Not Longevity

Why Not Focus on Longevity?

Turns out: the more you focus on longevity, the less likely you are to have it. Obsession with longevity in-and-of-itself may hinder... well, your longevity.

I had a near-death experience when I was 16 and was saved from drowning after I had lost consiousness underwater. I've had shared death experiences a number of times while working in a hospital; more recently, with my dog who was a 14½ year son to me when he passed in our embrace; and again, with my 103½ year old soulmate mother who transitioned as I sang to her in my arms.

I have seen the last weeks when people have died of cancer, alcoholism, brain and heart attacks. Believe me, you do not want to die that way. Live your life to its fullest every day, and you may not need drugs at the end, you may be present with your own death and those surrounding you: your heart may run its course, your blood will stop it's rapid circulation, and you will pass into the next adventure within the most sublime form of peace possible.

What I can say is that longevity should not be the prize. The chaotic world in which we live has her own ideas.

But strive to live every day to your utmost: Don't have that sugar. Move. Love. Hug. Tell stories. Make music. Think about the now, not the non-existant then and tomorrow.

Here are some of the things Mom and I did during the 22 years I cared for her as a 100% service-disabled WWII Veteran, injured when her hospital ship on the front line of the Battle of Okinawa was struck by a kamikaze.

Do these, as they fit in, throughout the days, weeks, months, years.

If these don't come organically to you yet, pretend for a while and they will.

When we first joined forces after Mom's heart attack at 81, we both thought it would be for a year, two tops. But living every day for optimum health took that number from 81 to 103½ against all odds. Zero thoughts on longevity.

Second-to-lastly, don't take my word for this collection of thrive-enducing techniques: the highlighted text links to late-breaking, science-based (sorry Tik-Tok click-baiters) disciplines, hints, advisories and suggestions, or use the informative hover text for source data.

Lastly, lastly: Let me know what you think! Do you know of a science-based health issue we have neglected? Have you tried something that is working for you? I'd ♥️ to hear from you.

💠 The more you do something, the better you are at it. 💎

1. 👵 Embrace the changes in your beautiful life.
2. 🥰 Hug as many people as you can every day. Minimum: 4. Average 8. Optimum (are you sitting down?): 12. Okay, it's time to stand up and get/give a hug!
3. 🤩 Love the photos you see of yourself. When you pose for a photo, let the camera capture your spirit.
4. 💃🏽🕺🏽 Turn the music on and dance.
5. 🎤 Sing to yourself and with others.
6. 👋 Say hi: to everyone. Everyone.
7. 🎶 Hum when you are alone. Yes, big benefits.
8. 🧄 Eat garlic most days. If going into stew, soup or sauce, chop or mince and set aside for 5 minutes to let the beneficial allicin ripen [heating causes it to seize].
9. ♥️ Lovewith all your heart❤️
10. ✊🏼 Use a hand grip most days. If it hurts a little, it likely means it's beneficial. Let your hand rest and do it again in a few days. You will find you are getting stronger hands.
11. 🥾 Components of going for a walk: walking, power walking, trotting, loping, skipping, skipping sideways, jogging, sprinting, running, heading uphill and downhill, walking backwards [safely]. It doesn't matter how long you do any one of them: even a few seconds of one is beneficial.
12. 🐿️ Make friends with animals. They know you far better than you think, including hummingbirds. Try talking to them. Humans can learn a lot from them if we just stop to listen.
13. 🌳 Hug trees.
14. 🏋🏼 It's great to move every day, but weekend warrior workouts are just as beneficial.
15. 🦵🏽 Love your body. It's been good to you. Yes, you.
16. 🎨 Paint, sculpt, sew, stitch, or knit; give the hand-made treasures away.
17. 🛌 Make sure your sleeping room is dark. Real dark. Even small amounts of light contribute to serious heart troubles down the road.
18. 👴🏼 Health challenges for those who are aging didn't start at 70. Many diseases start their march for people in their 30s and 40s. Plaque in veins is detected in people in their 20s. To maintain excellent heatlh, start now. Every morsel, drink, movement makes the difference to your long term quality of life.
19. 🌱 Switch out your animal-based proteins for plants proteins to live a longer life.
20. ☠️ Drink alcohol rarely, if ever. Drinking is very destructive. The case for stopping after 30 completely.
    
