Live happier, live longer
<p><em><strong><img width="183" height="274" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/1348/drsharp-gf-015_183x274.jpg" alt="Dr Sharp -GF-015" style="float: right;">This is an excerpt from </strong></em><strong>Live Happier, Live Longer: Your Guide to Positive Ageing and Making the Most of Life</strong><em><strong> by Dr Timothy Sharp. Also known as Dr Happy, Dr Timothy Sharp founder of The Happiness Institute. He was kind enough to share with Over60 chapter one from his latest book.</strong></em></p><p>Chapter 1: The Psychology of Possibility</p><p>“Add life to your days, not days to your life.” – unknown</p><p>Although I love this quote I like to replace the “not” with an “and” so it reads, “Add life to your days and days to your life.” Because it’s the life you add to your days that adds the days to your life.</p><p>Many, many years ago, well before I’d ever considered the idea that eventually became this book, I remember stumbling upon this apocryphal but nevertheless inspirational story:</p><p>The 92-year-old petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coiffed and make-up perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.</p><p>Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready.</p><p>As she manoeuvred her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung at her window.</p><p>"I love it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old, having just been presented with a new puppy.</p><p>"Mrs Jones, you haven’t seen the room – just wait."</p><p>"That doesn’t have anything to do with it,’ she replied. ‘Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged, it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away, just for this time in my life."</p><p>She went on to explain, "Old age is like a bank account; you withdraw from what you’ve put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories. Thank you for your part in filling my memory bank. I am still depositing."</p><p>And with a smile, she said:</p><p>"Remember the five simple rules to be happy: one – free your heart from hatred; two – free your mind from worries; three – live simply; four – give more; five – expect less."</p><p>Regardless of the authenticity of this enchanting, simple story, the idea that ageing in years need not be directly linked to psycho- logical or even physical misery is one that is important and is supported by scientific evidence.</p><p>On the one hand there are widely available ‘miracle cures’ touted as solutions to the problem of ageing as, for some scientists and theorists, ageing is a ‘disease’ that’s simply awaiting a cure. The flip side of this idea – that we can halt the effects of ageing – is the assumption that ageing is simply an inevitable process that we need to accept; the level at which we are able to function and perform, both physically and mentally, will decline. Many (if not most) doctors and scientists would say that our cells eventually reach a point where they can no longer divide and so they either die or reach senescence (retirement phase). This is often referred to as the Hayflick limit (named after molecular biologist Leonard Hayflick, who advanced the idea of limited somatic cell division), which argues that no one can live beyond about 120 years. However, an increasing number of people are starting to believe that this might not be entirely true; that the limits to longevity we’ve previously considered might not be so concrete. These people argue that the evidence is growing to support the notion that ageing is not an immutable process but rather one that might be amenable to change, either through drug treatments, lifestyle adaptations or both.</p><p>Some of this has already been seen – the average life expectancy in Australia, for example, has increased from about 47 years in 1900 to about 82 in 2012. And, impressively, we’ve not just seen longevity increase but also quality of life. (No one would really want to see people living longer if they were simply extending a period of time in which those people were frail and unwell.)</p><p>Although most of this increase in life expectancy has come about due to medical improvements (especially reductions in child mortality), much can be attributed to improved diet and other lifestyle changes. It’s also exciting to think of some of the fields of research being explored by scientists (including molecular and cellular repair, hormone and gene therapy) to further lifespan.</p><p>Admittedly, some of those claims about extending life are scientifically questionable, but one area of research that’s recently received a good amount of attention, and from those considered reputable and respectable, is that looking into telomeres, or the “‘end parts’ at the tips of our chromosomes”, as Fairfax journalist Amy Klein described them in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2013. She went on to explain that they serve "as protective caps for preserving genetic information; think of them as acting like the plastic sheaths that prevent fraying at the ends of shoelaces. The telomeres are disposable buffers blocking the ends of the chromosomes. Without them, genomes would lose information after cell division. A cell’s age can be measured by the length of its telomeres."</p><p>Klein noted that in 2009 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for their 1984 discovery of ‘how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase’. (Telomerase is a protein that stabilises telomeres when they get worn, causing them to lengthen, and aids cell division.)</p><p>At almost exactly the same time another team at the Longevity Genes Project (from the Institute for Ageing Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York) discovered a correlation between living to 100 and the inheritance of a mutant gene that makes the human telomerase-producing system extra active and able to maintain telomere length more effectively. For the most part, the people in the study were spared age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which together cause the most deaths among elderly people.</p><p>What does all this mean?