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#147 - The Longevity Checklist: 7 Things You Can Start Doing Today to Live Longer
19 Plays4 days ago
The goal isn’t just to live more years, it’s to actually enjoy those years. In this episode I break down 7 things you can start today that make you healthier now and stack the odds in your favor long term.
What you’ll get from this episode
- The 7 biggest “longevity levers” that matter most (no hacks, just the fundamentals that actually work)
- Why each one matters in real life and how it connects to the biggest health problems people face
- Simple, doable action steps you can start today for every category (movement, food, stress, relationships, and more)
- The mindset shifts that make this sustainable so you stop doing all or nothing and start building health for life
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome back to the fit ish project with your host Lathan bass where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. Before we get into this week's topic, if you can leave a review if you've not done so continue to get this out to more people who can use this information. Share the episodes that you think people could get some value from just continue to help people Look better, feel better and live longer, which is actually exactly what this podcast is all about.
Lifespan vs. Healthspan
00:00:30
Speaker
Seven things that you can do today to help you live a longer life.
00:00:35
Speaker
And I know sometimes this is a common topic that people look into longevity, wanting to extend their life. But I also think it's important to really realize that we're not just worried about living a long life. Obviously, we all want to live a long time, but we also want to enjoy those years. Like we don't just want to get to old age and get to 50 or 60. And then the next 20 years are just unenjoyable because we can't move. We can't do things we want to do.
00:00:59
Speaker
We can't function well physically, mentally, all those different things. And so there's a lot of different things that you can be doing literally starting today to help you out as you age. So you can not only enjoy your time now, but also enjoy your time leading up to old age. And so I thought it'd be kind of cool to go through some of these things. And these are based on some different studies that they've done over time on just successful aging, because there's a big difference between lifespan, how long you live
Exercise Recommendations and Benefits
00:01:27
Speaker
and healthspan. We want to be able to live a long life, enjoy all those years. And so when it comes to health, it's similar in the way that finances are like the earlier that you start investing, the better off you are going to be not only today, but also in the long term. So you want to be making those investments, doing things that you can do today with your actions, with your behaviors to help set you up later on in life.
00:01:49
Speaker
Let's get into it. Some of these I'm sure you are already doing. Some of these may actually be a little bit of a surprise to you, but we'll go through this. You can kind of check these off, see where you're standing. If there's an area or two that you're not really focused on, well, then you have something that you can start to implement and start to focus on and start to just improve over time to help you get to that goal of living a long, happy, healthy life.
00:02:12
Speaker
Number one is not going to come to a surprise as anybody. And this one is just to exercise consistently. We all know the importance of exercise. If you've listened to any of these podcasts, you know I've talked about all the benefits of exercise. And I think one of the simplest things just...
00:02:28
Speaker
The statistics around exercise is people who regularly exercise reduce their chance of dying, all-cause mortality, by 20 to 30%. That just means any reason that you could die, which is what they call all-cause mortality, goes down 20 to 30% just by being somebody who moves regularly, who exercises consistently. And we know our bodies expect us to move.
00:02:54
Speaker
We feel better when we move. We look better when we move. Our mental health is better when we move. We reduce our cancer risks, heart disease risks, Alzheimer's risks. Like there's so many different things that exercise does for us. And we all know that we should be doing it consistently. When we think about getting into a good exercise habit, some of the guidelines around those are about 150 minutes per week. So about two and a half hours per week.
00:03:17
Speaker
And then strength train two days per week. I also want to caveat that with sometimes people will be discouraged because they struggle to hit those guidelines. And they think that if they can't hit those guidelines that they're not doing enough or it's not worth it or. those sorts of things. And obviously we want to work up to that. And then anything on top of that is even better.
00:03:35
Speaker
But understand anything above zero when it comes to exercise is beneficial.
