10 Ways To Live Longer Life [And Make Ours Lives Better]
In this new article you’ll find out about 10 ways to live longer life.
Advancements in medical care and technology are allowing us to live longer; but there’s much more to life than what science can give us.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle that includes good nutrition, exercise, activities, interaction, and reducing stress are all great steps that will help to launch you on your way to growing younger and living an active healthy life.
10 Ways To Live Longer Life:
1. Eat More Fruit and Vegetables
In addition to exercise, the food you put into your body is the most vital piece of the long-term health puzzle.
Although most of us understand this mission’s critical component, our day-to-day activities seem to conspire against us getting precisely what we need.
We are continually putting food sources into our bodies that are less than ideal, and we are paying the price with our future health and lifespan.
While our modern world has been responsible for some of the most vital innovations and time-savers in the history of man, the area of food is one that should have been left alone.
We are currently living in one of the most thrilling times in the history of humanity – new tools and technologies are creating breakthroughs in all spectrum’s of our lives, and we are enjoying a connected global community like never before.
Though there’s a flip side to this go-go pace and pressure, we have been able to use the natural adaptation powers that humans possess to keep pushing forward, seeing just how fast we can really go.
And while this type of pace is incredible and thrilling for the tech, research, medical, and business worlds, in terms of food products, things get a little bit out of hand.
While our options of food stuffs in the past were limited to what was available in our local area and what was in season, the globalization and manufacturing of food has changed that dramatically.
Now we can purchase processed foods at unbelievably low prices and enjoy nearly instant meals – something that dovetails perfectly with our fast-paced world, but doesn’t take into consideration the risks that these new foods possess.
We are seeing that people around the globe are choosing poorer and poorer options for fuel – which is precisely what food is.
The more we turn to processed food stuffs and away from the natural foods we have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years, the more we see disease and obesity levels jump through the roof.
We need to take control of our diets and bring back a sense of balance, or we’re going to continue to dig our graves with our teeth.
The idea of a balanced diet is a fine one, but you need to ensure that you are balancing the right components in the right amounts.
While occasional processed food is not going to throw everything out of whack, we do need to turn to the most powerful and natural sources of food that we have – fruits and veggies.
Loaded with everything a human body needs to thrive, these foods were the products that got our world to where it’s right now; they’re the fuel that civilization and history was built upon.
And while an amazing and plenty of people are turning to real and natural foods like fruits and veggies in an effort to get healthy, we need to work diligently to demonstrate how effective this switch can be and the long-term benefits of making the change – not only to save ourselves, but to save our loved ones and future generations as well.
2. Drink Tea and Red Wine
There is quite a lot of attention in the health and wellness world paid to the food you eat and the exercise you partake in.
And while these are two big cornerstones of keeping yourself in tip-top condition and boosting your overall life expectancy, the fact of the matter is that there are other variables that can have a dramatic impact on your health.
One of the most vital areas to pay attention to is the liquids that you’re putting into your body – the stuff you choose to drink.
Remember that much of our body is entirely made of water.
We need to ensure that the liquid we decide to put into our bodies (materials that are much more quickly absorbed into the body than solids) are boosting our health and not poisoning us.
And although it’s tough to beat water (something we’ll discuss in a little bit), if you’re searching for a boost of flavor, a glass of tea or red wine is an amazing alternative.
Change out your preferred morning drink and watch your overall health shoot through the roof together with your life expectancy.
The standard morning beverage for many people around the globe is a cup (or gallon) of coffee with cream and sugar.
And although there’s research that has shown some health benefits of caffeine, the other components make this a very unhealthy drink.
You’ve possibly felt the effects of drinking too much coffee before – shaky hands, headaches, etc – but if you switch to tea, you’ll never must worry about something like that again.
Perfectly hot and amazingly tasty, tea also has the additional benefit of being packed to the brim with every kind of antioxidants.
Responsible for not only cleaning house in your blood stream but also attacking and fighting back those nasty little cancer cells, the more antioxidants you can get into your body the better – and if you can get them very first thing in the morning, all the better.
While there are some that would decry the benefits of any alcohol, red wine has shown time and time again to boost the health of responsible drinkers.
While tea has been demonstrated to be a better health-wise than coffee, the jury is still a little bit out about the long-term health benefits of red wine.
Also richly loaded with antioxidants, there is a little more work that needs to go into ensuring you have the right red wine selected to provide you with the long-term health benefits you are searching for.
