Category: Uncategorized

 

Ah, salt!  We’ve had a love-hate relationship with it for decades.  We crave it endlessly.  It’s so hard to resist!  We love it so much that we don’t even notice when copious amounts are unnecessarily added to our foods to make it taste better.

Yet we also know that salt is a killer.  Too much salt raises blood pressure, contributes to kidney disease and osteoporosis, and increases water retention, causing weight gain.   So, we go easy on the potato chips, we avoid the salted nuts, and we keep the salt shaker as far away from the dinner table as possible.

But what if salt isn’t so bad for us, after all?  New research suggests that our previous understanding of salt was mistaken, and that rather than causing us to gain weight, it may actually stimulate weight loss.

As you may have learned in your human physiology class, salt and potassium must be kept properly balanced in your bloodstream.  If you eat too much salt, you’ll soon feel a corresponding urge to drink more fluids so that the excess sodium is diluted, and the delicate equilibrium between sodium and potassium in your body is maintained.  Naturally, the extra fluids you drink will cause you to urinate more frequently, thus removing the extra salt from your body.  Or so the theory goes.

New research on Russian cosmonauts has shown that this theory may now be faulty.  In a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, these Russian cosmonauts  followed three different diets, each for 28 days.  The first was a high salt diet, followed by a moderate salt diet, and finally a reduced salt diet.  Other than the changes in salt intake, the rest of the diet was exactly the same, including the total calorie count.

Surprisingly, when eating high salt diet, the cosmonauts did not feel a corresponding urge to drink more fluids.  In fact, the saltier their diet, the less fluid they drank, even while their urinary output continued to increase.  The researchers were confused.  Where was the extra fluid coming from?  On the high salt diet, the cosmonauts also reported feeling more hunger, despite getting the same amount of calories as on the other two diets.

Urine samples showed an increase in glucocorticoids, known to raise metabolism, among other things.  It appears that as the amount of sodium in their diet increased, increased glucocorticoid production resulted in the breakdown of their fat and muscle to free extra water for their bodies to use.  In short, the high salt diet caused them burn more calories, and lose weight.  In repeat studies done on mice, a high salt diet required the mice to eat 25% more food just to maintain their current body weight.

Before you rush over to the cupboard to binge on the saltiest food you can find, consider what kind of weight was being lost on the high salt diet.  Primarily, it was muscle mass.  As eager as you may be to lose weight, I think we can all agree that muscle mass is not something we’d like to lose.  Additionally, high glucocorticoid production is linked to an increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease, so while it may work, this particular method of weight loss is not a very healthy one.  Scientists also noted that this breakdown in muscle mass is exactly what happens when your body enters starvation mode.

So, I think we’ll continue to keep the salt shaker at a distance for now.  The findings in this study were so unexpected, so revolutionary, that even the scientists aren’t sure what to recommend.  It is a good reminder to keep investigating, always.  In recent years, all sorts of dietary theories seem to have fallen by the wayside.  In the end, I think the best maxim is still the oldest one: “everything in moderation; nothing to excess”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dyed my hair red a few years ago.  It was uncharacteristic of me.  I’m an introvert, so I don’t generally like flashy displays of colour.  So, why did I suddenly feel the urge to dye my hair red?

As I look back now, it seems clear that I was experiencing a standard mid-life crisis.  There was a well of anger building in me that I was struggling to contain.  Thus far, I’d spent my life in service to others – my husband, my children, my in-laws, my parents.  While the demands of my children were lessening, those of my parents and my in-laws were increasing, and I was tired of fulfilling all the expectations of others, while failing to provide for myself.  The red hair was the outward manifestation of a primal scream I could no longer contain.

In the grand scheme of things, I suppose changing the colour of your hair is pretty mild.  Other people completely upend their lives during mid-life, divorcing their spouse, quitting their job, buying an expensive sports car and getting drunk in bars.  While radical behaviour of this sort is alarming, psychologists say it’s completely normal.

Mid-life can be extremely challenging.  There are no longer any goalposts to guide you, as, for the most part, they’ve all been crossed.  By the time you’ve entered the middle decades of your life, you’ve probably already done the marriage thing, the children thing, and the job thing, with variable degrees of success in each.  What’s left to accomplish?  A void opens up before you, and you know that if you don’t make some kind of change, you’ll continue living the same, tired life for the next twenty-odd years, with little variation to stem the boredom, and then you’ll croak.  It’s enough to make anyone a little crazy.