</p><p>Well, it means that one of the keys to extending life (and, at the same time, minimising what have traditionally been considered age-related illnesses) is gaining control of the telomere’s ‘on-off’ switch. Although some studies have already achieved limited success with this, there’s still a long way to go.</p><p>In the meantime, therefore, it’s worth looking at other options for promoting longevity because regardless of advances made in genetic engineering (or indeed other, related, fields of medicine and science), according to those at the Human Genome Project genetic factors account for only about 30 per cent of what happens to us – which means that about 70 per cent is determined by lifestyle and/or the environment in which we live.</p><p>As exciting as these medical discoveries might seem, the resultant development of medications to prolong life is, in reality, years away. If such drugs do eventually prove to be feasible and affordable, and if they can be delivered without significant side effects (which is always an important question to ask and unfor- tunately, as history would suggest, a big ‘if’) then I would be more than happy to queue up for the potion or pill. But what’s just as exciting, if not even more so, is that there’s also evidence pointing to other interventions that may prolong life and which are within our reach right now!</p><p>Through the latter half of the 1970s Ellen Langer, along with a number of colleagues, conducted what has come to be recognised as one of the most significant series of research studies into health and wellbeing. These studies and their far-reaching implications warrant much more attention than they’ve received to date (outside of academic circles).</p><p>In short, Langer’s first project focused on the effects of personal responsibility in a group of nursing home residents. One group was simply encouraged to find as many ways as possible to make more decisions for themselves. They were allowed, for example, to choose whether or not to watch movies (and, if they opted to do so, what they watched), where and when to receive visitors and each resident also chose a plant to look after, determining where to place it and when and how much to water it.</p><p>A second (comparison) group was simply given the houseplants but advised that the nursing staff would take care of them.</p><p>Sounds pretty simple, right? But consider these findings when the residents were followed up eighteen months later.</p><p>The members of the first group (those given more personal responsibility) were assessed as being happier and more active. Based on a series of tests given before and after the intervention they were also found to be significantly more mentally alert.</p><p>Mindful that both these groups were, to begin with, relatively old and frail, the results become even more interesting. Assessed on several measures, the researchers found that the ‘responsibility group’ were not only much healthier than the control group, which was what they had expected, but also fewer than half as many of them died during the course of the study than those in the control group!</p><p>Just reflect on that for a moment or two – it seems that taking responsibility, even for ostensibly minor decisions such as watering a plant and watching a movie, can make you happier, healthier and (here’s possibly the most amazing finding) less likely to die!</p><p>In summary then, Langer concluded that due to the power of making decisions and the associated increase in perception of control, residents in the nursing home became healthier and happier, more active and more alert and they ultimately lived longer. Regardless of how you look at it these were (and remain) pretty incredible findings.</p><p>But this is not the end of the story. Several years later Langer went on to further explore the ageing process. Taking a slightly different approach this time, she wanted to investigate the possibili- ties of ‘turning back the clock’. In what came to be known as the "Counterclockwise Study", she devised an ingenious research trial exploring whether recreating a world from an earlier time and inviting a group of people to live in that environment as if it were the present time would impact upon their psychological and physical states.</p><p>The experimenters recreated the year 1959, including totally redesigning the furnishings and decorations within a house, in which a number of participants were asked to immerse themselves for a period of time. For all intents and purposes they would be living not in 1979 but in 1959.</p><p>In simple terms, Langer has subsequently reflected, the question being asked was, "If we put the mind back twenty years, would [will] the body reflect this change?"</p><p>Another way of framing this question might be: How powerful, really, can the mind be?</p><p>According to the results of this study the answer, in short, is "very powerful"! But let’s start at the beginning.</p><p>To ensure the study was valid and that the most appropriate variables were being measured, a number of leading experts were consulted about psychological and biological "markers" of age. After extensive consultation it was determined that the following list of variables would be measured before and after the intervention:</p><ul><li>weight</li><li>dexterity</li><li>flexibility</li><li>vision</li><li>sensitivity to taste</li><li>IQ</li><li>cognitive processing</li><li>memory</li><li>appearance</li><li>self-evaluation.
</li></ul><p>Then came the task of recruiting volunteers and as is almost always the case in psychological research, the true reasons behind the study needed to be (at least partially) concealed.
Advertisements were placed in the local newspapers inviting people to participate in a project on reminiscing, where individuals in their seventies would spend a week living in a country retreat talking about their pasts. Those who were selected, based on an initial telephone interview, were then invited to a face-to-face meeting to complete the initial psychological and physical tests.
Reading back over the original study, and the experimenters’ notes about their experiences, the interviews with the prospective subjects were both interesting and slightly concerning.