Beyond Weight Loss: Exercise Advantages
00:03:40
Speaker
It takes very little exercise, especially if you're somebody who's sedentary and not doing any at all, to start to see some of those physical and mental benefits with just moving regularly, even if it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes a day, that is going to be way more beneficial than doing nothing at all.
00:03:57
Speaker
The second thing that I would say about this too, because I know a lot of people get into exercise with the reason to lose weight. And the fact of the matter is exercise definitely helps with losing weight. And especially with sustaining that weight loss, like people who exercise and move regularly, they have a much easier time keeping weight off.
00:04:14
Speaker
But I'll also say that even if you never lost a single pound, if you exercise consistently, you would be healthier than the person who needs to lose some weight, but they're not doing anything at all. So let's say you're overweight, even if you never lost a single pound, you would be physically and mentally healthier just by exercising. Now that's not to say that you shouldn't try to lose some of that weight, get some of that weight off, because we'll talk about that a little bit later and why that's important. But understanding that there's so many different reasons to exercise besides weight loss.
00:04:46
Speaker
And the last thing that I would leave you with just when it comes to exercise is just actually understanding what are three of the biggest causes of why people die at some point.
00:04:57
Speaker
something's going to take you out, right? Something's got to give in for a lot of people. It's these three things. It's heart disease, some sort of cancer or unintentional injury. So like falls or accidents, different things like that. Like those are the three biggest causes of death and exercise helps with every single one of those things. So when we think about heart disease, we all know that doing cardio, exercising, those sorts of things helps to strengthen our heart, helps to strengthen our cardiovascular system. Having a high VO two max is one of the longevity predictors that we know about. So if you have a good cardio system, you are more likely to live longer.
00:05:32
Speaker
When we think about cancer, exercise decreases the risk of quite a few cancers. So again, exercise very beneficial from that standpoint. And then when you think about unintentional injury, exercising or being fit isn't going to necessarily save you from all of these things. But when you think about something like getting into a bad accident or maybe falling, things like that, having more muscle mass, having more strength, being more fit and more robust is extremely helpful in those incidents. So when you look at the older population, a big population,
00:06:01
Speaker
risk for them is falling. When people get old, they fall, they break a hip, they have to go through surgery, different things like that. And a lot of older people never recover from those sorts of things. and when they become super sedentary, they're not able to do a lot of things. Maybe their mental health starts to decline quite a bit. And that takes years off their life. Or if you get in a really bad, let's say car accident,
00:06:21
Speaker
If you're more fit, you're more robust, you're able to recover from those things faster than somebody who isn't quite as fit, doesn't have as much muscle mass, isn't quite as strong in those situations. And so it's not saying that obviously you're 100% preventing anything that's going to happen in those areas, but you're giving yourself a better chance, which is what all these things are about. None of these things are a guarantee, but when you're doing these things, you're giving yourself a better chance to live a longer, happier, healthy life.
Daily Activity Goals
00:06:48
Speaker
And so when we think about a couple practical things for each one of these, I'll just throw out a couple of practical things that you can start to do if you're not already nailing these categories and feeling really good about these areas. So exercise, I think one of the most basic things that you can do is just to walk more.
00:07:03
Speaker
Get up to that 8,000, 10,000 step range that you hear thrown around so much because that's the simplest way to start to increase your and activity. Lots of people struggle with just time and exercise and getting in the gym and things like that. But walking is one of those things that you can do throughout your day. You can fit it in and little gaps that you have here or there. It's very low barrier to entry. We all know how to do it. You don't have to learn anything new. So trying to work your way up to that eight to 10,000 steps is a really good first step for tons of people. And there's lots of studies with that too. Like people who walk over 8,000 steps per day, they also decrease their all cause mortality risk as well. So just being more active through walking is a really good place to start. The second thing that I would say is similar along the lines of the guidelines for just exercise. They have the two days of strength training in there.
