationships. Of course, there could be a direct health benefit: sex stimulates all sorts of endorphins and hormones in the body. Perhaps these contribute to healthy aging and increased life expectancy.
But who really cares why? The simple truth is that having more sex is healthy.
Go vegan to live longer
Life expectancy can be linked to three factors that vegetarians excel at: fewer bad fats, more antioxidants, and less weight. 7 Before we can begin to understand whether being vegetarian can help predict life expectancy, however, we need to define what we mean by vegetarian.
There are some vegetarians who are “fast-food vegetarians.” This type of vegetarian eats pizza, cheese, and ice cream all day long. This isn’t good for health or life expectancy. What we mean is someone who eats plenty of vegetables prepared with healthy fats (such as olive oil) while limiting animal products, such as cheese and cream. We would call this type of vegetarian a “whole-food vegetarian.”
The leading cause of death and the number one predictor of life expectancy in the United States is heart disease. As you age, abnormal buildup can occur in your arteries, and your arteries may become harder to work with. This causes your blood pressure to rise and your heart to work harder, putting you at risk for heart disease. Vegetarians (whole-food vegetarians) have some of the best arteries because eating healthy vegetables avoids bad fats and other unhealthy foods.
People who eat a lot of vegetables also take in a lot of antioxidants.
Antioxidants help your body repair some of the damage caused by aging. The more plants you eat (and the greater the variety), the more raw materials your body needs to make repairs.
Finally, vegetables are simply filling and low in calories (if prepared without creams, butter, or cheese). A healthy plant-based diet should help you maintain or lose weight. A healthy weight is associated with a longer lifespan.
So go vegan for longer life expectancy and better health.
Relieve stress for longer than expected
Life expectancy can be affected by stress in two main ways. The first is through the direct, unhealthy effects of stress on your body over the long term. The second way life expectancy can be reduced is through negative behaviors that cause stress. These behaviors include comfort eating and smoking. Learn to relax through stress-relief techniques or meditation to keep your life expectancy where it should be.
Stress has been linked to dozens of health conditions, including heart disease and cancer.
Stress has also been linked (not surprisingly) to poor sleep and discomfort. By focusing on stress, you can improve your quality of life now while also improving your health and longevity in the long run. That's a pretty good deal.
You can relieve stress with a wide range of stress-reduction techniques. My personal favorite is called the "relaxation response." This is a scientifically proven breathing technique that will help train your body not to respond to stressful events in your life.
A long-term relaxation technique is meditation. By learning how to meditate, you not only calm your body, but you also begin to train your mind. This is great for physical fitness, focus, and (of course) relaxation.
Extend your life expectancy through offers and tests.
Improving your life expectancy through medical checkups and health screenings is certainly not one of the “fun ways to live longer,” but it is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways to add healthy years to your life.
Medical checkups and screenings can help treat diseases early, when they are most treatable, and extend life expectancy even with illness or disease.
Of course, the challenge lies in knowing which tests to have. Only your doctor can tell you 100% (everyone is different in terms of risk factors and family history).
I like to think of health screenings as part of a disease prevention program. Preventing disease (or catching it early) is perhaps the single best way to add years to your life expectancy. Make a disease prevention plan today, get everything checked out, and feel good that you're doing everything you can to live longer than you expect.
Turn off the TV for longer than its expected lifespan.
If life expectancy and TV viewing weren't related, I'd be shocked. Of course, I can't prove that TV and life expectancy are related (no one has conducted a study comparing the life expectancies of TV watchers and non-watchers, probably because they can't find enough non-watchers for a good study). I do believe that reducing TV viewing would improve most people's health and (thus) increase their life expectancy. Here are some reasons why:
Watching TV makes you inactive. You sit there burning as few calories as possible, which can lead to weight problems.
TV makes you eat more junk food. People who watch TV eat more than those who don't. It's a fact.
Television makes you antisocial. You stay at home, marking off territory, instead of talking to real people, face to face.
Television is stressful. The news and many shows are filled with stressful stories. Avoid it, and you may feel like things aren't so bad after all.
TV keeps you from doing other things. This is a big one for me. The average person watches about four hours of TV every day. That's 19 hours a week or over 1000 hours a year. If we all put that time toward something else (exercise, volunteering, talking to our kids), we'd be in a different world.
Of course, I can't tell you how many years of life you'll gain if you stop watching TV (it depends on your weight and what you do with the extra time), but I can tell you that you'll gain about 1000 hours each year (on average).
Avoiding risks increases life expectancy.
Life expectancy can be protected by ensuring you don't take unnecessary risks. For young people, the biggest causes of death aren't age-related illnesses or problems.
The most common causes of death among young people are accidents, injuries, and violence.
When you add certain behaviors (like smoking) to that list (which shorten life expectancy by up to 10 years), you get a list of things to avoid to protect your life expectancy.
Here's the list (I know it sounds annoying, but you need to do these things anyway): Wear your seat belt, drive defensively, avoid situations that could lead to injury, avoid risky sex, avoid violent situations, don't smoke (or quit smoking if you smoke), and maintain a healthy weight.
If you can do these things, you're actually increasing your life expectancy. Focus on avoiding obvious risks and dangers. Your body is pretty amazing, and it will last a long time as long as you stay out of trouble.