Most interviewees listed, extensively, their limitations and the problems they currently experienced. They cited loss of hearing and sight, and most reported multiple activities and hobbies they’d given up due to ill health and/or lack of energy. Sadly, too, many of their (adult) children also spoke of their parents in tones of hopelessness and helplessness and, in some cases, rather deroga- tory and condescending ways.</p><p>The researchers began to question their chances of achieving anything positive with this seemingly decrepit group of old men! Having come this far, though, they reasoned that, at worst, they’d do no harm and that the participants would at least have an enjoyable time for the week, so they persevered and divided the successful candidates into two groups.</p><p>Both groups spent a week in the house that had been especially retrofitted to resemble, as closely as possible, a house in 1959 (which was, as noted previously, twenty years earlier). The first or ‘experimental’ group would reside in the house and would be advised to live as though 1959 were the present time. Everything would occur in the present tense; every conversation, every discus- sion; life would be lived in 1959 including the ingredients in every meal, the movies watched, and even the magazines and books read. No conversation could mention anything that occurred after 1959 and "last year" now meant 1958. Finally, all members of this group were asked to write a short autobiography of themselves as though it were 1959 and to bring with them photos of their younger selves (which were then sent to the other house members).</p><p>The second or "control" group lived in the same house, a week later, but was differentiated from the first group in just a few (relatively minor but potentially profound) ways. Firstly, they were asked to write their autobiographies in the past tense; they were asked to bring pictures of their current selves; and once in the house they were invited to reminisce about 1959 as though it was the past (which obviously it was!) rather than consider it as the present day (as the first group were instructed to do).</p><p>Before reviewing the results, it’s worth noting that considerable attention was given to ensuring everything in the house was an accurate reflection of life in 1959, including details of political and social issues (e.g. the launch of the first US satellite and Fidel Castro’s advance into Havana), books, TV and radio programs (including Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger and The Ed Sullivan Show) and furnishings and household objects.</p><p>And so I guess you’re now wondering how they all fared?</p><p>Positive changes in behaviour and attitude were observed almost immediately. In contrast to the old and dependent men who’d entered the house after years of feeling incapacitated and in some cases useless, within days everyone was contributing to the cooking and cleaning up after meals, and almost all of them were functioning far more independently than they had been only days earlier.</p><p>Remarkably, when the same tests each participant had completed before the week’s house stay were repeated after the completion of the experiment, significant changes were noted. Both groups reported enjoying a fantastic week but notably they were also found to have experienced improvements in hearing, memory and grip strength. Further, the experimental group showed improvements in flexibility, finger length (which indicated improvements in arthritis) and manual dexterity. 63 per cent of the experimental group showed improvements in IQ (as did 44 per cent of the control group); and improvements were also seen in height, gait and posture.</p><p>Although both groups’ functioning therefore improved significantly, this was in evidence to a far greater extent in the experimental group. These positive changes were interpreted as signs that the participants had got "younger" – and all this occurred in just one week in an incredible demonstration of the power of the mind and, in the words of the lead author, the "psychology of possibility".</p><p>The implications of this research go beyond just helping ageing people feel younger and healthier, though. These findings are relevant to us all because they indicate that we can, if we think about our current behaviour and do the right things, live fuller and more satisfying lives at any stage of life. With a helpful atti- tude, a focus on personal responsibility and a balance between independent functioning and mutual respect we could all achieve so much more than we probably realise.</p><p>I’d also like to proffer the notion that we shouldn’t wait until we’re 70 (or 60 or even 50) years old before beginning to apply these principles (and the many other tools and strategies I’ll summarise and outline in this book). Rather, if we start planning and preparing for positive ageing in our thirties and forties we’ll be in a much better position to live long and live well.</p><p>Indeed, this notion is what this book is all about; this book is for those of you who want to live a full and satisfying life, and a life in which you will continue to thrive and flourish for as long as possible. As Ellen Langer’s research suggests, we don’t have to deteriorate just because our age has hit a certain number – and even if we have begun to deteriorate it’s possible that some of that damage can be reversed!</p><p>Accordingly, this book sets out to explain what else we’ve learned since this 1979 study and what we can do to maximise our chances of living a healthy, happy and long life. I hope that through reading this you’ll gain a greater understanding of what we know about health and wellness and, notably, what you can practicably do to keep living well.</p><p>And this, at least in part, means reviewing what we consider to be inevitable as we grow older and as we age. One aspect of ageing that (quite rightly and for obvious reasons) always makes the list of inevitabilities is "death". Along with taxes, it’s unavoid- able. Unless I’ve missed a whole body of research and unless I’m seriously mistaken, we can’t stop dying; what we can do, however, is make the most of living. And where we all have choice is in how we live.</p><p>The good news is that, as briefly referred to earlier, although there’s been talk for many years about pills and potions that will extend our years the reality is that there’s more scientific evidence supporting the benefits associated with lifestyle changes – things we can all do, changes each and every one of us can make each and every day – to ensure we thrive and flourish into our older years.