Remember Blue Zones–those special geographical areas of the world where people regularly live into their 100’s? A National Geographic fellow named Dan Buettner identified a total of five Blue Zones around the world, each with more than the usual number of long-lived, happy, and healthy older residents. Buettner further identified nine factors that each area had in common.
Among those factors: Residents stop eating when their bellies are 80% full, they enjoy a glass of wine with friends, their days are peppered with natural reasons to be physical, and they partake of daily stress reliving activities, such as prayer or yoga.
But it’s almost impossible to create all nine of those conditions in our ordinary non-blue zone lives. According to Buettner, “People in Blue Zones don’t have better discipline than those outside of Blue Zones. They’re living in an environment where the healthy choice is unavoidable, or at lest a lot easier.” For those of us without the right subtle pressures from our environment, is there any way to create a kind of “personal blue zone?”
Only if you’re able to mimic the external structures and pressures that make living a blue zone lifestyle automatic. Build a circle of friends who agree to make it a goal. Change your diet. Create a structural reason to move a lot all day. And so on. See all nine of the blue zone factors here. Any adjustments you make will benefit your life, even if you can’t do them all.