TED Radio Hour - Daily habits of a longevity expert

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

Dan Buettner is a National Geographic Fellow who researches Blue Zones, regions of the world where people tend to live longer. His research has looked at what habits and lifestyles contribute to longevity. In this bonus episode, he shares those habits with producer Fiona Geiran, and they discuss how Dan has incorporated many of them into his daily routine.This bonus episode is normally something we share only with our TED Radio Hour+ supporters, but we're making this one available to everyone. To get access to all of our bonus content, listen to the show sponsor-free and support our work at NPR, sign up for TED Radio Hour+ at plus.npr.org/tedSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Manusch. As we wrap up 2023, we want to offer you something a little special. It's a bonus episode featuring more from Dan Butner. That's the National Geographic Fellow and founder of the Blue Zones Project, whom we featured in our latest episode. We went on a journey, he and I, into Blue Zones across the world. But once we were finished, our producer Fiona Gehrin stayed on with Dan to find out more about his. daily routine, how he plans to live to 100. Now, listen, normally bonus episodes are just for TED Radio Hour Plus subscribers. It's a thank you to them for supporting us. If you are one already, thank you, thank you, thank you, even more. If you're not, but you would like to support the show and get bonus content and get all our episodes ad free. It's very easy. You can do it right now. You can go to plus.npr.org. There's also a link in the show notes. And if you're not yet a plus supporter, you're sorry, going to have to hear some ads in just a moment. They help support our show, too. But when you get back, you'll get to hear Fiona Giren chatting with Dan Boutner.

I am really curious. You've been doing this research about Blue Zones for years, learning about these different lifestyles that are keeping people active and healthy for a really long time into their 90s. So I want to know, how do you incorporate these lessons into your own life? And what does a typical day in the life look like for you? So I live in Miami Beach at the southern tip, and I wake up without an alarm in a very dark room when my body wants to wake up. And then I walk or swim down the beach to a place where I get my cup of coffee every morning. Coffee, you, by the way, is a great longevity beverage, as long as you don't fill it up with sugar and milk and all sorts of other things. I read. I walk back, and then I work about four to five hours

a day, which seems to be optimal for the human psyche. My first meal happens between 1130 and one, and I have a bowl of minestrone. I met the longest-lived family in the world in Sardinia, and they gave me a recipe. So my first meal is midday. I like to intermittent fast as people in the blue zones do. So I tend to eat all my calories in about an eight-hour window or nine-hour window. And then mid-afternoon, I always take a nap, about 15-minute nap. It starts out as a meditation, but it ends up as a nap.

And then I usually work out again. At the end of the day, that's best for my body. and when I say workout, I always do something that I enjoy. And that's either playing pickleball, riding my bicycle, stand-up paddle surfing. Sometimes I go into the gym where I meet my friends, but I never do anything I don't want to do when it comes to physical activity. And then because I know socializing, having a great social circle and engaging it can add up to eight years of life expectancy.

Every night I socialize with friends. So I go out every night and usually, it's around a great meal. In bed by 11 o'clock and hit the reset button and do that for as many days as I can possibly string along, hopefully to 100. Wow, that sounds like a really lovely day. How about in the afternoon? Are you keeping yourself going with a little coffee pick me up? No, I stopped drinking caffeine by about 10 in the morning. Caffeine has about about a 12-hour half-life. So the caffeine you drink at noon, half of it's still there when you go to bed at 11 o'clock. So coffee early, no more caffeine after mid-morning. Just to go back to waking

up first thing in the morning, what would you recommend for folks who maybe don't have that same flexibility because they have a stricter work schedule? What would help them make their mornings more aligned with the Blue Zone lifestyle? First of all, I would think about seeing if they can get their job to align to their body rather than the other way around. So maybe you can talk to the people you work with or for to see if you can start your day longer. A great night's sleep is so important. It can be worth about six extra years of life expectancy over not getting enough sleep. So I would prioritize getting sleep.

And by the way, then if your job won't allow you to get the necessary sleep, I think, about getting a new job, quite honestly. But if you absolutely cannot get enough rest or cannot wake up when your body wants you to wake up, taking a nap does help. You do not have to go into deep sleep. If you can just dip in for a few minutes in the middle of the afternoon, the best time to take a nap is between about one and three. And that's what we see in blue zones. That will help with a foreshortened night of rest. Are there ever days where you don't start your morning that way? like if the weather is terrible and you can't go out swimming, what does a compromise day look like for you? I just walk it on the beach. Once again, that's why your surroundings are so important. If you live in a

soulless suburb somewhere where all you see around you are these McMansions and no beautiful trees. You don't want to walk there, but I've made a little bit of an effort and stretched a little bit to live in a place where I'm right next to the ocean and by a beautiful beach. And I can't wait to wake up in the morning and go out there. It changes every day. The sea is sometimes turbulent and sometimes placid. The shape of the sand changes. The sky is different.

That's all about the environment. And if there's one thing I learned in blue zones is pick the right environment if you want to live a long and happy life. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And you can feel that same way in a floor. or in any kind of natural environment, right? Yes. I actually wrote a book about happiness for National Geographic, and we found two interesting things.

