Simon: There are five places in the world where people live the longest, called The Blue Zones. In this episode of this podcast, you will learn their secrets to long life and what you can do to copy them.

Intro jingle: Welcome to the Cancer Wisdom podcast. This podcast teaches you how to treat cancer with natural remedies without using toxic treatments. Discover how to take charge of your health and not be a slave to Big Pharma medicine. Here's your host Simon Persson.

Simon: I have written the blog Cancer Wisdom for years. So I started to learn about certain habits that you could use to improve your health, such as eating a plant-based diet, sleeping enough hours per day, getting enough vitamin D, de-stressing, and so forth.

And then my friend talked about an episode on Oprah where she talked about the Blue Zones. The Blue Zones are five places where people live the longest in the world. And later, I heard that there was a book about the Blue Zones.

The author, Dan Buettner, wrote the book the Blue Zones after he went with a team of demographers and researchers and looked for people that lived the longest.

So they circled around the world and made several trips to five Blue Zones that they found during their trips. Dan talked with the people who lived there, and his research team also confirmed that people were as old as they said they were. 

Dan interviewed dozens of centenarians people that are over a hundred years old. And he also worked with local medical experts.

Buttner studied each Blue Zones' local lifestyles and habits. Each Blue Zone that Dan visited had their own recipe for longevity, but many places also shared the same nine traits.

So eventually, I decided to read the book, and I discovered that the habits that the Blue Zones followed were the same things  I wrote about in my blog.

This confirmed to me that our habits decide if we stay healthy and live a long life. Therefore, I knew that what I had been teaching all these years were the recipes for a healthy and long life.

So I will briefly talk about every Blue Zone,  and after that, I will explain their nine secrets to a long life.  

So the first Blue Zone is Sardinia in Italy. Sardinia is an Italian island in the  Mediterranean Sea or west of the Italian mainland. It's about 24,000 square kilometers or 9,300 square miles.

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and this island also has exceptional longevity. So it's mostly due to that this area keeps a traditional and healthy lifestyle.

The Sardinians are also known for hunting, fishing, and harvesting their own food. They also have close relationships with friends and families throughout their lives.

The second Blue Zone is Okinawa in Japan. So Okinawa is one of 47 prefectures of Japan. Okinawa means rope in the open sea. This island has a subtropical or tropical climate. And during the Second World War, the US Army fought a long and bloody battle to capture Okinawa.

So about 95,000 Japanese army troops and 12,500 Americans died during the war. Due to the war, Okinawans had to create strong friendships to protect themselves when they struggled financially.

Okinawa is also famous for its longevity and was once called the Land of Immortals. Okinawans have less cancer, heart disease, and dementia than Americans, and their women also live the longest in the world.

The third place where people live the longest is Loma Linda in California. Loma Linda means beautiful hill in Spanish and is a city in San Bernardino County, California.

The reason why this is a Blue Zone is because of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. They have a strong presence in this city. Health is a major part of this church, and that's why these Adventists are so healthy.

There are about 9,000 Adventists in Loma Linda, and they live as much as one decade longer than the rest of the population.

The fourth Blue Zone is Nicoya in Costa Rica. Nicoya is a peninsula on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It's famous for its beaches and is a popular tourist destination.  

And finally, the fifth Blue Zone is Ikaria in Greece. Ikaria is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. It got its name from Icarus, the son of Daedalus in Greek mythology. So according to tradition, he fell into the sea nearby.

There were many invasions from Persians, Romans, and Turks that forced its residents inland from the coast. And as a result, they have an isolated culture where they have a strong traditions, family values, and longevity.

So now that you have learned about the Blue Zones, let's discover their nine secrets for longevity. The first thing that  Dan Buettner discovered while visiting the Blue Zones was that exercise was very important.  

So the Blue Zones engage in regular or low-intensity physical activity every day. Their activities are often part of their daily work routine. In Sardinia, they work most of their lives as shepherds and walk miles every day.

