Eating better and sleeping enough are two proven ways to prolong your life. Exercising daily and lowering stress are two more proven ways to prolong your life. That’s it. In as few words as possible, those are the actions that anyone can take if they want to have a longer life. The fact that doing these things also can make a person happier and healthier are extra benefits.
This piece is written as a second of two parts about living longer, by an attorney who has helped a lot of people write their wills and many families probate those wills. I observe that people, in their later years, value time much more than money. To be helpful, I am presenting the fact that eating better and sleeping enough could result in extra time added to a person’s lifetime. Ultimately, an extra lifetime is what people value most.
Eating Better
There are many studies that say the foods we eat, the high quantity and frequency of the foods we ingest, will increase the likelihood of cancers, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, depression, physical atrophy, dementia, and a shortened lifespan. Conversely, other studies have said that the foods we eat in modest quantity, of high quality, with less sugars, fats, and processing, will decrease the risks of all the life-shortening conditions noted above. Eating better foods will generally prolong one’s life. “According to a study published in the British Medical Journal, eating seven “super” foods daily (red wine, dark chocolate, fruits, vegetables, garlic, fish, and nuts), in the appropriate portion sizes can reduce your heart disease risk by 75 percent and add an average of six years to your life.” from everydayhealth.com
“How to eat better for a longer life” is a Google search that results in an overload of helpful information. It’s easy to get an answer to the question “How do you eat for longevity?” The hard part is in actually reading the search results, learning, and applying that new knowledge and improving the diet.
Getting Enough Sleep
British researchers discovered less than five hours of sleep doubled the risk of death from cardiovascular disease – which is the number one cause of death in America according to the CDC.
“For most people, a healthy amount of sleep is seven to nine hours a night. Research supports that timeframe for living longer. In one analysis of 16 studies that looked at nearly 1.4 million people in total, a lack of sleep increased the risk of death. People who regularly slept less than seven hours a night (and often less than five hours a night) were at 12 percent greater risk of dying than people who slept seven to eight hours every night, according to the study” from everydayhealth.com Eat, sleep, exercise and de-stressing are the four things that, if done right, can help any person exceed their life expectancy.