00:07:51
Speaker
That's a really good thing for a lot of people to do is add in two days per week of strength training, whether it's 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes. You can do this with all different types of equipment or even body weight. You can do it at home. You can do it in a gym. it doesn't have to be crazy. Just get some sort of strength training on your schedule and then you can build on that from there. But if you can get in there two days per week, that's going to give you tons of benefits.
00:08:12
Speaker
And then for this one, I'd throw in a bonus too, already touched on it for a second, but having some form of cardio. And this doesn't have to be your traditional cardio. It doesn't have to be like running or getting on an elliptical or a bike or anything like that. Just think about anything that gets your heart rate up, anything that gets you sweating a little bit, breathing a little bit heavy, challenging your heart, challenging your muscles a little bit. That is cardio. if You can do that one or two times per week. You can strength train a couple times per week and you can get that eight to 10,000 steps per day.
00:08:40
Speaker
you're going to be in a really good spot and getting tons of benefits and just helping yourself out, not only today, but for the future.
Risks of Smoking and Vaping
00:08:47
Speaker
Number two on the list, which this one again is probably not going to surprise a ton of people either, but limit or just don't smoke at all.
00:08:54
Speaker
We all know that smoking is not good for us. We've been told that for a really long time. And when they're talking about smoking, especially in this study, it was about tobacco. So we know how detrimental tobacco is. Like we've all seen the cigarette commercials and different things like that. But some of the statistics around this stuff is kind of crazy. Like smoking regularly for most of your life can take off anywhere between 10 to 14 of the end of your life which is just kind of nuts to think about and just in the us s alone 480 000 people die from smoking and when you look at it on a global scale it's around 7 million and the thing that kind of caught my eye with this too is like of that 7 million over a million and a half of those deaths were attributed to secondhand smoke so not even the people that were smoking but just being around smoking and being in that environment is just not good for our lungs so
00:09:46
Speaker
Understanding that, I think we all know that smoking is not good. And there's also other things that are a lot more popular these days as well. So like vaping and cannabis is legal in a lot of different states and things like that. But anytime you're ingesting things into your lungs, putting chemicals into your lungs, it's probably not going to be a good thing.
00:10:04
Speaker
Best case here, like the practical thing is just don't smoke. But number two, if you're going to smoke, then obviously limiting those things or having some guidelines around those things because there's people that enjoy a cigar here or there or enjoy smoking other things. and And I'm not here to lecture anybody or tell anybody what to do. We're all adults and we get to make our own decisions. But just understand what's happening, what's going on, maybe some of the consequences that are going to come from doing those things on a regular
Managing Body Weight and Fat
00:10:32
Speaker
basis. And then you just make your decision.
00:10:34
Speaker
Number three on the list, have a healthy body weight. When we think about healthy body weight, like what does that even mean? You'll hear people talk about the BMI scale and some people will say that that's a really bad scale to use. For the average population, BMI is actually pretty accurate.
00:10:52
Speaker
The issue comes in when you have people who have a lot of muscle mass, people who are pretty active, maybe athletes, people who have lifted weights, they have a good amount of muscle mass. That's where BMI starts to become not a great indicator. To give you an example, I'm six foot two, I'm 210 pounds. And according to the BMI scale, I'm overweight.
00:11:12
Speaker
I would say that if I look at my body fat percentage and I look at my body composition that I am not at risk for a lot of these things because I'm active and I have a decent body fat level. I have a decent amount of muscle mass, but according to BMI, I'm in that overweight category. So you also just have to understand like what that means and also just look at your certain scenario and see actually where you fall on that and like where your risks are and See if you're actually healthy. So a better thing to look at is actually your ah body fat levels.
00:11:42
Speaker
That will give you a much more accurate picture of what's actually going on. And so when it comes to body fat levels, for men, they say you want to be below 25%. Some people will tell you a little bit lower. Some people tell you want to get below 20%. And then for women, they say below 30%.
00:11:59
Speaker
Other people will tell you to get around 25%. I don't think obsessing over that certain number in the same way that I don't think it's very beneficial to obsess over that scale number, but to kind of get a range.