First, not any old wine will do – and while whites will provide you with a small boost, they aren’t the best option.
You need to choose a full-bodied red, preferably something dry – and keep away from the Zins of the world that pose as reds but are really something else totally.
A glass or two (and no more) a night has shown to give a dramatic boost to your overall health, but you need to be sure you are drinking responsibly.
3. Drink More Water
The single most vital resource in the world is water – covering most of the area of our great planet, every single life form that lives or grows on Earth needs water in some capacity or another, and that goes for people as well.
As natural a material as it gets, life itself is interlinked and intertwined with water to the extent that one without the other has no meaning – to boost our overall health and well-being in addition to the chances of living a long and rewarding life, we need to ensure we are getting enough clean and funky water to thrive.
As essential a building block to life as there’s, we would be nothing without water.
Something that we hardly ever (if ever) consider is the easy indisputable fact that we are largely water.
Sure, we are made up of a million other components – bones, muscle, organs, and the like – but when it comes all the way down to the main ingredient to our very existence we are largely water, like the rest on our great planet.
Used in just about every single facet of our bodily functions, a gradual supply of clean, fresh water is completely essential for living any kind of healthy life – without it our brains would cease to function, our blood would run as thick as syrup and overload our hearts, and our lives would end.
But beyond the maintenance function that it provides, it’s also the catalyst for many of the operations in our life – cells need it to reproduce and keep us alive, our bodies need it to heal and repair itself, and our central nervous systems rely on it to rely the messages from the brain to every inch of our bodies. Without water, we would be nothing.
The average person’s water intake is dangerously low – you need to be absolutely certain that you’re drinking the optimum amount of water each and each day to boost your lifespan and dramatically increase your health.
Though most of us understand the critical component that water plays in our day-to-day life, too many of us aren’t getting enough water to promote a healthy lifestyle.
With so many other options on the market for beverages (with too many people erroneously claiming that those options are “mostly water”) and the somewhat flavorless taste of water, people opt for the short-term fix and pleasure of less than healthy options.
While not poison in the sense that it’s going to kill us immediately, these other liquids are similar to poison in that they’re crippling our bodies from the inside.
Sure, it’s a slower process, but it’s a harmful problem none the less – our bodies have evolved over millions of years to need clean, fresh water to handle all the processes in our body (1).
The other problem is one that we find even in people who only drink water, and that’s the indisputable fact that most frequently we don’t drink enough of it.
A couple of glasses a day may feel like the correct amount, but the reality is that our bodies are working overtime in a dehydrated state too much of the time.
Boost your intake by at least three glasses a day and you’ll see dramatic increases in your overall health.
4. Eat Chocolate
One of the most satisfying and delicious treats the world has ever known, chocolate has been prized for years and years all over the world as a delicacy.
There were some historical cultures that prized this product so much that people would go their entire lives without having a single bit – all the chocolate in the land was held in reserve for the most special occasions and only the rich had access to it.
And while chocolate has been made available to just about anyone in the world, it’s under a new attack of sorts – people have been shouting from the rooftops about the risks to your health of eating too much chocolate.
And while there’s some evidence to show the indisputable fact that too much chocolate can and will harm you, this is true of almost anything.
As luck would have it, chocolate isn’t all bad for you – there are nearly three hundred different compounds in this deliciously dark treat that can in fact make you healthier and happier.
Yes, you chocolate lovers read that correctly – while too much chocolate may only make your local clothing store happy, when you eat the right amounts, you can expect dramatic boosts to your well-being.
First, the right kinds of chocolate have been shown to release serotonin into the blood stream, in fact making you feel happier in the moment that you’re eating the chocolate.
If you’ve ever felt better when eating a chocolate bar, it wasn’t just a mental association – your body is reacting to the chocolate in a favorable way.
There are other components in the chocolate as well that cause these kinds of feelings (tryptophan and phenyllethylamin being two of them) so you are getting a major dose of the feel-goods with this delicious food stuff.
On top of that there are compounds that will in fact boost your overall and long-term health called oleic acid and epicatechin, ingredients that boost your good cholesterol level in addition to give your blood vessels the kind of boost they need to transport more and more nutrients all over your body.
If you are serious about unlocking the health benefits of chocolate, you need to ensure that you are eating the right kinds in the right amounts – but that doesn’t mean you should shy away from the “lesser” chocolates all the time.
There is a little bit of a rub here although, in that not all chocolate is created the same.
