Increase Longevity And Live Longer

Increase Longevity

I wanted to take some to summarize a lot of what has been previously said here on Live A Longer Life and bring to your attention a resource that was emailed to me not too long ago. A reader recently forwarded me a link to a website that basically summarized the longevity secrets as discussed and highlighted in The Blue Zones. In case you missed it you can see my review of The Blue Zones here.

The Blue Zones as you recall was a book that analyzed the longevity secrets of various subsets of cultures who lived abnormally long compared to the rest of the population and world. The premise of the book was to identify things these people were doing that helped them to increase longevity. The book was not really a scientific study of the art of living longer or a scientific guide to longevity science but it did mimic many of the longevity secrets I’ve shared here on this blog over the past year.

The article emailed to me is a great resource for further breaking down the book and it’s finding and I invite you give it a look for a great in depth summary of how The Blue Zones authors believe you can increase Longevity. You can take a look at the article here at Surgical Technician Schools.

To summarize yet again what has already been said you need to keep the following things in mind and address each on individually in your life. By doing all of these you will not be guaranteeing an increase in longevity but you will be greatly improving your chances.

1. To increase longevity you should generally live an active life full of either exercise, physical work, or some of both. It is not really necessary to work out to exhaustion either; simply taking part in regular and routine light to moderate exercise should be enough. You can see my post on how exercise promotes longevity for more on this.
2. People who eat less food tend to have increased longevity compared to their peers who eat larger portion sizes. This concept has been noted time and again by countless studies of wide varieties of animals and it is a practice widely adopted by groups of people across the nation. The Calorie Restriction Diet or CRON diet encapsulates the concept in that people following the plan try to get as much nutrition as possible for each calorie they consume. No calorie goes wasted and the goal is to shoot for an average calorie decrease in consumption of 20-40 percent.
3. If you make sure you live your life with a sense of purpose studies and statistics show you will be far more likely to increase longevity regardless of anything else you do. Even if you have bad personal habits people who have a purpose in life tend to live longer than those who have nothing going on. You can see an old post of mine on this topic of living a longer life with purpose.
4. Another statistical sure-fire method of increasing longevity is to live your life with a positive attitude. In my post on beating depression I discuss the concept of positive thinking and how it helps the body recover from illness. The concept is that the mind is more powerful than the body at times and can will the body to live longer simply by desiring it. Powerful stuff. You can also read a related article on the topic highlighting the benefits of having positive personality traits.
5. Lastly lessons from the Blue Zones show us that people who live long lives tend to eat traditional meals which have been shown to have synergistic qualities. By eating good foods together you often will find better nutrition than if you ate the same foods separate. One easy illustration of this technique is to use food science findings and apply it to our cooking. Black pepper and turmeric have been widely shown to be very nutritionally sound when consumed together, far more so than if they are consumed separately. Similarly other foods can offer the same types of synergies such as olive oil and fat soluble vitamins.

How To Live Longer & Live Better

Of course you can do all of these things but there are always specific ways to live better without making major changes to your lifestyle. For that reason I wanted to direct you back to my index for general Longevity Tips. Many of the posts here on this blog revolve around the topic of how to increase longevity and as they go live many will be included on this index. If you are a new reader of this blog I’d like to invite you to head into the archives and see what miscellaneous longevity tips there really are.

Of course we don’t have complete control over our longevity; there is a great deal of luck involved. This is easily illustrated by the prevalence of accidents at work and at home. It’s also illustrated by the countless people who get seriously ill with no warning and for no known reason. However, despite these potential pitfalls we should truly believe that we are capable of improving longevity and living longer and better lives.

Women, Here’s How You Can Live Longer, Better and Smarter

The following is a guest post contributed by Amy S. Cook, who writes on the topic of LVN to RN. Amy welcomes your comments at her email: amy11s.cook@gmail.com. - Thank you Amy for your contribution.

When it comes to battling their weight, women have it worse than men. No, it’s not because there are physiological differences between men and women that make it harder for the latter to lose weight; it’s only because they add on the pounds during their pregnancies (or pregnancy) and then have trouble losing them once the baby is born. But the fairer sex does have one huge advantage over the stronger sex – they live longer because of their low testosterone levels. But there’s no use of living longer if you’re going to be plagued by ill health and disease, so it’s imperative that women pay attention to their health at every stage of their lives.

When in high school and college, it’s necessary to stay fit and slim because you don’t want to be teased and ostracized for being “the fat one”. It’s an unfortunate fact of life, but when you’re a teenager, external appearances matter much more than they should. So if you want to fit in, you must take the fitness route if you’re overweight or tend to put on weight fast.

Once you’re done with college, you enter the professional world, and you soon realize that it’s not all that different from school. People don’t take overweight women seriously unless they’re able to prove themselves. So again, if you want to prove your worth, it’s worth your while to watch your weight. There’s another hidden benefit to staying slim when you’re in your 20s and 30s. If you’re looking to get married and start a family, it’s been proved that overweight women are less fertile than their slimmer counterparts.

