Lengthen your Lifespan

The best way to boost your chance of living a long and active life is through healthy habits.

1. Replace a fizzy drink with water: Swapping a daily fizzy drink for water cuts out seven teaspoons of sugar from your diet. If you did that everyday for a year you’d save 10 kg of sugar. An overweight 30 year old women of average height could add six years to her lifespan just by losing 5 kg.
2. Look on the bright side: Having a positive outlook not only increases life expectancy by several years, but acts as a buffer against illness.
3. Make short journeys by foot: Lack of exercise killed twice as many people as obesity. Adding 30 minutes of walking into your daily routine five days a week is equivalent of 14 marathons in one year. This extra exercise can add three and a half years to your lifespan, irrespective of weight. Exercise and increased fitness levels not only reduces your risk of cancers, but it can improve recovery from the disease.
4. Take the scenic route: Walking alone main roads is as bad for you as smoking resulting into damaging effects of air pollution on respiratory system. Choose the quieter route, even if it’s longer- or better still hit the park.
5. Add spinach to salads and meals: Eating spinach everyday can make your brain 11 years younger. People who tucked into it- along with other leafy greens- stayed sharper for longer. It’s thought that vitamin K, folic acid and natural colourings lutein and beta carotene were behind the effects.
6. Make regular dates with friends: There is a link between lots of social connections ‘actual’ not virtual, and longevity. Elderly social butterflies were less likely to die over a 10 year period compared to people with fewer friends. ‘Bro’mances- strong male friendships could be as effective as romantic relationships in reducing stress, so much so that they could extend a man’s life.
7. Get a pet: Pet owners visit their doctors less frequently and had fewer incidences of depression. Simply stroking or being near a familiar animal can lower heart rates and blood pressure levels.
8. Leave work on time: Working just one extra hour a day increases the chance of suffering a stroke over the next 8.5 years by 10%, while people who toil away for 55 hours a week raise their risk by a third. Those who spend longer hours at work were also more likely to develop heart disease. It is thought that the stress of long hours can trigger biological changes in the body which, overtime, can lead to deadly disease.

New research shows that even with the increased risk of skin cancer, those who enjoy the sun are less likely to die young than shade seekers. Those people who soaked up the rays were twice as likely to still be alive 20 years later than those who actively avoided them. The life lengthening benefits are thought to be due to raised levels of Vitamin D- which helps protect against a host of conditions, from diabetes to osteoporosis- and stress lowering, mood boosting endorphins.

Matter Referenced:  Times of India, Ahmedabad, Sunday, 16th December, 2018.

By: Dr. Bhawana Asnani.

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