There are quite a lot of people who would like to capitalize on the love of chocolate across the world, and most of these products are cheap imitations from the real stuff loaded down with sugar and other additives that entirely and completely negate the positive effects.
Make sure you are buying the best and most complete chocolate possible for health benefits, and at all times eat smaller amounts so as not gain unnecessary amounts of weight.
Even still, sneaking a couple of “bad” bars once in a while has never killed anyone.
5. Adjust Sleeping Time
Nothing feels quite as nice as a good, long, refreshing sleep – and while many of us understand that there’s a biological need to get some rest, too often we try to burn the candle as much as possible while we are awake and don’t give ourselves enough time to rebuild.
And while we see the effects of not enough sleep all around us (loss of fine motor skills, degradation in decision making, and a host of other problems), the fact of the matter is that our modern world has become so go-go and demanding that we feel powerless to change.
This lack of sleep is not only hurting us in the short term, but also playing a major role in how long we can expect to be on this planet in the long term.
The jury may still be out on why precisely humans need sleep to function properly, but the evidence is all around us.
We are born with a system that demands we get some sleep – any sleep – after a set amount of time.
Sure, we can push back the clock just as hard as we want, but the implications of doing so are serious.
What may start as an absence of concentration and a slow degradation of decision making can quickly devolve into full blown hallucinations and the body going into “sleep mode” all on its own – and depending on what you were doing when the mind and body have called time out you could be putting yourself and others in serious danger.
For years now, doctors and scientists around the globe have been looking into the reasons that humans need sleep, but so far, the well has proven to be dry.
We understand that we do need it, but much like the secrets of gravity, this answer lies just beyond our grasp.
Regardless, the evidence is there and we need to fully embrace the indisputable fact that sleep is a compulsory part of keeping our bodies and minds in the best condition possible.
For too long people have focused purely on the amount of hours we sleep (usually touting eight as the perfect number) while ignoring the quality of those sleeping hours.
While people are quick to shout out that eight hours of sleep is all a person needs to get every single night, this number is dangerous on a couple of various levels.
One, a rule of thumb across the broad spectrum of individuals for anything is irresponsible – there are just too many variables that come into play to say that this is the best number we could come up with.
Secondly, it doesn’t take into consideration the main reasons for sleep – repair and recuperation, which could be very little for somebody who leads a largely sedentary life to very demanding for a person who is continually active.
You also need to figure in the quality of the sleep you are getting – eight hours of restless stop and go sleep is much different than six hours of uninterrupted peaceful rest on a top-of-the-line mattress.
Be smart about your sleep decisions; be sure you are getting all the sleep you personally need, and at all times invest in the best sleeping solutions to boost your long-term health prospects.
6. Get More Friends
While it may seem to be a highschool thing, having more friends (and social experiences) has been proven to have a dramatic effect on the quality of life that people are able to enjoy.
Studies have shown that people who pull back or isolate themselves from society end up passing on a lot earlier than others, are much more vulnerable to disease, and have higher instances of depression.
And while getting more friends and boosting your social circle may not inoculate you from these problems, being around a group of individuals you enjoy and can engage with will provide you with a huge upgrade on your overall health.
When you isolate yourself from the people around you, you aren’t only closing yourself off socially but are also crippling yourself mentally.
While the social aspect of going out with friends and getting in enough physical activity is a big component to growing and nurturing a tight social circle, some of the biggest health benefits come in the mental arena – interacting with a diversified group of individuals can stretch your boundaries and offer new perspectives that you wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to.
This not only challenges you to grow as a person and as a friend, but also has a way to keeping your mind sharp.
While it needs exercise through different methods than a muscle, the brain still needs to be challenged to grow or it will atrophy – just look at the instances of individuals who retire.
Those that continue to work and socialize in some capacity have been shown to have better motor skills, lead more active and interesting lifestyles, and even live longer than those that retire to a life of TV and relaxation.
Thought the science is still catching up with the exact reason for why this is so, there’s enough evidence to point to the indisputable fact that this is a growing and serious issue that needs to be addressed.
One of the best ways to go out and get more friends is to throw yourself into it wholeheartedly.
Friendships, like any other relationship you’ll engage in throughout your life, are things that just don’t crop up out of nowhere.
You need to continually be exposing yourself to different groups of individuals, seeing who you mesh with, and then spending time together and really trying to establish something.
While socializing in general has the power to keep you sharper than doing nothing, the extreme focus and shared bond of a real and sincere friendship has the power to transform your life.