</p><p>This doesn’t really surprise me at all because I know several people who live very much like this – and you probably do too. I have a friend, for example, who is 50 years old. Now this might not be considered by you (or many) to be "old" but the point I want to make here is that most people who meet him typically think he’s about 40 (or sometimes even younger).</p><p>Why?</p><p>Well, because he goes to the gym five or six times each and every week; he keeps his mind stimulated and active by continually reading and learning new things; he eats well (and not too much); he continues to engage in hobbies that he enjoyed when younger (including listening to new and varied music rather than just "classic hits" or "golden oldies", trying new restaurants, visiting new places) and although this might appear somewhat superficial, he dresses appropriately but fashionably (which is important for him because it helps him to feel young).</p><p>Amazingly, these are the sorts of things that the oldest people in the world also do (although there’s not really much research on the dressing bit!), as proved by several studies and surveys on a couple of now-famous populations that have high proportions of older people and centenarians. One of these is on an island in Japan, an island that has come to be known as the Holy Grail of research into positive ageing and longevity, to the extent that it’s even been referred to as "the land of immortals".</p><p>Visiting or even reading about Okinawa is like experiencing a Shangri-La, utopian existence. Despite being invaded, on multiple occasions, by both the Chinese and Japanese, and having its population decimated, Okinawa is where a number of the world’s oldest people live.</p><p>And live they do. Compared to almost anywhere else in the world they have lower levels of cancer, heart disease and dementia. People who live there just don’t seem to age! They continue to live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives way beyond those seen in many other parts of the world and when they do start to look ‘old’ it’s because they’re well into their nineties or older, rather than, as seen in many Western cities, their fifties or sixties.</p><p>So what’s the secret?</p><p>A number of people have studied the island of Okinawa and its marvellous inhabitants, including Dan Buettner, who originally worked for National Geographic and then went on to speak and write widely on how to live longer.</p><p>Buettner isolated at least four key variables or behaviours to which he attributed much of the Okinawans’ health and longevity:</p><p>1. Diet: the islanders practise what they call hara hachi bu, which has been translated as a form of conscious and mindful calorie restriction. That is, they limit what they eat and they remind themselves of this before each and every meal by repeating those words that simply mean: eat until you’re 80 per cent full.</p><p>2. Activity: the Okinawans spend a lot of time gardening – some- thing that probably has a dual benefit. Because they grow most of their own vegetables and herbs they eat a diet that’s high in plant-based foods and that’s rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. In addition, they maintain high levels of activity even into old age. Okinawans don’t go to the gym (and I’ve definitely never seen any pictures of them wearing Lycra!) but they keep fit and healthy by farming their land and growing natural, nutritious foods.</p><p>3. Optimism: the Okinawans have also been observed to maintain a positive outlook on life. They refer to living for their ikigai or what we would probably call a purpose. That is, they know why they get up and out of bed each and every morning and they keep this front of mind each and every day.</p><p>4. Connectedness: every Okinawan belongs to a maoi, or what we would call a social support group. These groups of peers meet regularly and help each other through the ups and downs of life, across the whole of their lifespan. You’ve probably heard the saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’; well, it could be said that in Okinawa they believe it also takes a village to care for every person.</p><p>Enlightening though this information is, none of it is really "secret" because these behaviours can be seen in several other communities around the world. Dan Buettner identified several others in addition to the most famous and impressive island of Okinawa, referring to these hot spots of longevity as "Blue Zones".</p><p>Another secluded island, Sardinia (which sits in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy), is home to the world’s oldest living men. This small population includes nearly ten times the number of centenarians (proportionally) as that of the USA.</p><p>Historically, the quite rugged landscape of the island has been home to and workplace of mostly farmers and shepherds. In a remarkable similarity to Okinawa, Sardinia has also been invaded and exploited many times but this ultimately led to what could be considered a health advantage as its inhabitants developed intensely close families and a powerful sense of community.</p><p>In the same way as he’d done with the Japanese island population, Buettner identified a number of key behavioural differences that set the Sardinians apart from the broader population and to which he attributed their long lives:</p><ul><li>Gratitude: the Sardinians actively take time, each and every day, to appreciate the beauty of their lives and of their surroundings.</li><li>Respect: they respect their elders and have been observed to
nurture very close relationships with their families. </li><li>Humour: they laugh frequently and also tend to have a healthy sense of how humour and perspective can help manage stress and adversity.</li><li>Diet: like the Okinawans, Sardinians eat a diet high in anti- oxidants and anti-inflammatories, with virtually no processed foods.</li><li>Activity: they walk – a lot! Whereas some Westerners seem to associate health and fitness with leaving their desks and sedentary jobs to spend an hour or so in the gym, running a few marathons each year or competing in a corporate triathlon or two, the Sardinians are active almost all day, every day; it’s just part of their lives.