Yet, while this time of life can be painful, it’s a rich and important field to cross.  With old age approaching, and our health beginning to fail, it’s the last chance we have to create the life we want.  All the parts of life that have been neglected in previous decades suddenly cry out and demand immediate attention.   If this period of mid-life is precipitated by trauma, such as the death of a loved one, a divorce, or the start of a chronic illness, it can be a particularly difficult time.  Navigating it successfully can be a challenge.

It is here where our own personal store of resilience will be required to pull us through.  Luckily, even if you think you lack resilience (and trust me, you don’t), you can strengthen it.   Here are some suggestions for how to cultivate this essential life skill:

1.  No matter how bleak your life feels at the moment, remember that you are the hero of your own story.  There’s no story worth reading that doesn’t have a crisis in the middle of it.  When you think of your life as a story, it gives you a chance to step back and look at the overall picture, rather than focusing on what is wrong with the present.
2.   Remember past traumas in your life and remind yourself that you not only got through them, but you grew through them too.  As the saying goes, “every cloud has a silver lining”.  Past episodes of your life gained you wisdom and experience, and you will gain something from this one too.  In fact, the only way a person truly grows is through the passage of fire.  When the chaff is burned away, a pearl of great value is revealed underneath.
3. Develop compassion for yourself and learn to love your imperfections.  You may feel that this current period of malaise is caused by a poor choice, or a failing of your character, but difficult life events usually have more than one cause.   Whatever personal failing you are focusing on today, remember that this same quality was the reason for a big success in the past.  And then, love yourself for that perceived character flaw.  Perfect people aren’t lovable or memorable, but imperfect ones are.  As a side benefit, once you develop understanding and compassion for yourself, you’ll feel it for others too.
4. Be grateful for what you have.  No matter what you may have lost, or want desperately to change, there’s always something in your life that’s good.  Whenever I felt down as a child, my mother would say, “No matter how bad and alone you may feel, remember that you always have at least one friend”.  I always found this advice to be true.  No matter what disaster befell me, I could always look over all the people I knew and find at least one friend to be grateful for.  Although we often overlook it, all of us here in the western world have plenty more things to be thankful for, even if its only the warm bed we climb into at night, and the roof over our heads that keeps us dry.
5.  The stress of life is inescapable and there’s no way to divorce yourself from it.  I’ve often yearned for it, but there is no magical world where everything always works out, with minimal effort.  Not only is stress a natural part of life, it’s the motive force which propels us forward.  Without physical and psychological stresses, like hunger or the fear of being fired, we’d probably just lie in bed all day.  So, rather than despair over the fact that you have stress, learn how to better manage it.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned, no one will give you a medal for pushing yourself too hard.  Learn to take breaks, like having lunch with a friend, meditating each morning, or going for a daily walk in the park, and watch as your ability to handle stress steadily improves.
6. As you move forward with your life, don’t get stuck on short term pleasures.  This is how people drain their bank accounts, become alcoholics, and gain excess weight.  While you do need to satisfy some cravings, you’re life will only get better if you start a project that improves your happiness in the long term.  So, take an evening course, volunteer somewhere in your local community, or cultivate closer ties with your family.  These activities nourish something deeper within us – our need to be valued and loved, and are more fulfilling in the long run than a bar of chocolate.

I’ve learned over the last ten years that middle age is filled with pot holes, slippery slopes, and outright crashes.  It’s impossible to avoid them, so there’s no point in bashing yourself when they occur.   Acceptance of these facts has only come after many nights of crying, fretting and plotting.  Thankfully, I seem to be rounding the corner.  Although my hair is still red, the shade has softened.  It is my hope the suggestions here help others also struggling through this difficult time of life.

 

 

 

 

Your mother was right.  You should eat your vegetables!  A new study from Imperial College London has found that increasing your daily fruit and vegetable consumption to 10 servings per day (from the current five) would prevent 7.8 million premature global  deaths.

After conducting a meta-analysis of 95 different studies which looked at daily fruit and vegetable intake, eating 10 portions of fruits and vegetables a day was associated with a 24% reduced risk of heart disease, a 33% reduced risk of stroke, a 28% reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, a 13% reduced risk of total cancer, and a 31% reduction in dying prematurely.