If it’s been a while since you’ve looked into establishing new friendships, the best way to do so is to throw yourself into the process wholeheartedly.
Don’t just look for two or three specific opportunities to make new friends – treat every single social encounter as a chance to at least lay the foundation for a real friendship.
And although it may feel a little bit odd at first, understand that you’re going down a path that won’t only boost your health and happiness in the long haul, but also let you share with another human being.
7. Exercise More Often
It’s no secret that as a people we have gotten more and more unhealthy – it’s impossible not to look around your environment and see instances of individuals that are very overweight, sometimes dangerously so.
And in some of those cases, we may just fit that bill.
Though much of it has to do with our eating habits and diet routines, the fact of the matter is that our modern world helps us to stay overweight more than it helps us lose the pounds.
Sure, there are tools and techniques on the market to help us get more fit, but modern technology has allowed just about all of us to enjoy a sedentary life that wasn’t possible in the past – we can do nearly everything from a computer, have few reasons to get outside and enjoy strenuous activity, and with all the programming on TV and video games, the problem doesn’t appear to be going away.
But something needs to be done, particularly when you think about the indisputable fact that we are fast becoming the heaviest nation in the world.
One of the two major components to a long and health life, exercise is the backbone of really living.
A reliable and consistent exercise plan has the power to completely and entirely change our lives for the better –all we need to do is locate a program and stick to it.
While diet also plays a major role, exercise gives us the leverage to transform our bodies and minds at the same time.
Getting healthy often starts with a combination of the two, but if you’re concerned about getting into shape right now, exercise can be done with zero tools or components to buy – all you need is yourself and a few spare time.
While there are some routines and methods that have been proven to be more effective at losing weight or gaining muscle, the fact of the matter is that any sort of exercise – even just recreationally playing a game or walking around the block – can have an impact on your health.
Science and research has given us incredible insight into what makes the body change and adapt, and has allowed us to fine-tune an exercise program to drop weight or pack on muscle – or both!
But for many of us, the goal is to not just look like a celebrity or model, but to feel better and to be healthier.
When this is your goal just about any program will do, even if it’s no program at all.
Walking is becoming popular again, particularly in urban areas, but any kind of recreational act that you do regularly will provide you with some sort of boost in the health department.
The important thing here is to focus on something that you’ll stick to, something you’ll enjoy and continue throughout your life.
Exercise is the key to living longer, and something we cannot afford to disregard any more.
8. You Just Need to Relax
Our modern world is more pressure-packed and activity-filled than ever – the demands on our time and energy are seemingly endless, and we continue to take withdrawals out of our energy bank that we can’t cash.
This go-go attitude and lifestyle normally earns us a spectacular flame out ending in a crash and burn experience, and although we see all the time evidence for this serious issue we are nearly powerless to stop ourselves from going down the same road.
The saddest part of this whole problem is that we ourselves have created this problem, but we have the perfect solution.
While some of the external pressures we feel are very real and have serious consequences, much of it’s created internally when we play our own story on top of the perceptions that we are having a few given time.
The pressures may or may not be real, but to us we may as well have a piano set down on our chest.
More than ever we need to learn to relax, to breathe, to decompress – but also to protect ourselves from this happening in the first place.
Stress has been shown time and time again to be a literal killer – slow things all the way down to be sure you don’t burst from the pressures of our modern world.
There is an adage in the Special Forces military community that says slow is smooth, smooth is fast – and there may be nobody alive that’s forced to deal with very real pressure more than a Special Forces operator on a mission.
What this essentially means is that although we think speed is everything, it often causes more harm than good.
Sure, we could fly through something and end up with a somewhat passable product, but if we had just taken a little bit of time to slow down and breathe, we would be capable to produce something significantly better.
Stress on our minds equates to problems all over the body, and when we feel the pressure of the world pushing in on us, our brains are powerful enough to manifest it physically – we get headaches, we feel sick, we become weak or fall to an sickness.
The brain has the power to dictate anything it perceives as real, and we need to remain vigilant in ensuring that we don’t feed a monster that doesn’t exist.
Though there are a million and one different options out there for relaxation, but the best solutions are free and completely natural.
There are quite a lot of drugs and medicines out there that promise to relax us effectively – but what often happens is that we become total vegetables and lose all the qualities that make us human.
And that’s without talking about the unbelievably dangerous side effects that we must contend with.
It’s important that we are able to disconnect from the pressures of the world when we start to feel them mounting, and to actually assess whether or not they are actual problems or something that we have created all on our own.
