Most individuals would like to live longer, but are there any habits with scientific support that could increase longevity? Can nutrition, rest, and exercise actually lengthen your life? The good news is that there are lots of risk factors that can be changed. So, there are several strategies to improve your chances of living a longer, healthier life. Discover what adjustments you can do right away as you read on to discover about 14 habits that will lengthen your lifespan.
1. Get Enough Sleep
A lack of sleep raises your chances of obesity, heart disease, accidents, and dementia. Hence, getting adequate sleep is crucial. Your brain’s and spinal fluid’s cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which is bathed as you sleep, moves slowly to remove toxins linked to an elevated risk of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). But how can you determine how much sleep is enough when everyone’s needs are different? Going to bed when you’re exhausted and waking up naturally will give you a general idea of how much you require.
2. Eat Enough Fiber
As eating enough fiber is associated with a lower risk of colon cancer, it can also aid in extending life. Moreover, fiber is crucial for the wellbeing of all the beneficial bacteria in your gut (microbiota), which have a significant impact on cardiovascular risk. Eating 30 grams of fiber each day is advised to lower your risk of colon cancer. You can download a free cheat sheet from the internet if you are unclear of how this actually appears.
3. Have a Healthy Diet
A balanced diet rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, fermented foods, and omega-3 fatty acids can lower your risk of dementia, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and chronic inflammation. To always incorporate these meals in your diet should therefore become a habit.
4. Maintain a Healthy Weight
It’s critical to maintain a healthy weight because obesity and overeating have been associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Caloric restriction was linked to longer lifespan in animal studies. These have not yet been verified in humans, but the fact that it lowers the risk of the aforementioned health issues makes it worthwhile to take into account.
5. Socialize Frequently
There has been a 50% increase in risk of dementia associated with social isolation. Moreover, hearing loss, which is linked to a decreased capacity for social interaction, may contribute to this.
6. Add Nuts and Oils to Your Diet
Many individuals steer clear of nuts and oils because they believe they are fatty, but a significant study called PREDIMED discovered that a Mediterranean diet that includes additional olive oil or nuts may lower your risk if you are over 55 and at a high risk of cardiovascular disease. If you don’t fall into this category, the effects are less evident, but many other diets that emphasize whole grains, healthy fats, and an abundance of fruits and vegetables have similar positive impacts.
7. Be Physically Active
We all know that exercise is important, but did you also know that those who are physically active have a 30 to 35% decreased risk of passing away from all causes? Exercise lengthens your lifespan by lowering the chances of cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and other diseases. With simply regular exercise, physically active adults can extend their lives by 0.4 to 4.2 years.
Whatever you can do is better than nothing, so try to get in two sessions of weight-bearing exercise and three sessions of aerobic exercise per week.
8. Cognitive Resilience
Lower levels of cognitive reserve and resilience are linked to an increased risk of dementia. Building a brain reserve earlier in life through education and other intellectual stimulation may improve cognitive resilience in later life. Education boosts brain reserve via increasing the branching of nerve cells and plasticity (the capacity to adapt through growth and reorganization). Higher levels of education are linked to lower rates of dementia in old age.
9. Intermittent Fasting and Time-Restricted Eating
You might believe that a nutritious breakfast is the cornerstone of a healthy diet and that skipping it is bad for you, but preclinical research on animals has shown that time-restricted eating and intermittent fasting can help prevent a number of chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers, and neurodegenerative brain diseases.
There is now evidence that intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating cause cells to activate a coordinated stress response, leading to an increased expression of antioxidant defenses, DNA repair, higher standards of protein quality control, and decreased levels of inflammation. These effects have also been replicated in humans.
10. Low-Carbohydrate Diets
Diets low in carbohydrates are become more and more popular. Compared to the government’s recommendations for a healthy diet, which call for consuming roughly 50% of one’s daily energy from carbohydrates, they call for ingesting less than 26% of one’s daily energy from carbohydrates.
Many somewhat different low-carb diets, such the Keto and Atkins diets, which are popular due to rapid weight loss, are presented in the media. Ketosis is a metabolic state that happens to people who consume very little carbohydrate—between 5 and 10% of their daily calories should come from carbohydrates. Cells are compelled to break down fat rather than carbs, which are the body’s primary energy source. This process is known as ketosis or ketogenesis because specific molecules known as ketone bodies or ketones are produced.
There is proof that these diets may cause weight loss in the short term, but there is no proof that they produce better long-term weight loss. A low-carbohydrate diet has been linked to better short-term blood sugar control in type 2 diabetes, but again, there is inadequate proof of long-term advantages.
11. Avoid Smoking
Smoking raises your chances of cancer and all-cause mortality. Also, smoking reduces longevity and can cut your life short by 10 years or more, depending on how much and how long you smoked. Smoking cessation before the age of 40 (and preferably far before the age of 40) prevents more than 90% of the excess mortality brought on by continuing to smoke, while smoking cessation before the age of 30 prevents more than 97% of it.
12. Avoid Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol use accounted for 2.2% of female fatalities and 6.8% of male deaths in 2016, making it the sixth most important risk factor for both mortality and disability-adjusted life years. Alcohol use is associated to an increased risk of cancer, liver disease, and cardiovascular disease, and there is no such thing as a safe quantity of alcohol use. The risks outweigh any theoretical advantages that could exist.
13. Avoid Too Much Stress
Up to 25% of people are estimated to be affected by chronic stress. Undereating or overeating appear to be the two ways that stress alters overall food intake. It’s interesting that the level of the stressor can influence this.
Persistent life stress is linked to a stronger preference for foods that are high in nutrients and energy, such as those that are high in sugar and fat. Studies have suggested that persistent life stress in men may be associated with weight increase. Through the gut-brain link, it also affects the gut microbiota. Chronic inflammation has increased as a result of this.
14. Stay Away from Processed Meat
Red meat, which includes beef, lamb, and pork, is meat that is red when it is raw. Meat that has been processed includes both shaped meat and meat that has been preserved, such as bacon and sausages. Consuming processed meat is associated with a higher risk of developing bowel cancer. In the UK, 61 people out of every 1000 people will acquire bowel cancer.
Also, compared to the general population, those who consume the least processed meat are likely to have a decreased lifetime risk (about 56 cases per 1000 low meat-eaters). For every 1000 persons who consume the most processed meat, 66 are predicted to acquire colon cancer—10 more than those who consume the least.