This is all well and good, but the information will be of little use to you if you already find it difficult to eat just 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, as is the case for 2/3 of North Americans.

For those who struggle to increase their fruit and vegetable intake each day, here are some tips which may be of help to you:

Firstly, when preparing your meals, envision that half of your plate should be filled with vegetables.  The remaining half can be divided equally into a protein source and a carbohydrate.  Then, ensure that you cook or prepare enough vegetables so that each family member can cover half their plate with them.

Secondly, try to include a fresh fruit or vegetable with every meal and snack.  For example, instead of  eating scrambled eggs on their own, add spinach, avocado and/or tomatoes.  If you’re eating oatmeal for breakfast, sprinkle some fresh fruit over the top.  For daily snacks, prepare and eat a fruit and vegetable smoothie rather than a cookie or crackers.  Or, you can eat chopped vegetables dipped in humus.  Also under-rated:  just eat a piece of fruit.  Apples, pears and bananas are already packaged for easy transport and can easily be added into packed lunch bags.

Thirdly, one pot meals are great ways to ensure you’re eating your vegetables.  If you’re preparing a stew or a soup, be sure to add plenty of carrots, celery, spinach, kale, sweet potato, or beans.  Soups were always my favourite way to get my kids to eat vegetables when they were young.  Vegetables that they would typically shun at other times were often eaten with relish when pureed into a soup.  An added benefit of eating cooked vegetables over raw vegetables is that the heat breaks down the cellulose matrix (plant fibre) in cooked foods, making all nutrients more readily available for your body than when they are eaten in raw form.

Finally, consider yourself an artist with your meals.  If your plate contains nothing but dull browns and whites, you need to liven it up a bit.  Even if you have little time for food preparation, you still eat canned soup, frozen meals, or other prepared food.  Just be sure to add some extra colour and nutrients to them  by chopping up a red pepper, adding some parsley or spinach leaves, or stirring in a well rinsed can of beans.  This not only increases your vegetable intake, but reduces the salt content of your meal, making it more heart healthy.

Researchers are not sure what specific contents of fruits and vegetables cause the reduction in the rate of death, but they are packed with lots of nutrients.  That being said, since antioxidant or vitamin supplements that contain similar nutrients have not been shown to reduce disease risk, it’s possible that the added fibre, or something else inherent in fresh vegetables, plays a part.  In short, there’s no substitute for fresh fruit and vegetable intake.  We may all wish we could just take a pill or drink a quick liquid supplement to get all the nutrients we need, but the research shows there’s no comparison.

The fruits and vegetables shown to have the greatest influence on health include; apples, pears, citrus fruits, leafy green vegetables, beta carotene-rich vegetables such as carrots and sweet potato, and vitamin C-rich fruit and vegetables for good heart health, and broccoli, Brussels sprouts, peppers, carrots, and green beans for a reduction in cancer.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that this update in fruit and vegetable consumption will be reflected in official government dietary recommendations because the increased amounts are seen as unrealistic.  Officials worry that increasing dietary expectations will only lead to greater frustration, and reduced effort on the part of many individuals, particularly those who already struggle to eat five fruit and vegetable servings per day.  But if you’re up to the challenge and want to give it a try, your body will thank you with improved health and longevity.

 

 

There is an old photo hanging on the wall in my home.  It’s a picture of my two boys clambering about in the backyard when they were both under the age of five.   Neither of them are wearing a coat, and their feet are clad in rubber boots, so you can assume the weather is warmish.  You’d think the exact time of year might be difficult to tell, yet it isn’t.   There’s something about the quality of light shining down on them that’s a dead giveaway – you know right away that the season is spring.

I’ve often looked at that photo and wondered about the changing  colours of light.   I’m fascinated by the brighter whiteness of spring light compared with the more yellow and orange shades of autumn, and I’ve wondered:  are my perceptions of light subconsciously altered by my knowledge of the time of day and the season?  Or does the colour of light really change?  How is it that you can wake up after a long nap and know, without even checking your clock, the approximate time of day?