00:12:11
Speaker
And I think all of us know too, like when we look in the mirror, like if we're holding onto too much fat Like if we don't feel good, if we know that having some extra fat on our body is making things harder, like that is something that we can start to address. The reason that fat becomes such an issue is because you have two different types of fat. You have your subcutaneous fat, which is like the fat that you can see like on your arms, your legs, your stomach, that sort of thing. But you also have what's called visceral fat, which is the fat around your organs.
00:12:38
Speaker
And that is what is extremely detrimental to health. and So people who have higher body fat levels, they have that more subcutaneous fat. They also have more fat typically around their organs as well. It's not always the case because you obviously can't see through people. Like you can't see what's going on on the inside and based on different factors, like how much they exercise. their genetics, different things like that, their internal, like their visceral fat could be a little bit better than you would think by looking at somebody. But in general, if you have higher body fat levels, you're probably going to have higher visceral fat levels too, which increases your risk for health problems like cancer, like heart disease, like type two diabetes, like Alzheimer's, all those major diseases that none of us want to get.
00:13:19
Speaker
starts to increase when you have higher body fat levels. So with that being said, get your body fat to a decent level is going to help you out with health. And that's the reason why i talk about weight loss so much is because it's one of the simplest things that you can do to start to improve your health markers and start to give you a better chance at living a longer and healthier life.
00:13:40
Speaker
your practical takeaways for this is to find a way of dieting or find a way of eating that prevents you from eating too much that's how you gain body fat is you're eating too many calories so if you can find a style of eating and this isn't just some like fad diet some trend or anything like that but find a style of dieting or ah a style of just eating in general that helps you to not overeat and so for me i've talked about this multiple times but i Love the 80-20 rule where you're focusing on um tons of whole, minimally processed foods. 20% of the time, you can have some other stuff in moderation.
00:14:13
Speaker
Basically, you just want to find like higher protein things, higher fiber things, eat more bigger volume meals, so that way you're not tending to eat more calories. Some people do other things like intermittent fasting, so they're eating in smaller windows, so that helps them to not overeat. Other people follow certain diet styles, so maybe they're more like lower carb or lower fat or maybe more like a paleo diet. style type of thing. And that works well for them. The big point is you just have to find a way of eating to where you're just not eating too many calories on a regular basis. Because if you're doing that, you're going to be gaining fat, you're going to be gaining weight, and that's not going to be beneficial long term.
Alcohol Consumption Guidelines
00:14:49
Speaker
The second practical thing that I would say is to start to just cultivate more awareness around like just food and your body and things like that. And one of the ways that you can do this is what's called self monitoring. So finding some way to track these important metrics so that you know that you're trending in the right direction. So let's say you need to lose weight or you need to start eating more protein, or you want to start eating more whole foods or different things like that, there's different things that you can start to track. So you might track calories, you might track protein, you might track your body weight over time, you might track your steps or your workouts to increase your exercise.
00:15:22
Speaker
There's tons of different things that you can track. The big thing here is is that you start to make it a priority and you start to become aware of it be more conscious about it. That way you can actually start to see progress and just make better choices around these things. So in the long term, you start to see those benefits over time, it might not happen in like a short time span, you know, you might start tracking food and maybe for the first couple of weeks, or maybe even the first couple of months, like you don't see tons of changes. But over time, as you're tracking your food, you start to notice you're eating less calories, you're making better choices, starting to learn a little bit more about food, or maybe you're starting to track protein. And for a while, it's difficult, and you don't really know what you're doing. But then a couple months down the road,
00:16:02
Speaker
Eating a high protein diet is super simple and now you find yourself eating less of the other stuff. You're controlling your calories a little bit better or now you're tracking your workouts and now you're actually building muscle. You're getting stronger. It's helping your metabolism out. So just by doing this one single thing, just by picking out some certain data point that you want to track over time, you're going to start to make better choices with that thing and see improvements over time.
