Blue Zones

       I recently finished reading the book, The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons For Living Longer from the people who've lived the longest. Blue zones are defined as pockets in the world where people live measurably longer lives and have a higher rate of centenarians- people who live until 100 years of age. The story is told by the Author and describes his experiences visiting each of the 5 blue zones in the world: Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Ikaria, Greece. The stories he told were absolutely mind-blowing. At the end of each chapter, the lessons of that blue zone were listed. How were these people living so long?
        Although each blue zone had there own unique characteristics and practices, there were a few common themes. First, all of the zones place high emphasis on the importance of spending time with friends and family. All of the communities are very close, they help each other out, and there is a sense of comfort and safety within their community. Next, mostly all zones consumed limited amounts of meat or were vegetarians. They grew just about all of their food in gardens, which means they barely ever ate processed foods- it was all organic and had to be prepared. Third, they all lived very active lifestyles. Although some did exercise by biking and weight lifting, their main forms of physical activity was walking and performing their daily tasks such as gardening. It was stressed that moderate-level exercise is all that is necessary and this should come from just making your daily life more active, not going to the gym for 1 hour everyday and then remaining sedentary for the rest of the day. The last thing they all seemed to have in common, which was called a different thing in each zone, was having a strong sense of purpose in life/ a reason to wake up in the morning.
     The quality of these people's lives were very high. They suffered from much lower rates of morbidity and mortality, and they were genuinely happy. However, already, the rates of centenarians are expected to decline with more urbanization in these areas. Kids are not growing up the same as their parents and grandparents that made it to this old age. Do you think it is even possible to adopt a lifestyle similar to those in the blue zones? Or is it impossible because of how our lives and environments are structured? Instead of living active lifestyles and eating highly plant-based diets, we are overwhelmed with technology that makes us lazy and convenience foods that are necessary for our busy work weeks.