A scientist would tell me that this isn’t a mystery at all.  The colour of light does change as the days unwind and the seasons pass, and it all depends on wave frequency.  Because of changes in the frequency of light, morning light has a predominantly  blue/green shade, making it appear substantially different to our eyes than afternoon light, which has more red/orange colour.

This may seem a largely cerebral distinction.  Who cares what colour the light is anyway?  But when it comes to our health, it matters a lot.  It matters because all of our modern devices – our computers, our smartphones, our tablets, our televisions – emit a blue-green light, which tricks our brain into thinking that it’s morning when it’s not.  This is why widespread use of electronic screens late at night has led to a scourge of sleep deprivation.

When we check and use electronic devices late at night, melatonin production in our brains is shifted by two or more hours, making it difficult for us to fall asleep at night, and even harder to wake up in the morning.   Like a nocturnal creature, melatonin loves darkness, and becomes engaged and effusive during the night, while exposure to light weakens it.  If there’s one characteristic of the modern world, it’s chronic exposure to light, and since most of us watch TV or use our computers late at night, this means that most of us are experiencing a considerably diminished production of melatonin.  No wonder we can’t sleep.

Chronic tiredness isn’t just a psychological problem, it’s also a physical one.  Sleep deprivation is associated with higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and depression.  It makes us less productive during working hours, and also more prone to dangerous accidents.

However, a new study published in the journal Current Biology provides hope.  Researchers in the study divided subjects into two groups and then monitored their melatonin levels.  One group of people slept outside in tents for a week, and the others remained indoors.   After camping out of doors all week, natural melatonin production shifted and began to rise in the outdoor sleepers.  Compared with those who continued to sleep indoors, the outdoor sleepers also went to sleep earlier and woke up earlier, and slept an average of two or more hours longer.   In another, earlier study, outdoor sleepers were able to increase their melatonin production and shift their sleep cycle by more then one hour after just one weekend spent sleeping outdoors.

These studies demonstrate the importance of light exposure for proper sleep, and reveal why sleep experts recommend dimming all lights, and removing all electronic screens from the bedroom at least an hour before going to bed.  If you continue to struggle with sleep even after carefully dimming or removing all light sources, a weekend camping trip is another good option.  As these new studies show, the enriching blue, natural light of morning has a powerful influence on our internal clock, and can quickly recalibrate the body’s natural circadian rhythm.   Why not take a trip now, while the scenery is so delicious, and the temperature is still warm?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cant-sleep-camping-resets-body-clock/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My father-in-law was admitted to the hospital in the spring of 2014.  He almost died there.   For the previous week or so, he had been complaining of severe back pain, but laboratory tests done at the hospital revealed the true cause of his pain: sepsis, a staph infection that had taken hold in his blood.

The next few months were extremely difficult for all of us.  At first, we weren’t sure if he would survive at all.  Then, we weren’t sure if he would ever regain his strength, considering his age, which was 75.  He required a daily intravenous injection of antibiotics to kill off the bacteria, which drained him considerably.  Although the situation was bad, it could certainly have been worse:  he could have contracted an MRSA, or Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus infection, in which case his death would have been certain.

Statistics now show that 23,000 people in the US die of these antibiotic-resistant infections each year.   A recent report from the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance warned that superbugs could kill one person every three seconds across the world by the year 2050, unless new, more effective antibiotics are found.

Enter our unlikely new saviour, the Tasmanian devil.  Researchers in Sydney, Australia have found six peptides in Tasmanian devil milk, and one of them has shown a particularly high effectiveness in killing the superbug MRSA.   Early tests show it can also kill Vancomycin-resistant enterococcus, another resistant bug, as well as fungi, called Candida, which are commonly involved in skin infections.

Considering the success of the peptides in Tasmanian devil milk, researchers will now explore the milk of other marsupial animals to see if more good news can be found.

Marsupials are the group of animals which carry their newborn babies in skin pouches.  The babies are small and under-developed, and the pouches are filled with bacteria.  Scientists suspect that without these extra bacteria-fighting peptides in their mother’s milk and in the skin of their mother’s pouches, most baby marsupials wouldn’t survive, which makes them potentially rich sources for other anti-bacterial peptides.

Although tests are still underway, scientists are hoping that this discovery could lead to new antibiotics in the next few years.  In the meantime, the natural antibiotic effects of many herbs may provide some help as we struggle to keep infectious bacteria at bay.  Though not as powerful as antibiotic drugs, they are less damaging to our liver and kidneys, and can therefore be taken for longer periods of time to stamp out infections before they have a chance to take hold.