00:16:25
Speaker
Number four on the list. This one also probably isn't going to shock a lot of people, but limit or don't drink alcohol. We've also been told similar in the way that we've been told about tobacco, how bad alcohol is. And I think for a while there, there was just different studies and things like that saying like you could drink in moderation and it wasn't going to be too bad for you. Now, a lot more of the studies are coming out and saying that no alcohol is better than any alcohol.
00:16:51
Speaker
But with that being said, there's still a threshold that you can drink if you want to keep that in moderation to where you're not seeing huge risk factors with drinking. And so the guidelines that you'll see thrown around now, some people will say for women, one drink per day. So that'd be like a shot of liquor or so shot of alcohol, one beer, one small glass of wine, that sort of thing. And then two for men.
00:17:15
Speaker
Some people will also be a little bit more conservative on that scale and they'll say actually not two per day or one per day, but two per week and one per week. If you're keeping it under that threshold, you're in pretty good shape of not having tons of risk when it comes to alcohol. When you start to get more than that, you start to increase your chances for different cancers or different issues with your heart or brain, which we obviously know the importance of those organs and Also just with like accidents and those sorts of things are typically involved with having excess substances and
Longevity and Relationships
00:17:47
Speaker
stuff like that. so i think we all kind of know that like we've all been hung over and we know that drinking a ton just doesn't feel great on our body and so if you're doing that too often not only is it not great for your health but you're also just not going to feel great in your day-to-day i know as i've gotten older definitely don't drink as much because those hangovers hit a little bit harder that brain fog stays around a little bit longer you just energy kind of wanes a little bit you typically don't make great food choices the day of or the day after when you're drinking and so
00:18:16
Speaker
Again, it's not to dissuade anybody from drinking or tell people what to do. It's just understanding what alcohol does for you. And I think there is a time and a place to drink if that's something that you enjoy doing. Because I personally, i enjoy drinking some alcohol with friends. I like having some drinks. I like a good old fashioned, like having some beers and things like that. So When it comes to practical takeaways for this, number one, your best option is just to not drink. And you don't have to worry about it. You're not getting any of the negative health factors or increasing your risk of different cancers or different issues with your brain or heart or anything like that. But number two, I would say if you are going to drink is just to have some sort of guidelines around it. So one of the things that I typically like to do is I don't like to drink at all during the week.
00:18:58
Speaker
just because it affects my workouts it affects my sleep it affects my focus my energy all those different things and then i just
Stress Management Techniques
00:19:04
Speaker
try to limit it like two to three times per month a lot of times it'll be a little bit less than that but then like on special occasions like if you there's a holiday or somebody's birthday or different things like that like if i want to enjoy some alcohol then i'm going have some alcohol so just having some guidelines around it so that you can actually moderate those things can go a really long way Number five on this list. Now going to get into a couple that are probably going to surprise you a little bit. So number five on the list is relationships and having good relationships. So there was a really long study and I think it's actually still going on. Like it's been going on for over like 80 or 90 years, which is kind of nuts.
00:19:39
Speaker
But they follow these people from super early in their life and they follow them over time and they would check in with them, survey them because they wanted to see like what made people live a long, happy life. And you would think some of the things that we just listed were on that list, which they were, but you would think those would probably be the most important, like maybe diet, exercise, like different things like that. But what they actually figured out was like the happiest people and the people who live the longest were the people who had the best relationships. Yeah.
00:20:05
Speaker
And when I first heard this, I was like, I don't think that's accurate. Like, I was just like, I didn't really want to believe it. I'm like, no, yeah, like you diet or exercise or like sleep or something has to be more beneficial than relationships. Like, how could that be? But then I started thinking about it a little bit more and digging into it and when you think about just humans in general and like where we come from like evolutionarily speaking we needed other humans just to survive like there was no way that you were going to survive on your own back thousands of years ago because like you need other people to hunt and you need other people to protect you and for safety and all those different things and so from that standpoint like we that's baked into us like we need that human interaction we need that human connection and
00:20:47
Speaker
you would think like, oh, maybe it's just like a mental thing. Like, you know, you need those people and it's nice to have those people and have connections, but it actually starts to show up in physical ways too. So people who are lonely or don't have those connections, they have a higher risk for heart disease, higher risk for stroke and heart attack and those different things, higher risk for mental disorders.