The Okinawans garden for hours each day and grow their own food. And that was part of their exercise. The Adventists like to take nature walks.

They usually do that during the sabbath when they get together with their friends and families. Regular exercise is good for your health and reduces your risk of cancer. One analysis of 71 existing studies showed that you could reduce your cancer death by exercising more.

Cancer patients that walk at least two and a half hours per week are 13% less likely to die from cancer than those who don't exercise that much. If you want to prolong your life, try to do physical activities every day. One great way to do that is to make exercise part of your lifestyle.

Try to ride a bike or walk to the store or take the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Do activities you enjoy, and don't force yourself to do things you dislike.

The second lesson that we can learn from the Blue Zones is don't overeat. In Okinawa, the elders only eat until they are 80% full. They call it hara hachi bu.

The Sardinians eat a similar lean diet around 2000 calories per day. In America, they eat a lot more calories before they feel full compared to Okinawans.

In the Blue Zones, they eat mostly starch-based diets or carbohydrates. And carbohydrates contain a lot of fibers that can help you feel full.

And in America, they eat a lot of fat and protein, and these things contain more calories, and you can easily eat too many calories when you eat fat.

So, for example, if you eat a Big Mac with large fries and a huge soda, that's about 1200 calories for one meal. That's more than half of the calories that Blue Zones consume all day.

If you eat this junk food all the time, you can easily consume several thousands of calories per day. The Okinawan meal has only one-fifth of the caloric intake compared to the American diet.

Vegetables have a lot fewer calories than animal products.  
One gram of fat contains nine calories, and carbohydrates that you can find in vegetables and fruits contain about four calories per gram. If you eat more vegetables and fruits, you need to eat a lot more food to feel full.  

And one trick that you can use is to consume vegetables with starch. So starch is a white powder in some vegetables. And the great thing about starchy vegetables, such as rice and potatoes, is that you can more easily reach your caloric intake per day without paying too much money.

So if you eat a lot of starchy vegetables, you can get the right amount of calories per day, and the fiber in vegetables helps you feel full. And therefore, you can consume less calories and still feel satiated.  

So the takeaway you can learn from the Blue Zones is to recognize when you had enough on your plate to fill your stomach at 80%.

So one tip is to avoid foods with a lot of fat, such as animal products, cookies, or eat a low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet, such as centering your intake on starch, vegetables, beans, and fruits.

And that's why the third lesson is to eat a plant-based diet. So in the Blue Zones, they eat a mostly plant-based diet. Some of these Blue Zones rarely eat any meat. It's mostly once a week or on special occasions.

Meat is mostly a side dish instead of the main course. Some strict Adventists avoid meat altogether. And one interesting thing is that most centenarians never had the chance to eat processed foods. They either ate vegetables from the garden or the food that they produced.

So traditional Sardinians, Nicoyans, and Okinawans ate what they produced in their gardens. And as I mentioned before the Blue Zones eat a primary starch-based diet. In Okinawa, they get 69% of their calories from sweet potatoes.

And the Sardinian diet consists of whole-grain bread,  beans, garden vegetables, and fruits. And meat is unusual and only served on Sundays or special occasions.

Sardinian shepherds take semolina flatbread with them when they work, and the Nicoyan elders consume little to no processed foods. And they also eat a plant-based diet for the most part. Their staples include beans, corn, vegetables, and tropical fruits.

And they only eat meat a few times a week. And the Nicoyans also eat corn tortillas every meal. And many Adventists follow a vegetarian diet. They eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts, which protect them from cancer.

If the Adventists want to eat some meat, the church recommends that they only eat small portions served as a side dish. In Ikaria, they eat a variation of the Mediterranean diet. Their food consists of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, potatoes, and olive oil.

The main staples of the Blue Zones are beans, whole grains, and garden vegetables. So if you want to prolong your life, then you should avoid animal products and eat a low-fat, high-carb diet.