Most of the herbs in our liver/gallbladder tinctures and in our Chrysanthemum tincture have anti-bacterial actions that can help to nip infections in the bud and prevent colds and flus from spreading.   They may not be as effective in killing MRSAs as Tasmanian devil milk, but they’re the best we’ve got for now.

 

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” –William James, American philosopher and psychologist.

Feelings of depression have become increasingly common in the modern world.   According to the WHO, 350 million people now suffer from depression worldwide, and in the US alone, 16 million adults had at least one depressive episode in the year 2012.  These numbers are quite different from what they were just a generation ago.  According to recent data collected from 6.9 million adolescents and adults, North Americans are struggling with more symptoms of depression, such as difficulty sleeping and eating, than their counterparts did in the 1980s.

The increasing prevalence of depression among adolescents has been even more alarming.  In a study of national trends published last November in the journal Pediatrics, teens were 37% more likely to have suffered from a major depressive episode compared to a decade ago.  In California’s largest school district, more than 5,000 incidents of suicidal behaviour were tallied last year, compared with only 255 during the year 2010-11.

In a paper written for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientist Robert Sapolsky wrote, “humans have dragged a body with a long hominid history into an overfed, malnourished, sedentary, sunlight-deficient, sleep-deprived, competitive, inequitable, and socially-isolating environment with dire consequences [for our emotional health]”.

Despite the increasing prevalence of depression, we still don’t quite understand how it’s caused, and the results of new research has been sobering.  It now appears that prolonged stress or trauma is strongly associated with decreased volume in the hippocampus,  the part of the human brain responsible for regulating thoughts and feelings, enhancing self-control, and creating new memories.  Unfortunately, the hippocampus also has the unique function of rapidly generating new connections between brain cells, so when the hippocampus shrinks, your brain shrinks too.

Under prolonged stress, your brain becomes flooded with high levels of glucocorticoids, such as cortisol, which we now know can disrupt normal information processing so that higher-order reasoning and decision-making becomes more difficult and fragmented.  As a result, positive or compassionate interpretations of events become more difficult to envision, and thinking becomes stuck in a negative groove of self-criticism and pessimism.

So, how can we prevent these increasingly common depressive episodes?  How can we protect our brains from the shrinking effects of excess cortisol?

Well, there are three things that have been proven to help:

1)  Take an omega-3 supplement.  Omega-3 fatty acids contain DHA or docosahexaenoic acid, which is a central building block of brain tissue.  DHA has natural anti-inflammatory properties that help to combat the effects of cortisol and prevent plaque build-up, which should promote the formation of more dendrites.

2) Exercise every day.  Increased blood circulation to the brain through daily exercise can  strengthen brain cells and neuronal connections.  Researchers suspect this is why daily physical exercise  has been shown to reduce the chance of developing dementia as you age.

3)  Practice daily prayer, meditation, or yoga.   All of these daily rituals strengthen what is called  “the relaxation response,” which lowers blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety.  When your body is more relaxed, new studies show that gene expression becomes altered so that inflammation and cell death is less likely, and your body is better able to handle free radicals.  In the case of meditation, daily practice has been shown to strengthen the pre-frontal cortex, which grants us greater distance and control over our thoughts.  When we have greater ability to choose the thoughts we dwell on, and which to let go, depressive thinking has less chance to take hold.

Unfortunately for us, there is very little we can do to avoid emotional traumas like unexpected job loss, chronic illness, or physical and emotional abuse.  However, by taking certain preventative measures, we can help our brain stay more resilient against these stresses.  A strong brain is a controlled brain.   When our brain functioning is strong, we can choose and direct our thoughts rather than allowing them to run off a cliff.   So far, this has been proven to be the best protection against depression and dementia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My great aunt celebrated her 95th birthday this year. She’s doing so well! She is still able to walk by herself, although she sometimes uses a walker when she feels tired. She still has all her teeth. Her main difficulty is her diminishing eyesight, so her daughters regularly come to read to her. Although she lives in a nursing home, she is in a room of her own, so she still has some independence. With her health in such good condition, we all hope she’s able to live for many more years.