00:21:07
Speaker
we don't just need people from the mental standpoint, like it actually starts to affect our health physically as well. And when you think about it, it's like people who are by themselves, they have higher levels of chronic stress just because like, it's not fun to always be by yourself. And then when you have that chronic stress, you have more cortisol, you have more sympathetic activation in your system, there's more inflammation going on, typically, you're not sleeping as well, you're not doing as healthy of behaviors, like because the people that you spend time around, they also help to influence you to hopefully do more healthy things. So like you're exercising together, you're eating meals together, you're sleeping at good times and different things like that. So having people around you is important for a lot of different reasons. And I think that is something that a lot of people overlook in, especially in today's world where
00:21:52
Speaker
We have a lot of technology and social media and things like that. You kind of feel like you know what's going on and you feel like you're connected to people or have a lot of relationships. But I think it's more important to just understand how important like those face-to-face interactions are because those are different than just like sending a text and a phone call and a FaceTime and all that stuff, which all that stuff is great. And there's a time and a place for that. And that's helped to keep people connected and things like that. But you really can't replace that.
00:22:18
Speaker
human interaction, that face-to-face interaction, and just that connection that you get from being around different people. It's one of the reasons that I actually recently started working in a gym again. Like I've been working remotely for the last couple of years. And a lot of my interaction is just through phone calls or Zooms or different things like that. I spend a lot of time in my house alone, just like doing work and different things like that.
00:22:38
Speaker
And I just started to notice, like i kind of missed that aspect. Like when I was teaching and coaching, like I got a ton of that all day long. But then working remotely and working by myself, it was like I wasn't getting that nearly as much. So I wanted to start to get some of that back in my life because I just enjoy life more. Like I enjoy those interactions. I enjoy being around people. I enjoy conversing with people. I enjoy helping people and different things like that. So I started working at a gym again so I could start to get some of that back into just my regular routine. So practical takeaways for this one, I think.
00:23:07
Speaker
get intentional about building good relationships. I know, especially as we get older, it becomes harder to schedule those things and friends start to drift apart. Maybe you move further away from your family or friends and it's harder to just keep up with people or see people or we get busy with career, you have kids or different things. And it's very easy to let relationships like family relationships or friendships start to slip. And so you really have to start to be intentional about those things, whether it be scheduling things in your calendar to put some time aside for some friends or some family or some social event or whatever the case may be just be intentional and have some sort of plan about keeping those relationships alive and just continuing to build in those relationships because they're not just going to stay there and they're not just going to just be there forever without any intention behind those things it's Very common for people to drift apart and for relationships to kind of fall off. And so you really do have to make it a priority if that's something that you want to be a part of your life. And as I'm telling you here, like it is very vital to just our physical and mental health. So it's definitely worth prioritizing. The second thing i would say, easy practical takeaway is just to do one thing each day to help somebody else out.
00:24:16
Speaker
It could be a stranger, it could be a family member, it could be a friend, but just doing one little simple thing to help somebody else out just to, again, connect, give back a little bit, serve somebody else. There's a lot of studies behind that as well, just with like how we feel about ourselves and how much better we feel mentally when we help other people out. And so that's a simple thing that you can do is just to do one single thing every single day to help somebody else out. And it could be as simple as just like giving somebody a compliment, Helping somebody out, helping a stranger out, talking to your kids or your wife or doing something special. Like it doesn't have to be anything crazy, but I think if you can just do more of those things daily, you're going to be in a better place and you're going get a lot of those health benefits, both physically and mentally in the long run.
