I know that to live long, you need to eat fresh food, exercise, and not overdo it. This is true but boring. I decided to put together a collection of less commonplace, but no less scientific ways to gain longevity.
- Yesterday morning I started with the news in The Daily Telegraph about loneliness. My favorite British scientists this time have established that loneliness is a disease that shortens life. Worse, loneliness, like an infection, is contagious and must be dealt with deliberately by surrounding yourself with friends and family. Tara Parker of The New York Times has summarized a lot of research that backs up the same point: friendship is a great anti-aging remedy.
- The second way to avoid premature death is to get married. This is especially true for men. But you need to marry not just anyone. But a woman with a high IQ level. Inquisitive employees of Stockholm University studied 1.5 million married couples and came to the conclusion: the more educated and erudite the spouse. The longer the husband lives. The same The Daily Telegraph wrote about this earlier. The husband’s task is reduced to the extraction of material wealth. And the woman makes decisions, for example, what to eat, where to go on vacation, etc. Hence the conclusion: the higher the woman’s IQ, the better life is.
- In general, men are offered a much wider choice of means of prolonging days than women. Maybe this is how scientists are trying to compensate for the odds that nature gives to the weaker sex? If a young man is not ready to tie the knot, there are other, more pleasant ways. University of Bristol professor George Davey Smith observed 3,000 South Wales men for ten years and found that those who have sex at least twice a week are half as likely to die of heart attacks. “Regular sex increases the levels of dehydroandrosterone and testosterone, and they fight free radicals – the cause of cancer and heart disease,” explained the doctor.
- And the last, to fully disclose the topic of sex. Good news for those who are not popular with the fair sex: according to some sources. It is not even necessary to do THIS. Gerontologist Karen Weatherby, based on the observation of 200 patients in three Frankfurt clinics. Claims that just ten minutes of a man’s contemplation of female roundness are equivalent to 30 minutes of aerobics. By itself, sexual arousal improves heart rate and blood circulation. Halving the risk of a heart attack.
- We have all heard about the benefits of dry red wine. American doctors formulated their discovery as follows: red wine with the right snack is healthier than any diet. Resveratrol contains fights the causes of aging. Americans have noticed that red-heavy nations live longer. Researchers believe that a glass of red wine should be part of the daily diet of a middle-aged person.
- Plant foods can be considered as an option for the right snack. A vegetarian lifestyle and a low meat diet will guarantee you not an extra 3.6 years of life, according to scientists from Loma Linda University. In their opinion, to live longer, you need to eat meat less than once a week. But plant foods – fruits and vegetables – saturates the body with antioxidants, contributing to longevity. Definitely, in this case, I have to live a long time, because for the last 15 years I have not eaten meat.
- The opposite of drinking and snacking to lengthen your days is hunger. This was first proven in nematode worms and mice, and later in humans. The genes responsible for longevity have been discovered in mammalian cells. Researchers at Cornell University College of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and the US National Institutes of Health have found that when a cell is stressed. Genes in the Sirtuin family turn on defense systems. At the same time, the system of energy production changes in humans, postponing the time of programmed cell death, thereby prolonging life.
- Having dealt with the strategies of the bodily bottom. Let’s move on to spiritual and intellectual practices. The first thing that Finnish scholars recommend is to learn foreign languages. David Marsh, in his study, believes that learning multiple languages is a great exercise for the brain. Multilingualism slows down the process of age-related changes in the brain. At the same time making the circulatory system and the heart work better. To train gray matter, the scientist recommends not only learning languages but also solving crosswords or counting in the mind.
- Grandma’s wisdom about five minutes of laughter and a glass of sour cream has also been rethought by Western professors. Dr. Michael Miller of the University of Maryland advises: If you want to extend your days, laugh 15 minutes a day. His colleagues tested 20 healthy volunteers. First, the subjects watched the tragedy, and then the comedy. It turned out that in 14 out of 20, watching a sad movie slowed down the blood flow by 35%. But the comedy “invigorated” the blood of 19 people by 22%. During laughter, a person strains and relaxes almost all the muscles in the body. In addition, according to Freud, the accumulated internal tension is released with laughter.
- Finally, the most obvious: be happy and live long – this dependence was backed up by numbers by the Dutch sociologist Ruth Verhoeven. He has been studying happy people since the mid-1960s and recently presented his results: happiness will not give life to people with serious illnesses, but healthy people will protect them from illness. Depression depresses the immune system, but happiness, on the contrary, strengthens.
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