Number one, if you live near water, you're about 10% more likely to be happy. And secondly, if you live in a sunny locale, you're about 5% more likely to be happy. So at the end of the day, whether it's longevity or happiness, most of it is a game of inches. There's no short-term fix.

There's no pill or supplement or longevity hack. That's going to make you live longer. It's about setting up nudges and defaults in your life so you unconsciously make small improvements in your behavior all day long, unconsciously for years or decades. That's what gets you living to the capacity of the human machine, which is probably about 95 years. Do you watch TV?

I think there's room for some intellectual repose. We actually did a survey in conjunction with National Geographic of about 150,000 people, and we found that there's sort of a sweet spot of about 45 minutes a day of TV watching. Seems to bring a certain amount of joy, actually. But after about 45 minutes, you're using that time at the expense of richer things like connecting with people or pursuing a hobby or staying physically active or volunteering. So, yeah, I watch about a half hour a day. Usually it's sort of the reward at the end of the day where I kind of put my brain to bed and then my body follows. When you're out with your friends, are you having a glass of wine with dinner? Or is wine only a special occasions thing? Or is it never a thing?

How is alcohol play into your life? life. The vast majority of the centenarians I met during Blue Zones have a glass or two of wine every day. So that's the program I follow. I have a couple glasses of wine most days. Well, you've done an amazing job curating your life to fit what's best for your body. But for someone who is living the average American life, working to live, what is the best first step for someone who wants to start aligning their life to their body's needs? Well, the big lesson we learn in Blue Zones is not to try to change your behaviors, it's to change your surroundings.

So, again, I would start with your job. Most of us spend most of our waking hours at work. So I would get that right. The next place to look is your social circle. So think about recurating your immediate social circle to add people who's idea of recreation is something active or something intellectually stimulating. You want friends who care about you on a bad day with whom you can have a meaningful conversation. And it's not a bad idea to have a vegan or vegetarian in your immediate social circle because they're going to show

you how to eat delicious whole food plant-based diets or explore them anyway. So basically you're saying all of your social circle has these kind of shared values where you're spending time, doing fitness and volunteering. But how do you get there? How do you curate those kinds of relationships? Well, I recently moved to Miami. So I love being active. So I very proactively cultivated a group of friends who play pickleball.

I think it's the greatest social innovation America has stumbled upon in the past half a century. Very easy to make friends. I have a number of friends who, when I get to, together, they tend to probably drink more than is optimal for my health. I haven't dumped them as friends, but I don't see them as much. And I have all kinds of intellectual pursuits. I love people with different expertise. And I very proactive way have created a social circle down here. People who are into philanthropic innovations, a lot of longevity experts, people are interested in health. And that's my social group. So it's easy for me to stay mentally engaged and physically

active and living my purpose. I don't have to think about it. All I have to do is call up a friend. When you were first getting into kind of making your lifestyle a longevity lifestyle, did you really have to focus and think about your choices or was it all basically making those environmental changes. I mean, it takes an effort to be healthier or happier. The mistake that most of us make is to think that we're going to change our behavior and really have an impact on how long we're going to live. And if you look at the research of diets or exercise programs or supplements, they occasionally work, but only for the short run. They never work for the long run, at least not for a masses of people. So I'm a big fan, especially around the new year of new year, new you,

but instead of trying to change your habits or your behavior, it's a much better investment to change your surroundings in ways that you'll be nudged to move more, eat better, socialize with the right people. And we often don't think of longevity in these terms. We think about the superfood or Crossfed or a fad diet or some longevity hack from some Silicon Valley billionaire. No, that's not the way really people achieve longevity or happiness. If you look at populations that have achieved it, they do it unconsciously by living in the right environment.

I really love that. It's so great to hear that we're taking some of the responsibility off of just your individual willpower. Okay. So if someone wanted to make a New Year's resolution change to improve their environment and make this lifestyle easier, what do you think? Should they get a gym buddy, sign up for a pottery class, what kind of environmental changes actually make a difference? Well, for a New Year's resolution, instead of the fad diet or the gym membership, I would go through my social circle or my, contacts and I would identify one or two of them who are healthy and happy and reach out to them

and invite them to a happy hour or a lunch and proactively bring them into your inner circle of friends because at the end of the day for to count they have to be people you see with some frequency and people with whom you're close enough that you can have meaningful conversation. That's where you want to get. most of us know a handful of people like this. We might have let them stray or we haven't made the effort to bring them close. But that's what I would do for a New Year's resolution. Or, you know, this sounds facile.

Find a pickleball court. It's the easiest way to make new friends. And I wouldn't say it about tennis. I wouldn't say it about basketball. Go to a pickleball court. Show up with a paddle. Within about a week, you'll have some new friends. That was Dan Butner talking to producer Fiona Gehran.

This episode was produced by Chowto and edited by James Delahousie. Our team also includes Matthew Cloutier. And for more bonus episodes, just like this, sign up for TEDRadio Hour Plus at plus.npr.npr.org slash TED. You'll get all our episodes with no ads, but most importantly, you're supporting everyone's work here at NPR. Thanks so much for listening. We've got an episode of Ted Radio Hour coming on Friday. See you then.