Lifelong Learning for Brain Health
00:25:01
Speaker
Number six on this list, this is probably another one that may surprise you a little bit, but this is coping mechanisms. So coping mechanisms for stress management, basically, like having ways to manage stress. We all know that stress is a regular part of life and life sometimes is more tough at times than others.
00:25:19
Speaker
And the people who live longer, happier lives, they have healthy ways to deal with stress. So there's obviously unhealthy ways to deal with stress, but there's healthy ways to deal with stress and people who are able to really deal with stress.
00:25:31
Speaker
live longer lives. This is another one of those where you think like, oh, it's not that big of a deal, whatever. But a lot of doctor visits, a lot of health issues are related to stress or chronic stress, people who just can't seem to manage stress because it puts a lot of, for lack of better terms, stress on your heart. And that is not good. Like it's not good when you're holding all that stuff in, when you feel just on edge, when your body's always amped up, when you have all that cortisol running through you. And I don't want to give you the wrong idea because not all stress is bad stress.
00:26:00
Speaker
And a big thing that I think a lot of people miss as well is the way that you handle stress affects how it affects your body a lot. And what I mean by that is, let's say you are somebody who played sports. We've all been had that nervous energy before playing a game or, you know, you're super nervous or you're anxious or whatever. But then you probably also had an instance where maybe you weren't necessarily like nervous or anxious, but you were more excited about that game. Maybe the game wasn't as big or you knew you were going to win or whatever. And the way that that affects you and the way that you play is typically a lot different. Like if you go into a sporting event and you're all tight and you're all nervous. and you're all anxious you typically don't play as well but if you reframe that and think about that anxiousness or that tightness as excitement now you start to show up a little bit differently and you can do that in your everyday life rather than thinking about things as this huge blown up thing or like dreading this certain thing you can think of it more of as a challenge or think of it more of as an opportunity for you to learn or grow or get better or things like that. And that's not to say that you're going to, every day is going to be easy and every little thing like you should look forward to, because there's some things in life that just suck. But if you can tend to reframe things or find the good in things or find the opportunity in things, find the growth in things, it's a little bit easier to manage that stress. And that stress doesn't have such a big effect on your day to day and just how you feel and things like that. Because when you think about
00:27:22
Speaker
older people and when you think about like that high strong person like they're just not number one they're not great to be around like when you just are around those people all the time like it's just not fun like they stress you out and so how do you think that like their body is hanging holding up if they're that person that's stressed out all the time and they just like can't ever seem to relax or they can't find any enjoyment in life like those people typically don't live nearly as long as the people who are more laid back Relax tend to enjoy things tend to not let things get to them as much and so Trying to just be more of that style and that's again That's not to say you shouldn't care about things and it's okay to be like angry or stressed or different things like that But just finding ways to actually manage stress so practical takeaways for this one
00:28:07
Speaker
Number one, just start to think about stress a little bit differently. As I said, not all stress is bad stress. I mean, exercise is a stress. That's not necessarily bad. A lot of things that we do to grow are stressful, but they help us in the long run. And so trying to find the opportunity in things, trying to find the growth in things, trying to just reframe that stress a little bit can help quite a bit. And then the second thing i would say is just find ways to manage stress. So for some people that's listening to music or watching some funny video or talking to a loved one or a friend, playing guitar, like playing video games, exercising, going for a walk. There's tons of different things that you can do, but just have a small list of things that you can do and then do one of those things at least like five to 10 minutes a day. Like you can give yourself five minutes per day to do something that you enjoy that is stress relieving. it Could just be even just doing nothing for 10 minutes. Like that can go a long way too. Like there's sometimes or some days where we're just going, going, going, we never take a break, just having some time to yourself to just like sit there and just hang out and not worry about anything like that can help too. Or if it's journaling for five minutes in the morning, or if it's exercising or going for a walk outside for 15 minutes after dinner, and or before you start work or whatever, like find these little pockets of time throughout the day. And all it needs to be is five minutes. But if you can do that,
00:29:20
Speaker
one, two, three times throughout the day, just these little small pockets of time to just relieve that stress a little bit and just to check in, like those things can go a really long way. The last one on the list, which again, this one will probably be a little bit surprising, but it is learning.