Once you have a baby, it gets even more difficult to maintain your weight. Unfortunately, most of us are not as lucky as those celebrities who have no trouble at all losing all that baby weight in just a few short weeks after junior arrives. But since we’re mere mortals, we have to huff and puff really hard to burn that additional weight away. And with the baby to look after as well, there’s hardly any time to spend on exercise – you prefer to sleep or catch up on your work if you have a few minutes of free time.

But if you’re smart, you’ll realize the wisdom of setting up a workout routine as soon as possible after your delivery because:

• The longer you wait, the harder it is to get started and the more weight you gain.
• Exercising after pregnancy brings you various health benefits.
• You feel much better about yourself when you sweat it out and start to lose weight.
• You don’t suffer from post-partum depression. 
• You go on a healthy diet which in turn is good for your baby if you’re breastfeeding.

And once you’re back to your normal weight, you must continue to exercise because:

• It’s the best way to maintain your weight.
• It’s the best route to good health.
• It’s a proven way to fight disease and keep illness away.
• It helps you live a long and healthy life.

So women, this is exactly what you need to do to live a longer, smarter and healthier life.

What Is A Normal Blood Sugar Range?

Today I went in to the office and was surprised to see a complimentary health fair provided by my employer. This always makes me happy and I was very excited to learn that we all were given the opportunity to attend the fair and have our blood sugar levels checked to see if we fall in a healthy and normal blood sugar range.

Fasting Blood Sugar Test
Unfortunately I wasn’t fasting because for some reason I didn’t realize the health fair would be put on but I got my blood sugar levels tested anyway. Turns out that after eating a bowl of cereal at 9am, a doughnut at 10am, a can of Campbell’s Chunky soup at 1pm and a Snicker’s bar at 2pm my blood sugar levels ended up sitting at 120 at 3pm. Not bad for all that food running through my system.

This got me thinking however. If a fasting blood sugar normal range is 100 and below what then are normal blood glucose levels for people who aren’t fast? Similarly what is a normal range for blood sugar that I should be shooting for at any random time during the day. After all; I don’t just want to hit the middle of the blood sugar range; I want to be better than normal.

What Is A Normal Blood Sugar Range?

First of all normal blood sugar levels are really dependent on a few things. Does normal mean good or does it mean average? If it means good you want your fasting blood sugar levels to be below 100 mg/dl. People who are prediabetic according to the normal definition of diabetes is a fasting blood glucose range between 100-126. Anything over 126 is considered a diabetic range for your blood sugar levels.

Likewise a normal blood sugar range for people who have not been fasting is usually in the low to mid 100s. This means that my blood sugar levels were in the normal range despite that Snickers bar. For more on Diabetes and blood sugar levels you may want to check out these articles on normal blood sugar levels and high blood sugar levels over on BSFD.

If you have high fasting glucose levels then you need to see this post on how to lower fasting blood sugar levels. It can help you potentialy prevent the onset of diabetes... if you take action on it that is.

Achieving A Normal Range – Blood Sugar

So anyway, what does all of this mean? How does one look at this data and objectively make a plan for achieving the desired blood sugar range? Normal blood glucose levels are a good thing and steps should be taken if your are in an elevated range. The stats are clear in that people with diabetes have health problems that continue to magnify and multiply as age advances. If you want to live longer then you have to manage your blood glucose levels better.

In past posts on this blog I have discussed at length a multitude of ways to do just this. A normal range for blood sugar is not something that you should have to actively manage your body should do it for you. In fact your pancreas should do it for you automatically. Unfortunately people in poor health may need to focus on recovery first before the body manages blood glucose levels appropriately again.

The following list contains a number of posts on this blog that relate closely to managing blood sugar ranges by preventing or treating insulin resistance. If you need help in returning to a healthy and normal blood sugar range then re-read these posts and start making changes in your life today.

• Stop Insulin Resistance – 11 Ways To Stop Insulin Resistance For Good
• Insulin Production – Manage Insulin Production Better with Fiber
• Reduce Insulin Levels – High Intensity Exercise Helps You reduce Insulin Levels Quickly.
• Reverse Insulin Resistance – Use citrus peel extract to aid in reversing insulin resistance
• Improve Insulin Sensitivity – The Fatty Acid ALA can help significantly with insulin sensitivity issues
• Insulin Levels & Vitamin K – Vitamin K helps the body maintain healthy insulin levels which help keep your body in a normal glucose range and experience normal blood sugar recovery.
• Insulin Resistance & Sleep – People who get better and longer sleep typically have better insulin and blood glucose levels

Lastly insulin resistance is not the only reason you may not be in a normal blood glucose range; make sure you use cinnamon in your cooking to help reduce blood sugar spikes in your every day meals. Staying in a normal blood sugar range is worth it and it will help you live a longer life.

For more on the topic click to see this post on lowering your fasting blood sugar levels naturally. Don't just read it; take action!