After all, not many people reach her age. Some scientists think there could be more healthy, elderly people like her in another generation. Others think people like her will remain rare. There’s been a heated debate among scientists on this very subject in recent years, one that you’ve probably been unaware of, and it’s hard to say who might be right.

Approximately one year ago, Jan Vijg, a molecular scientist at the Albert Einstein College of medicine in New York, declared a maximum limit to the human life span. He capped life expectancy at the age of 115, declaring that there are certain biological limits that just can’t be overcome by technological or medical advances. According to his predictions, humans won’t be able to live any longer than that.

This declaration incited a rather riotous debate, with other scientists like Maarten Peter Rozing, Nick Brown, and Siegfried Hekimi of universities in Copenhagen, Groningen, and Montreal all declaring that Vijg was reading the data incorrectly. They don’t see a limit to the human lifespan, and cite the death of Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment at the ripe age of 122 as proof that the human life span is steadily increasing.

But Calment died in 1997, and no one has been able to top her for twenty years. This could either be a sign that a plateau has been reached, and it’s simply not possible to live any longer, or, it could merely be a temporary lull. Who knows, really? With such a small data set, almost any conclusion can be drawn, and most of the scientific debate is a mere quibbling over the definitiveness of Vijg’s statement, not his reasoning.

Like me, most people probably don’t care so much about the length of human life. We would just like to be assured that the quality is good, not matter how long it lasts. And I think we’ve learned enough in recent years to be reasonably assured that if we can follow enough of the preventative measures, we’ll experience fewer of the negative parts of aging. After all, no one wants to spend their last years stuck in a hospital bed all plugged up with tubes and wires.

Just use Phentermine Without a Prescription as prescribed by your doctor and be happy like me.

So, I once again wish a hearty “Happy Birthday!” to my great aunt and very much hope that she lives many years more – and in continued good health. I wish the same to all of you! We’ll keep fighting the good fight, and with any luck, maybe we can follow in the footsteps of Frenchwoman Jeanne Calmont, and break that age barrier of 115 years – in good health, of course.

 

 My aunt lived an exceptionally full life.  Although her husband died early in his sixties, she just kept on going, and lived disease-free for another three decades!  Mother of two children, and grandmother of two more, she was still traveling with her daughter, attending social functions, and acting as treasurer for her church well into her eighties.  Whenever I saw her, she invariably sported a big, bright smile, and her walk had a lively bounce in it.  She was sharp as a tack up until the very end, when liver cancer finally felled her.  She lived just two months after the diagnosis, and died in a bed surrounded by her loved ones.

I think we’d all love to live a life like that. What exactly did she do to grant her that gift? No one will ever really know for sure, but I do know she generally tried to follow all the recommended advice. She ate her vegetables, she exercised daily, she watched her weight. And then, I suppose there was probably a little luck thrown in as well.

Experts say that we can all live a life as healthy and full as my aunt, as long as we are careful with our daily choices. 80% of our lifespan is lifestyle determined. This means the daily choices we make now can have a phenomenal effect on how long we live, and how well we live as we enter old age.

Back in the year 2000, scientist Michael Poulain set out to find and catalogue the areas of the world where centenarians seemed to concentrate.  He called these areas Blue Zones, and they included now famous places like Okinawa, Japan, and Sardinia, Italy.  He went to each of these places, interviewed the centenarians there, and then watched how they lived and what they ate.  He wanted to determine what had led to their extended lives.

Author Dan Buettner became intrigued by the results of his studies, and in 2003, he wrote a book on these centenarians entitled “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest”.  In it, he catalogued nine lifestyle choices that experts now believe will help us all live ably into our golden years.  I think they’re pretty well known by now:

1) Physically move your body often, going for a daily walk, or working in your garden;
2) Find a way to de-stress your life, either by napping regularly, doing yoga, or taking up meditation;
3) Drink wine only moderately.  It not only helps to counter stress, but contains high levels of polyphenols and antioxidants, and can triple the amount of flavonoids we absorb from our food;
4) Eat a mostly plant-based diet;
5) Eat fewer calories generally.  Try to eat until you’re only 80% full;
6) Have a strong sense of purpose for your life;
7) Put your family first;
8) Cultivate strong friendships;
9) Have faith.  It doesn’t matter what you believe in – just believe it!