Your diet should consist of 80% carbs, 10% protein, and 10% fat. And you can do that by concentrating your food on vegetables, fruits, grains, and beans and reducing your intake of fatty foods like nuts, seeds, and avocado.

And you should also throw away all animal products and unhealthy processed foods. And if you can, you should grow your own vegetables. When you grow your own vegetables, the vegetables are more ripe and have more minerals and vitamins.

According to Dan Buettner, most of the Blue Zones drank wine. So in Sardinia, they drink a glass of red wine with each meal or whenever they meet some friends. I actually don't agree with Dan Buettner about this point.

I made a blog post about the dangers of alcohol and found out that no amount of alcohol was healthy. So alcohol actually increases the risk of breast cancer, and about 5.8% of all cancer deaths are due to alcohol. Dan claims that wine can reduce heart problems.

He learned that from one episode of 60 Minutes. It was about the French paradox. The report said that wine protects French people from heart disease. In this report, Finland seemed to do worse than expected.

French people ate the same amount of saturated fat and cholesterol as Finland. But somehow, they had five times fewer heart attacks. And the 60-minute program believed that resveratrol in wine caused the effect.

What they didn't tell you was that French people had less heart disease because, prior to this report, they ate more vegetables.

But later, they switched to a more meat-heavy diet, and because the switch was quite recent, the effect didn't show in the statistics.

It's like comparing a heavy smoker to a new smoker. It's obvious that the heavy smoker that has years of accumulation of toxins will have more problems than a guy that recently started to smoke.

It was shown that French people had as much heart disease as other countries. The scientists forgot to include statistics about heart disease. When they added it, the French people had as much heart disease as other countries.

And most of the studies that showed that resveratrol had a beneficial effect on your health were tested on animals. And these animals received massive doses of resveratrol in tens of milligrams per pound. So if humans want to reach those levels, we need to consume either 85,000 cups of wine a day.

Or 5,000 pounds of apples and grapes, 50 pounds of peanuts, a couple of thousand gallons of white wine a day, or eat thousands of pounds of chocolate every day.

The Blue Zones are healthy because of their overall lifestyle. The benefit of the wine can be because of them visiting their friends and spending time with them, not the wine itself. So this effect can be despite the wine rather than because of it.

The takeaway here is that if you don't have cancer, then drinking wine occasionally might not kill you, but it will increase your cancer risk. The best way is to avoid it, especially if you have cancer.  

The fifth lesson that you can learn from the Blue Zones is to have a purpose in life. All Blue Zones have a higher purpose in life. In Okinawa, they call it ikigai, and Nicoyans call it plan de vida.

So in both cultures, it means why I wake up in the morning. Having a higher purpose in life can act as a buffer against stress. When the centenarians do something they enjoy every day, they feel joy.

They can feel joy from gardening and meeting friends or families. In our world, most of us work at stressful jobs that we don't like. And when we are depressed, we are less likely to take care of our health and don't care about our life.  

So I remember one time when I worked at a supermarket, and I felt so depressed working there because I was doing the same task every day. There was no excitement in my life. It was just eat, sleep, and work.

So eventually, I decided to learn computer programming. My friend learned programming, so I decided to try it out, and the minute I decided to learn programming, I felt a surge of energy because I felt more inspired than before.

And even if I didn't enjoy my work, I was looking forward to learning more about programming. But in the end, computer programming didn't fit me. So later, I started the blog Cancer Wisdom, and because of this blog, I feel more inspired in life.  

I know that my highest purpose in life is to teach people how to take care of their health so that they can avoid cancer.

People that have a clear goal in life live longer. There are several ways that you can create a higher purpose in your life. For some people seeing their grandchildren can be enough, or having their own family.

You can also find a purpose in your business, a hobby, or helping others. But you have to make sure that you connect your purpose with your spiritual purpose.