    We celebrate by drinking poison — Grace Jones
21. 🛌 Manage your sleep and your energy. You might find you don't need stimulants.
22. 🗣️ Tell stories. Encourage others to join in.
23. 🤗 Hug yourself.
24. 🙆🏽‍♂️ Follow a stretching video 3-7 times a week.
25. 🏋🏻 LIFT! There are all kinds of resistance training types, from lifting heavy weights, using resistance bands, or using your own body like in push-ups and planks. I use hand weights carefully and unconventionally. I let my arms guide me in freeform improvisation, letting the arms tell me where to go, which combines strength, resistance and stretching.
26. 💋 Flirt. Hint: It's not about seduction, it's about engagement. And we're losing the craft.
27. 🍲 Feed someone, or many.
28. 🍅 Eat lots of tomatoes
29. 🥺 Sometimes we lose friends and sometimes we make new ones 🤗
30. 🎺 Hear live music often. Look for free performances, or get a subscription to the symphony.
31. 🙏 Gratitude can come easy when you practice.
32. 💖 Add up your random acts of kindness. Like surreptitiously paying the dinner bill of someone eating out alone.
33. 🫀 Your body is an ecosystem wherein bacteria feed on the nutrition you consume and produce beneficial molecules, including for your cardio-vascular system.
    
    Take a few minutes to make some fermented food: so many options: cabbage/sauerkraut, pineapple tapache, apple cider vinegar, onions, carrots, beets, kombucha, kefir...
34. ✍🏻 Use your hand to write: writing by hand - instead of typing on a laptop or tapping on your phone - has serious cognitive benefits. Then try writing with your non-domainant hand. Wow!
35. 🧎🏾‍♀️ Meditate 1-3 times a day. I've been using the Balance app for this for years. Breathing exercises are significant healers.
36. 🥛 Make seed milk for your breakfast oats. Put some flax, chia, sesame and poppy seeds in a high-speed blender, a few walnuts, some almonds and a macadamia nut or two (got cashews?); add plenty of filtered water and whirr it up until all the specks are incorporated or broken into smaller ones (to crack the cell walls to release nutrition). If you like flavors you might add vanilla. Star anise is delish if you haven't already added it to your oat spices.
37. 🫑 Snack on fruit, celery, bok choy, beets, all colors of red, green, orange and yellow peppers, and slabs of firm tofu.
38. 👩🏿‍🦱 Love your hair, let it be what it wants to be 💃🏽.
39. 🎸 A musical instrument is a friend. You can talk to each other, sometimes very emotionally.
40. 🧘🏾‍♂️ Join a local group or follow a yoga and/or tai chi and/or chi gung class/video 3-7 times a week.
41. ✍🏻 Write a poem. It can be terrible. Then try again later.
42. 🧠 Brain games are really fun. I've been using Elevate for years and my scores prove it. Pretty cool feeling different parts of your brain light up. Chatbots are transmogrifying our brains into dripping peanut butter. Science:
43. 👩‍❤️‍👨 Have one, two or three close friends.
44. 💲/💪🏽 Donate regularly: time and/or money.
45. 🏖️ Swim.
46. 🏋️‍♀️ Ask an LLM to come up with an exercise routine tailored just for you.
47. 🫂 Hug often and long. Find people who will hug you and you can hug for 10 seconds: work up to 15, 20 and 30 seconds. Science says beneficial compounds get released that wouldn't otherwise, like oxytocin. It might be uncomfortable at first, but it works miracles for both of you.
48. 📵 Put your phone in airplane mode and turn it off. It's changing your body. Not in a good way.
49. ⚡️ Unplug your home wifi for 1-7 days. Check in for 3 minutes once a day. This will change your life in unexpected ways.
50. 🧎🏽‍♀️ Take time to be with yourself. Quietly. Sit in a park, or in a yard. Be close to water if you can. Do nothing.
51. 🤦🏾‍♂️ Being alone isn't loneliness
52. 🌞 Get morning light right when you wake up to get your suprachiasmatic nucleus going. You might say goodbye to your coffee jones.
53. ♻️ Reuse/Repurpose/Compost. Look into community gardens and services that will pick up your compostable cooking scraps if you don't have a way to do it yourself.
54. 🪴 Grow a plant from seed. Many grocery stores carry seeds and certainly hardware stores carry pots and small bags of planting soil.
55. ☺️ Blushing is good for you.
56. ☀️ It's ok to think you're perfect. You are. 👍👍🏾👍🏻
57. 🍵 Have some tea in the afternoon (not extract supplements). Hibiscus, green and tulsi teas—whether caffeinated or not—have longevity nutrients built into them.
58. 🫦 Nothing is so overrated as sex and so underrated as the importance of the bowels - HL Mencken.
59. ✏️ Figure puzzles most days. Change them up every couple of months. Do some of the old and look for new things to use your mind a little differently. Plenty of online options and apps. I've been using puzzmo (no paywall or paylink) lately and am a longtime Elevate app user. (I use them and then I get offline).
60. 🫂 Do you want a little company? Because I do.
61. 🌶️ Slowly learn to enjoy capsaicin in food. (Warm and spicy doesn't mean it has to be oily). It has heart health benefits and perhaps can help if you have recurring pain. It can thin blood, so be aware if you take medication. Maybe the Rx can be replaced with food.
62. 🧂 Don't add salt to your food, especially if you go out or order take out once or more times a week. Excess dietary sodium makes you salty... in more ways than one. Which is not a good thing.