Sadly, it seems that as a more modern way of life is entering these mostly poor, rural Blue Zones, their life expectancy is shortening.  The children and grand-children of these exceptionally healthy centenarians are experiencing higher rates of obesity,  high blood fat, heart disease, stress,  and cancer after having taken up a more meat-based diet, and using cars or mopeds instead of walking.  Researchers predict that after the current crop of centenarians dies, more average life-spans will most likely predominate there.

Poulain now thinks that the extreme longevity he discovered in these Blue Zones may have been a temporary “generational phenomenon”.  When these centenarians were young, up to 20% of their peers died due to disease or accident, leaving only the strongest and healthiest alive.  After an old-fashioned,  physically demanding childhood, they then grew up to have access to modern medicine, which helped to extend their lives.

Nevertheless, their lifetime experiences still offer us extensive information on how our diet and exercise choices can affect our long-term health for the better.   For example, all the diets in the Blue Zones were plant based.  Not only did they eat plenty of vegetables, but they also socialized often and walked everywhere.

Now, committed Blue Zone communities, like Spencer, Iowa are popping up in the US, where all citizens vow to eat a plant-based diet, marginalize junk food, walk more, and join moais, or programmed social networks.  Remarkably, over the course of just one year of following these new rules, the healthcare costs for city employees dropped by a whopping 25 percent.

If we’re determined to make the right choices for our health, and with enough luck, we should all be able to live a life like my aunt did.  All we need is the will to do it.  It would take effort, and change, but if we all support one another, I believe we can change our societies for the better.  We can create more pathways for walking, provide more parks and plant more trees.  We can add higher taxes to junk foods to make them less attractive meal options, and ensure there are more grocery stores than fast food outlets in food desert communities.  We can also take the time to really get to know our neighbours and expand our social networks.  The facts are already in:  not only will this help us live longer, it’ll decrease healthcare costs as well.  I think these are things that everyone wants.

 

The Harry Potter series of books were just being written when my boys were young.  Every night, we’d read a chapter together, taking turns reading alternate pages aloud.  Sometimes, when the action got very intense and exciting, we’d extend our reading session past their usual bedtime, as none of us expected to sleep well until we knew what happened next.

Although it began as a way to advance their reading level at school, this night-time reading wasn’t just academic.  It was a time for us to relax together and to bond.  It allowed them to ask me questions about life, and for me to see how they viewed the world.  And then together, we’d look forward to the time when the next book in the series arrived, counting down the days until our journey through the Potter world could continue.

This is how reading brings people together.  Although a seemingly solitary activity,  it provides a bridge between the reader and the author through the simple act of reading their thoughts and feelings.  As we explore and digest another’s world, we become more empathetic and less judgemental.  And for those who read a book together, like the members of a book club, or my sons and I, it helps us to learn from one another more deeply than we would in any casual conversation.

Non-fiction self-help books may abound on store shelves, but we may learn important life lessons more viscerally from non-fiction books.  My first favourite book was “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White.  I read it over and over again, until my copy became dog-eared, wrinkled and torn.   The internal lives of the animals fascinated me, as I lived on a farm myself.  Through their lives, I learned the importance of kindness among all living things, and the value of friendship and loyalty.  I still cry when Charlotte dies.

Since then, many other books have also provided me with valuable wisdom as I journey through life.  From the book “A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan, I learned that life is never perfect.  The book jumps back and forth through time, allowing you to see people before they achieved their dreams, and afterwards as well.  Even when they got exactly what they wanted, it still feels bittersweet.  Through them, I learned then that happiness is elusive, even for the most successful among us.

From the book “Middlemarch” by George Eliot, I watched as complicated people from the Victorian age navigated lives that were easily as difficult as our own.  Through them, I learned that all caricatures are false.  No one is absolutely good or absolutely evil; we all have reasons for the things we do, and the choices we make.  I was surprised at my ability to empathize with all  of the characters, even the most flawed.  In so doing, I learned to love myself despite my own shortcomings.

Right now, with technology pulling us farther and farther apart, we need to read more than ever.  Always distracted with our phones and laptops, we’ve become more isolated, jealous and depressed.  This summer, I hope you find some time to unplug, slow down, savor and ponder.   And when you do, I hope your mind gets expanded and recharged through the reading of a book.