By Bhuvanaa Shreeram

In the pursuit of longevity, there’s much to learn from the world’s “Blue Zones” – regions where people live significantly longer than the global average. These areas, identified by National Geographic Fellow and author Dan Buettner, include places, such as Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy), Nicoya (Costa Rica), Icaria (Greece), and Loma Linda (California, the US).

Here, people not only reach the age of 100 at an astonishing rate, but also enjoy years of good health and vitality. Let’s explore how the lifestyles of people in Blue Zones can inspire us to add more life to our years and potentially more years to our life.

What I realized as I was watching this engrossing series was how most of the principles followed in the Blue Zones are close to principles of yogic sciences and the traditional values upheld by us in India.

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Key Principles From The Blue Zones

Plant-Based Diet: Maria, a 102-year-old from Sardinia, shares that her diet has always been heavy on legumes and homemade pasta, with meat being a rare treat. Her story is a testament to the longevity benefits of a plant-centric diet, reflecting a common theme across Blue Zones.

Yogic sciences have long advocated for a plant-based diet, emphasising its benefits not only for physical health, but also for spiritual and mental well-being. Eating habits observed in Blue Zones like Sardinia and Okinawa consist predominantly of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and freshly cooked food.

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Constant Physical Activity: Tom, a retiree in Loma Linda, spends his mornings tending to his vegetable garden. He credits his physical and mental vigour to these daily routines that keep him moving naturally without the need for a structured exercise program.

In Sardinia, it is believed the higher the altitude of your village, the longer you would live, directly referring to how much physical activity it is to just move from one place to another – like going to the market or to the church.

Physical activity, not as a workout schedule, but as a seamless part of daily life, is practiced by most agrarian societies where farmers don’t eat if they haven’t worked on their farms that day.

Adopting such routines of walking to places or gardening that requires bending down and squatting, etc., can be transformative. A life of complete ease is just two steps away from disease, they say.

Modern amenities, such as motorbikes, cars, elevators, escalators, etc., are probably not really helping our health and well-being.

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Strong Social Connections: In Okinawa, Eiko, 96, still meets daily with her moai, a group of friends for a lifetime of support and fellowship.

Extended family members like nephews, nieces and grandchildren drop in regularly to check on their older relatives living alone in these zones. Singapore offers a ‘Proximity Housing Grant’ to encourage parents and children to live close to each other.

The importance of social bonds is evident in the Blue Zones and is essential for a healthy sense of belonging for elders. This has been the cornerstone of traditional Indian society, where taking care of elderly parents and valuing family is paramount. The book “Being Mortal” by Dr. Atul Gawande dwells deeply on this.

Stress Reduction: Giannis from Icaria says his secret to a stress-free life includes daily naps and evening walks. This practice of slowing down and finding peace each day is vital to maintaining long-term health. The Blue Zones inherently seem to have happy people despite being war-stricken, mountainous, and in difficult terrains with not much modern facilities.

This highlights the need to find happiness and peace from within, despite the circumstances. Yoga and meditation offer powerful tools for managing stress. These practices help calm the mind, leading to improved overall health and reduced risk of chronic diseases commonly associated with high stress levels. Yogis steeped in the practices have lived hundreds of years in vigour and good health.

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Purpose-Driven Life: In Costa Rica, Ana, 89, still wakes up to her role as the village storyteller, maintaining her ikigai—her reason for being. Her role not only keeps her active but deeply integrated into the cultural fabric of her community.

A client found that he enjoyed teaching, but wasn’t cut out for the operational parts of being a teacher. He found his calling in disability teaching and set up digital labs all over the country for youngsters with learning disabilities, and aided in their employability. Having a sense of purpose is crucial for longevity.

This mirrors the Indian philosophy of ‘dharma’, which emphasises living with a sense of purpose in alignment with one’s moral duties and innate capabilities.

The secret to a long and healthy life is in your daily practices. The principles of health, happiness, and purpose are universal. Societies worldwide have preserved this wisdom and kept them in daily practice.

Indians, being an ancient civilisation, had this realisation and integrated the same in their daily lifestyles. Somehow, the number of people following these principles has significantly shrunk in favour of modernisation and comforts.

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The Blue Zones and our traditional practices provide a guide to enriching our lives at every stage. By adopting even a few of their practices, we can inject more vitality into our daily routines, making the quest for longevity not just about adding years to our life, but indeed adding life to our years.

Personal stories like those of Maria, Tom, Eiko, Giannis, and many of our grandmas and grandpas remind us that these principles aren’t just theories; they are proven paths to a fulfilling life, backed by centuries of lived experience.

The author is a certified financial planner, co-founder and head of financial planning at House of Alpha Investment Advisers Pvt. Ltd