    Simultaneously, consider increasing potassium-rich foods like 🍠 sweet potatoes (they're called sweet for a reason: no need to add marshmallows or maple syrup)

    Here are more postassium-rich dietary sources:

    🍉 Fruit
    🍌Bananas
    🍊Oranges and orange juice (in moderation)
    🍋‍🟩Cantaloupe
    🍈Honeydew
    🥝Kiwi
    🍇Dried fruits (especially apricots, prunes, raisins)
    🥑Avocado (also nutrient-dense)

    🍆 Vegetables
    🥔Potatoes (especially baked or with skin)
    🥬Spinach and leafy greens
    🍅Tomatoes (and tomato sauce)
    🫜Beets
    🫘Beans/legumes (including lentils, black beans, kidney beans—also very high in potassium)
    🎃Pumpkin / squash
    🥦Broccoli (good amount, easy to add)
63. 🏋🏿‍♂️ Go buy a pull up bar you can install in a doorway with a mirror. Hang on it regularly.
64. 🙀 Do one thing every day that scares you – Eleanor Roosevelt
65. 🌊 Go see the ocean or the sea (yes, they are the smae). Lakes are good, too. Rivers. Even Streams and Creeks.
66. 🗺️ Read a physical map, or don't use directions on a device and figure your route yourself. Doing this lights up a part of your brain you are not using. Chatbots are transmogrifying our brains into dripping peanut butter. Science:
67. 🍎 Eat the whole apple: save the sweetest part for last, the bottom; then chew on the stem
68. 📿 Jump up and down. And/Or stand with feet firmly in place and bounce from the knees keeping a straight spine. Longer the better Why? Stimulates faschia growth and connectivity.
69. 📝 Keep a journal. Benefits of stress reduction are huge.
70. 👀 Look up and off in the distance throughout the day.
71. 🫚 Grind your own spices and bring them out for people to smell when they visit you.
72. 👋 Miss a workout, walk, mediation, opportunity? Not a big deal. You needed the break.
73. 🦷 Brush your teeth after you get up.
74. 🥩 Don't fall for the protein trap. Science showing more protein than what's normally in our meals might not be beneficial, especially in the long run. Things that stimulate growth, have the potential to stimulate all growth, inlcuding cancer cells that normally are removed by our immune system. As we age, it seems we need to consume more protein due to our body's processing changes: choosing legumes like tofu, beans and lentils, grains, nuts and seeds in the morning like rolled oats gives us what we need. My Mom was still strong just before she died at 103½ and could adjust herself in her home hospital bed. Her care aides couldn't believe it.

When the knocks hit us and hit us hard, which they will: our friends and family (including the animals we share our homes with) can help get us through. But our best friend in those times is ourselves. Keeping ourselves in a place of an open heart can make the difference in getting through, or getting stuck. Practicing every day makes all the difference.