00:29:36
Speaker
People who continue to educate themselves and continue to learn and continue to have that growth mindset typically live a longer life. And you'll see this too in old people, like when you meet people that are fairly old and you just notice like they're still pretty with it,
00:29:49
Speaker
A lot of that comes down to just their brain health. And I think too, when you think about this one, like you want to make sure that your brain is sharp because if you're able to live to 80 years old, but your brain starts to like break down and you just aren't as sharp and your memory is not very good and you just can't do things by yourself in your 50s, like do you really want to live the next 30 years like that?
00:30:10
Speaker
I would think most people would say no. So you want to make sure that you're doing things to keep your brain engaged, because as that old saying goes, if you don't use it, you lose it. And this goes for your brain too. When you think about like strength training, we do that to keep our muscles strong. We do that to build muscle. We do that to make sure we're functional, to make sure our mobility is good. And so we do that to keep our physical health and keep our physical body in order. Well, that same thing goes for your brain. like you need to give your brain some sort of reason to grow. You need to give it some stimulus. So whether that be like reading or whether that be like learning new things is awesome. Like just different things to make sure that you're keeping your brain in order because we all know how important our brain is. I mean, your body uses roughly 20% of your calories strictly just for your brain. And that's what separates us from so many other animals and different things like that is like we have a big brain for a reason. Like we need to be using that brain. We need to make sure that our brain is still high functioning and that we feel good and that we're able to do all these things as we age. And so finding different things that you can do to make sure that you are not letting that brain start to revert backwards or starting to lose some of your abilities or starting to let it kind of go downhill. And so practical takeaways for this simple one is learn something daily, whether that be a new skill, whether that be a language, whether that be some physical skill, like exercise is a great way to learn new things. It's one of my favorite things to do is like to try new exercises or to learn new skills. Like racket sports are really good for this. Like different sports in general are pretty good for this because it forces your brain to learn new things. It could be listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video, anything that interests you, like cooking a new dish, like just finding different ways to learn something new every single day.
00:31:50
Speaker
And the second thing that I would say a practical takeaway, one of the best ways to learn is to actually teach somebody else something. So it could be something that you really enjoy maybe teach them to your kids or teach something to a coworker or just whatever. It doesn't matter, but just finding ways to learn something. And then if you can teach it, you learn it that much better, which is one of the reasons that I really like doing this podcast, because it actually gives me a chance to learn more things. And I'm trying to teach different subjects and learn things and research and spread good knowledge and spread useful tips to you guys. And that also helps me at the same time, like helps to reinforce my learning because I learn a lot of different things and I have to go and prepare for these episodes and listen to different things and read studies and read books and different stuff like that. And so it helps me and it keeps my brain sharp and it keeps me to keep hammering on that growth mindset and getting better both mentally as well.
00:32:42
Speaker
That's a super easy thing that you can do is just learn something and then teach somebody else.
Conclusion and Coaching Opportunity
00:32:46
Speaker
And with that being said, those are the seven things. So as you think about those things, which of those things are you doing well right now? Which are some of those things that maybe you want to add to your repertoire or your routine and start to focus on a little more. And just to recap, it is limit or don't smoke, limit or don't drink, exercise regularly, have a healthy body composition,
00:33:09
Speaker
manage stress, have good relationships, and the last one is to keep learning. Those are the seven things. If you do those things, you can give yourself the best shot at living a long life, but also living a better life and age more successfully.
00:33:25
Speaker
And with that being said, the one-on-one coaching link is in the show notes as always. I appreciate you listening and we will see you next week.