FINDING YOUR OWN BLUE ZONE

I have been watching Dan Buettner’s series on Netflix: Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. It is fascinating to see how some communities around the world avoid the plagues of terminal disease and immobility by leading healthier lives.

Dan deserves credit for shining a light on these so-called Blue Zone populations to show us alternatives to the stressed, toxic, and sedentary lifestyle that most people are living in our modern world.

Yet the modern world is where we live. Most of us will never live in a remote mountain village in Italy or on a Greek island or in another Blue Zone. I don’t know about you, but I like living where I do – in major cities with as much time in rural nature as I can spare. Cities offer artistic, cultural, and community aspects of life that are wonderful to participate in.

So where do we find the bridge to greater health in our modern world without packing it all in to live in a far-away Blue Zone?

One key to greater health is adopting a changed lifestyle. Incorporating more movement, choosing to eat health-consciously, sleeping more, and slowing down a busy life are all things we can do anywhere. But these changes will only work if you can tolerate making your own choices and not just doing what everyone else does.

Here is where my experience with later-life health differs from many other people’s experience. I believe this journey starts inside, in your heart and guts and soul. It requires making choices and living with them. My passion to do what I do comes from my mission to stick around for my daughters. As I write in my book, this was not always easy at first.

The people in the Blue Zones are not defying any conventions. They are living in small, tight-knit communities. They are living as they always have, with the support of family, friends, and neighbors.

Following a healthier path in our modern world requires more inner resolve, because it requires us to do what so many people are not doing. As Peter Attia writes in his book, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, the most important question in pursuing health and longevity is “Why?” “Why do I want to live longer – for whom or what?” It is normal to want to be healthy and live longer. But it requires effort and guts to find, adopt, and participate in the measures that will get you there.

I have found this path to be intimately linked to self-worth. Do I matter? Do I still have something to contribute? I still wrestle with these questions despite having answered them affirmatively many times. They make up the bumps on my path in my life, yet I keep going back to them to reaffirm my healthy practices.

Each time I resolve doubts about myself, a door opens that I hadn’t seen before or even knew existed. It might be a sensation inside pointing me toward an aspect of my body I wasn’t aware of or a new idea or insight about myself or my work or an expanded version of how I experience myself or another person. I experience the wonder of inner health and healing.

Our world is full of advice on how to be healthier. It’s everywhere. The internet offers a vast network of information, and innumerable organizations provide an inexhaustible array of products and services. The multibillion-dollar health and wellness business is often conflicting and self-serving. Navigating it requires a good compass and an even better gyroscope.

My gyroscope is myself, the inner core of who I am, what I do, and why I do it. Strengthening that core involves always discovering more about myself and my existence, staying curious about life inside me and outside of me. It’s what fuels my longevity practice and gives me the faith to try new things and to reject the ones that don’t work for me, which often involves going against current thinking. My inner core gives me the courage to make health choices that suit my own needs.

Someone once told me, “You take yourself wherever you go.” We all know people who have moved elsewhere thinking life will be different, only to find the same problems and dynamics in the new place after a few months. You could apply that same idea to the Blue Zones. If you were to move to that remote mountain village in Italy, seeking longevity, you would not automatically acquire good health. Longevity is not “in the air” or “in the water.”

My Blue Zone is inside me – my affirmation and practice to stay healthy and live longer. My own personal Blue Zone is innate, an essential part of me. I take it with me wherever I go, with no need for a travel brochure.