Dan Buettner On The Secrets For Living Long & Well

In blue zones, these people are eating mostly plant-based foods; they're moving every 20 minutes or so; they're hugely socially connected; they're suffused with purpose—not because they've tried; it's because they're a product of their environment. They live in places where the cheapest and most accessible food is peasant food—it's whole grains, it's nuts, it's greens, it's tubers.

Americans probably lose six years of life expectancy eating the standard American diet—this is at middle-age, by the way—over eating, say, a blue zones diet, which is largely beans, whole grains, greens, nuts, and tubers, and fruits & vegetables as well.

If happiness were a cake recipe, the important ingredients... So, you need food, you need shelter, you need some healthcare... You need some education... A trusting environment is really important, having the right partner in life, having a job with meaningful work, the feeling of giving back—these are all measurable ingredients in happiness... Where you live is the one with the biggest variance.

When it comes to happiness, most people in this country are misguided or just plain wrong. And it's not because they're stupid; but because we're relentlessly marketed this idea that if we have more, if we look better, if we're younger, if we could just get this one thing—financial freedom, a better-looking partner, a bigger house— that that's going to deliver us happiness, and that's always misguided.

If you live in a neighborhood where there are more than six fast food restaurants 500 feet from the average house, the obesity rate in that neighborhood is about 35% higher than the same neighborhood with fewer than three fast food restaurants.

To find the blue zone, you need to go into people's homes. You need to stop long enough to see detail and to get a feel for what it's like to live in these places—to see how they cook, to see how they downshift, to see how they live out their purpose, to see how they connect socially. There are all these, sort of, non-food characteristics that account for as much of their longevity as eating beans or tofu.

I actually believe that if you're unhealthy and overweight in this country, which is 71% of the American population, it's not [your] fault.

We could probably eliminate 20-25% of the obesity problem in this country if we designed our cities for human beings and not just cars.

We can talk about plant-based diets and Ikarian stew and planting a garden in your backyard, but first we have to get the soda machines out of the schools. We got to get people walking and riding their bikes a little bit, maybe not sitting so much at their jobs.

The happiest people are sleeping between 8 and 9.5 hours a day. If you're sleeping 6 hours, you're about 30% less happy.

If you live in a neighborhood where there are billboard advertisements for junk food, the obesity rate in that neighborhood is ~10% higher than the same neighborhood without billboards ads.

You are hugely influenced by your friends. So, if you're hanging out with people who are drinking or smoking, you're 60-70% more likely to drink and smoke yourself. Whereas, if you're hanging out with people who are walking every day or are gathering around great plant-based food, those behaviors are going to become contagious.

If you can situate your life so you're among the 20% of the happiest people in America, it's worth about six years of life expectancy over being in the least happiest 20%.

The four key ingredients to happiness are someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to, and something to give back.

Something called 'The Danish Twins Study' established that only ~20% of how long the average person lives is dictated by genes; the other 80% is something else.

Over the previous three years, we've seen life expectancy drop for the first time in... a century—since the the big flu epidemic in 1917.

Having a sense of purpose increases life expectancy.

The percentage of our GDP that we spend on avoidable diseases—about $3.7 trillion—keeps going up every year. It's a statistical certainty that it'll bankrupt our country if it continues along the trend.

Until we have the courage to take on our environment and stop with this fairy tale that we're magically going to get 330 million Americans to A) find the right diet, B) muster the discipline to stay on the diet, and C) have focus of mind to keep on it for the decades necessary to avoid a common chronic disease, we're not going to... do much with this obesity problem.

For example, we know that people who are eating six servings of vegetables every day, they're not only living longer, but they're also reporting 20% more happiness.

When it comes to changing your health behaviors, for most Americans, the change comes through their mouth.

How are you going to ask a single mother who's barely making ends meet with her 10-hour/day job to go out into the food environment, where 97 out of a 100 choices are bad, and say 'Go find good choices for your kids.'?

The people you hang out with have the biggest influence on your health behaviors than anything else.

Making new friends is probably the most powerful thing you can do to improve your happiness and your longevity.