Whenever you start to feel the walls closing in, stand up, take a couple of deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth, and make a decision whether or not you are dealing with real or perceived pressures.
Use this easy exercise and you’ll quickly be capable to master any stressful situation, leading to a healthier life.
9. Get a Pet
According to recent studies, even although the economy has seen better times and folks are struggling to make ends meet, more and more people are turning to four-legged (and sometimes furry and feathered) friends to help them get through the rocky times.
Often lifelong companions, the decision to get a pet shouldn’t solely be made just to make you feel better and to boost your health prospects (although they’ve the power to do so) – this is a serious commitment to take responsibility for one more life, and doing so recklessly is dangerous and irresponsible.
While a dog may be a man’s best friend, the fact of the matter is that bringing just about any pet into your home can dramatically boost your life expectancy.
The change in a person’s entire outlook, perception, and overall attitude is dramatic when they decide to bring a pet into their lives.
Often as near having a child as you can get without in fact having one, you’ll be in complete and total charge of another life – one that will only be capable to communicate with your non-verbally.
There is a complete learning curve to taking care of and raising an animal, but it can be probably the most rewarding experiences a person can have – often they become not just a pet, but a family member.
The most interesting thing about the health boost that comes with being a pet owner is that you don’t must buy a conventional pet to get the boost – while dogs and cats are the most common animals to bring into your home, if you have an attachment to fish, birds, reptiles – even goats and spiders – you’ll be capable to see a dramatic change in your well-being.
The important thing to focus on is your level of connection and how connected you are to the life you are bringing into your home, not so much as the animal that it’s.
There are other bonuses to getting a pet – not only will you see your health boost because of a sense of responsibility, but you’ll also be capable to enjoy real compassion and a sense of belonging with your new animal.
Aside from the health boosts that come with the mental shifts necessary for being a responsible pet owner, you’ll also get some from the emotions of compassion and love that you get on an everyday basis from your animal.
There is a special bond that’s created between a person and their pets, something that’s indescribable in words but an emotion that we all have felt deep down at one point or another.
There is something about the look in our animal’s eyes that creates a sense of trust, belonging, and love that can’t be duplicated – and since we must focus so much on their body language to determine what they’re searching for at a selected moment, we learn to communicate on a whole new level.
10. Be More Optimistic
The odds are great that you know a handful of individuals that are optimistic about almost anything – true glass half full people who just don’t appear to be capable of having a bad day.
Perhaps you are one of these people who seem to have sunshine at all times shining on their backs, a spring in their step and the quiet confidence essential to get things done irrespective of what is going on around them.
These people, these optimists, are often the most successful people we know – continually tackling jobs that nobody else will and finding themselves rewarded for it, at all times knowing precisely what to say and when, seemingly oblivious to the mountains of pressures and problems that are surrounding them and somehow at all times coming out on top – there’s a real reason for this power, and a secret behind why so many of our elders are the most positive people you could meet.
The human mind is an unbelievably powerful thing, a piece of us that we can barely understand – it controls everything about our lives, and what we consider most we frequently manifest.
Positive thinking is the best way to make sure that you plow through any situation with the kind of force and attitude necessary for fulfillment.
Perhaps the most powerful thing in the known universe, the human mind is capable of miracles.
Perhaps not miracles in the areas of levitation or telepathy, but our brains control everything about our lives.
Reality for the most part is not truth, but perception – and while you or I may both be dealing with the same events, we will both see two totally different “truths” about the situation.
The most glaring example of this is in the case of sports – two teams and fan bases will watch a single game where there’s a loser and a winner.
Those that root for the winner will see that event as an amazing thing of happiness and an awesome success, while those that supported the loser will only see sorrow and frustration.
The outcome and the reality is precisely the same for both groups, but the outcome and perception is different and effects how we feel at any given moment.
There is a different between being optimistic and being naïve – a fine balance that needs to be walked, but you should at all times err on the side of positive thinking irrespective of the situation.
To boost your long-term health and happiness, you must train yourself to look for the better part of any situation (2), and although it may not seem true at first, there is nearly at all times a silver lining.
Strive to find the great in things without being blind to the bad, and make every day precisely what you want.
With just a little bit of practice and application of this new mindset, you’ll see the world as never before, and will find dramatic changes in your life just seeming to occur all on their own.
There is tremendous power in perception and your mind, if only you’d unlock it.
I want to thank you for taking the time to read my article about 10 ways to live longer life. I sincerely hope its contents have been a good help to you.