Eckhart Tolle says in his book A New Earth that your main purpose in life should be to wake up from the grips of your ego. So you should work on your mental state to free yourself of the false ego, the belief that you're this body with this name and this title.

By working on yourself, you will discover that the big I, God, or your higher being is unlimited and is the only way to create happiness. And when you believe that you're a body and try to seek happiness from external things, you only create a lot of suffering.

So therefore, it's important to work on yourself and let go of your emotional trauma so that when you try to start a own business or do a hobby that, you don't do it just to get money or recognition from other people but rather use them to express your happiness through those avenues.

That makes it less stressful to do them. For example, if you have a business and only care about the money, you will feel anxious when the business goes south, or there are conflicts.

But if you are already happy from within and don't need a business to feel secure, you will be better at dealing with the conflicts of life.

So the takeaway here is that you should find a higher purpose in your life. The highest purpose is waking up spiritually and connecting it to an external purpose. One way you can do that is to create a personal mission statement.  

Why do you get up in the morning?

What are you passionate about?

What's important to you?

A higher purpose can also be learning a musical instrument, a new language, or a new skill.

The sixth lesson we can learn from the Blue Zones is to learn how to relax. Nicoyans take a break every afternoon to rest and socialize with friends.

And the Adventists have the sabbath every Saturday.   It's a major part of their faith. From sunset, Friday to Saturday evening, they meet and focus on God and their families and nature.

They usually go on hikes in nature and don't allow themselves to work. And their kids don't play any organized sports or do any homework.

It's a way for them to rest and have fun together. These activities bring everyone together and make them feel closer to God, and it is a time when they can rest and recharge.

In the west, we focus more on accomplishments, status, or material gain. We have often heard that hard work is the only honorable way to live. And we always need to show that we're productive.

Therefore many people have a hard time to relax and do nothing. We are ashamed when we don't do anything. People can see you as lazy or a loser if you don't do anything every day.

Many people work 40 hours per week and have other responsibilities that make it hard to rest. So you can have a job and then have to take care of your small kids.

So in America, they're lucky if they get two weeks of vacation each year. In Japan, it's common to work long hours every day.

They already have a word called karoshi, which means death by overwork. There have been cases in Japan where people die of overwork. They have either heart failures or strokes from working too much.

The word karoshi can also mean that the person commits suicide because of overwork. So there was one story when a 31-year-old woman called Miwa Sado that worked for the Japanese News Network, NHK.

She worked 159 overtime hours in one month and died of heart failure in 2013. There was also one case where Matsuri Takahashi committed suicide on Christmas Day, 2015. So she worked 105 extra hours in one month and couldn't manage it and decided to commit suicide.

 There are few cultural institutions to encourage us to slow down or distress. If you're stressed and busy all the time, try to spend some time doing relaxation exercises such as yoga or meditation.  

When you use more spiritual methods such as meditation, you'll learn that happiness comes from within and, therefore, you don't need to accomplish as much stuff.

And then you will find that most of the time that you spent being busy was due to doing things you didn't enjoy and where you wanted to do them to get appreciation from other people or money.

If you can, spend some time meditating every day. Try to create a regular meditation schedule and meditate every day, no matter what.  

Do a 30-day challenge where you tell yourself to meditate for at least ten minutes a day. And later, you can expand that to 30 minutes per day.

You can also light a candle in the room to create a calm environment, take a warm bath, walk in nature, or pray. You can also use other relaxation techniques, such as  EFT.

You should also minimize your time spent on television, radio, or the Internet. These things are like junk food. They don't make you relax, and you just waste your time on often useless stuff.

The seventh lesson that we can learn from the Blue Zones is to be part of our spiritual community. Dan discovered that healthy centenarians everywhere had a strong faith. The Sardinians and Nicoyans are, for the most part, Catholic and Okinawans have a blended religion that stresses ancestor worship.  