</li></ul><p>Buettner also identified Blue Zones in California, Greece and Costa Rica and, not all that surprisingly, found similarities in the way their inhabitants lived their lives. In addition to those behaviours already noted, he found that the communities with high proportions of healthy, ageing people also practised the following: </p><ul><li>living relatively simple lives with minimal focus on material possessions and maximal focus on relationships and other people in the community;</li><li>prioritising time for calming and relaxing activities and accord- ingly, experiencing significantly less stress and anxiety than that seen in other populations; </li><li>being altruistic and generous, prizing volunteering. Helping others was par for the course and something that was expected and rewarded within these groups of people.</li></ul><p>Again, it’s notable that these groups of people have several things in common and each of these have been studied so we can see not only what they do that’s different, but also how to put such behaviour into practice ourselves so that the rest of us can enjoy the benefits as well.</p><p>How do the people in these Blue Zones live such long and healthy lives? Well, in summary, they:</p><ul><li>have a life purpose, a reason for living and for getting up each and every day;</li><li>respect others and value close familial and community ties;</li><li>foster optimism and a positive attitude for life, laughing often
and using perspective to manage stress;</li><li>avoid overeating and consume a diet that’s high in plant-based,
natural produce with small amounts of protein and "good fats";</li><li>keep active through the normal course of daily living;</li><li>live a relatively simple life, with health, wellbeing and relation-
ships taking precedence over the accumulation of wealth and/
or material possessions;</li><li>ensure adequate sleep and rest, typically benefiting from at
least eight or nine hours of sleep each night and, in some
communities, also enjoying naps during the day;</li><li>think of others, recognising that happiness isn’t just about
feeling good but also about doing good;</li><li>practise gratitude and appreciation, focusing more on what
they have and less on what they don’t have;</li><li>respect the older generation. In none of these communities were
older people considered frail, weak or incompetent. In fact, quite the opposite was observed as the elders were given greater respect because of their experience and wisdom (something that unfortunately is not as common in other communities around the world).</li></ul><p>The good news is that these are all things each and every one of us can do too. You don’t have to move to Okinawa, Sardinia or anywhere else, because the things that the residents of Blue Zones do don’t depend on where they live, but on how they live.</p><p>Take the world’s oldest person (at the time of writing this book), for example. Jiroemon Kimura was not from Okinawa but he was from Japan and he lived to be 116 years of age! Just over a year before he died he explained, in an interview, how he lived his life and provided ten tips for others wishing to emulate him:</p><ol><li>Exercise every day. (Even when his legs began to grow weak, well into his hundreds, Kimura still did 100 bicycle motions, lying on his back in bed, every day.)</li><li>Eat small portions.</li><li>Use adversity to grow strong. (No matter how hard things got,
Kimura said he faced difficulties with "endurance and perseverance". He told people to never let worry or suffering consume them because "after every storm, peace always comes.")</li><li>Read and exercise your brain.</li><li>Eliminate strong preferences and ‘take life as it comes’.</li><li>Live without attachment.</li><li>Spend time in and with nature.</li><li>Be grateful and appreciative.</li><li>Laugh often.</li><li>Break life up into small, manageable chunks.</li></ol><p>If any of these pieces of advice sound familiar it’s because they’re very similar to the list that I compiled when summarising Dan Buettner’s research and the lessons he learned from his Blue Zones.</p><p>The point I would like to make again – and again and again and again! – is that none of these behaviours are dependent on living in Japan or Italy or anywhere else special; they are dependent only on a willingness to prioritise health and wellbeing and, therefore, the health- and wellness-boosting activities and attitudes I’ll continue to describe throughout this book.</p><p><em>To read more buy a copy of Live Happier, Live Longer: A Guide to Positive Ageing and Making the Most of Life by Dr Timothy Sharp. Otherwise, head to his website, <a href="http://www.drhappy.com.au/" target="_blank">http://www.drhappy.com.au</a>.</em></p><p> </p>