In Loma Linda, the centenarians are Seventh-Day Adventists, and their religion is part of why they live so long.
So spiritual people have lower rates of heart disease, depression, stress, and suicide. They're often healthier and happier and have a higher purpose in life.

And people who attend church are less likely to engage in harmful activities. They're usually more active, smoke less, do less drugs, or don't drink. One benefit of being part of a spiritual community is that you can have a larger social network than other people.

You can meet people with the same type of faith and conviction, and that can make it easier to talk to people and help each other.

And one great thing about spirituality is that you're less stuck in materialism, and therefore when things get rough, you have a higher source to receive your happiness.

As I said before, your main purpose in life is to wake up spiritually and get rid of your ego, and when you do that, you won't be affected by external things in your life.

If everything crashes down in your life, you can feel happy from the inside. So I have a friend that went to Africa. He met some kids that didn't have any parents.

The most surprising thing for him was that these kids were one of the happiest he had ever seen. They didn't have any parents, and some days they didn't have anything to eat.
So the only thing they had was each other, and therefore they could feel joy even though their lives were mediocre at best.

So the takeaway you can learn from the Blue Zones is to be more active in your church. Engage in activities like singing or volunteering to help the homeless. If you don't follow a particular dogma, then you can learn more about spirituality.  

You can read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and learn to let go of your ego and find like-minded people that also want to work on themselves.

So one tip is to visit a Vipassana 10-day meditation workshop. So in this workshop, you meditate 10 hours per day for ten days. You can deepen your connection to your higher source and learn to find happiness from within, and don't let the ego destroy your happiness.

You can also learn to use spiritual methods such as the Sedona Method, the Work by Byron Katie, or you can meditate.

The eighth lesson that we can learn from the Blue Zones is to focus on our family. In the Blue Zones, family comes first. Grandparents meet their children and grandchildren every day or often.

So this bond creates a sense of security. In the west, we focus more on ourselves, and when our parents get old, we put them in an old home. But in the Blue Zones, they take care of the elders.

So Dan Buttner told one funny story in the book. I think it was in Sardinia. He asked a relative of a centenarian why they didn't put them in an old home. And the relative became angry and pointed at him and said they would never do that.

So that shows how families are really important. By the time the centenarians become 100 years old, their children reciprocate their love and care. Children make sure to check up on their parents. And the younger generation also welcomes the older generation into their homes.

And because the families live together, the centenarians stay sharper longer than those who live in a nursing home.
I heard one sad story about a woman that lived in an old home.

She liked music and playing the piano, but the old home didn't allow her to play music, and she eventually died because of unhappiness. The sad part is that Western countries are trending in the opposite direction than the Blue Zones. So working parents have less time for their kids.

Our schedules are packed with things to do. And we often don't have any time to spend with our kids. Psychotherapists discovered that the first years with our parents are the most important.  

If we don't have a good bond with our parents, we can get problems in our future relationships. I knew a woman that did a lot of research on the brain, and her primary focus was how our relationships affect the brain.

She said that it's really important that parents and children have a strong bond during the first two years. In America, they can put their children in daycare after only a couple of months. We traumatize our children when we put them in daycare before they are two years old.

For many people getting children is a status symbol and not a real desire. My mom worked at a daycare a couple of years ago, and she told many horror stories.  

Many parents didn't care about their children and dropped them off early in the morning and picked them up late in the evening. And because the children stayed the whole day in daycare, they became grumpy, and the parents then gave them candy to make them shut up.  

So the kids learned that if we scream and beg, we get candy or things we like. I have also heard stories where parents have told the daycare not to make them rest at noon so that when they pick the children up, they're so tired that they want to sleep, and therefore the parents don't have to deal with them.

Our world focuses more on a good career and less on the family. In Sweden, it's not uncommon to only visit your relatives during Christmas, weddings, or funerals,

There are more divorces today than ever before. About 50% of marriages end in divorce. The children then have to spend one week with their dad or mom, and therefore they can feel that they don't belong anywhere, especially if one of the parents has divorced many times.

So when we don't have a secure family to return to, that can make us feel more insecure, and loneliness makes us sick.   It can be as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

People who are lonely are also more depressed and isolated, which can make them more likely to become sick or die.

We have an epidemic of loneliness, isolation, and alienation. Loneliness causes chronic emotional stress and overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system.

So if you have strong social networks, people know you. They can know your dark side, demons, and mistakes, and help you. Therefore, social networks can have healing benefits. Being part of a support group is a powerful antidote to loneliness and isolation.

And depression leads to a poorer cancer prognosis. In the fifties, people lived free generations together, and it created a strong support system that was good for the children.

In the fifties, moms could stay at home with their kids, and if she couldn't manage to take care of her children, she could get the help of her parents. The children always had someone to take care of them.

But now both parents need to work due to the rising costs. The takeaway here is to focus more time on your family. Invest more time and energy in your children, spouse, or parents.

Eat every day with your family and invite your grandparents or parents or visit them as much as possible. And also make sure to spend the holidays together.

So the final lesson of the Blue Zones is to spend more time with your friends and tribe. Social connectedness is an integral part of the Blue Zones. Okinawans have something called moais, a group of people who stick together their whole lives.

These support groups in Okinawa helped them during the war when there was financial hardship. So when you have true friends that are always there for you, you feel more secure, and that can help you with your stress.

Sardinians finish their day in the local bar, where they meet friends. Every year there's a grape harvest and village festivals, and the village festivals need the help of the whole community.

One great benefit of spending time with your friends is that you can adopt better habits when everyone around you is already practicing them. Therefore, it's important to find activities that you both enjoy and share them with others.

One reason I believe women live longer is due to their strong social networks. When they have problems, they speak to each other and help each other, while men are more reluctant to share their problems with other people and often keep them inside, which can make them more sick and die earlier.

Robert D. Putnam wrote the book Bowling Alone. This book was about the American community. In his book, he said that from 1975 to 76, American men and women attended 12 meetings per year. And in 1999, that figure shrunk by 58% to five meetings per year.

We also spend less time on housework and childcare. Most Americans no longer spend much time in community organizations. Putman said that Americans identifying as having no religion rose problem 2% in 1967 to 11% by the 1990s.

And he also explained in his book that family activities became less common in the late 20th century. There can be many reasons why the community fell in America, such as busyness and time pressure, economic hard times, and the feminist movement, which told women to work more and spend less time on the family. Or more people moved to the cities.

Today, more people watch TV or use iPads instead of going out and playing. Many kids spend a lot of time in front of the computer or television and play video games on their iPads instead of going out and playing.

The decline of the American community can also be the American economy, such as the creation of chain stores, branch firms, or globalization.

The decline can also be due to the disruption of marriages and family ties where the state raises the children and not families. The civil rights revolution can also be part of this problem.

In today's society, we have gone from group thinking to focusing on individuality. We have learned to take care of our own needs. We need to get good grades, get into a good school, and get a job ourselves.

We don't have this strong social network as before, and because of that, we can feel a lot of stress and pressure to perform and solve all our problems and don't use our social networks to help us.

The takeaway that you can learn from the Blue Zones is to spend more time with friends that support your healthy habits and challenge you mentally. Do you have a friend you can rely on in case of need?

If you want to eat a healthy plant-based diet, then you can find friends that share the same purpose and conviction.
If you don't have many friends, then you can join support groups to get help.

So spend at least 30 minutes a day with members of your inner circle or do activities with others that you enjoy. So building a strong friendship requires some effort, but this investment can pay back in added years.

If you want a short summary of what I have talked about today, then you can download the document Nine Secrets to Living a Long Life.

So learn how to implement these nine lessons from the Blue Zones so that you can live a longer and healthier life. Thanks for listening to this episode, and I'll see you in the next one.