A Long Life Can Be A Great Life
Here’s a closer look at a small province in Japan called Ogimi.
Health is at the forefront of our minds today. At some point before or during the quarantine period, you have asked these questions to yourself:
Can I call myself truly healthy? Are my lifestyle choices supporting me in these challenging times? What should I change in the food and drinks that I take every day? What food should I eat to help boost my immune system? Will I or my family come out of this alive?
And because we have so much time to wonder, it’s a great time to rethink our previous lifestyle choices to see what we can change for the better.
This book by Hector Garcia and Francesc Millares called Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life has presented loads of good information out of their research interviews in Okinawa Prefecture in Japan. The goal of the research is to find the meaning of Ikigai — purpose in life — among those who live a long life. What makes a long life a purposeful one?
They find it in Ogimi, a village found within Okinawa. It’s known to be the village of longevity, recognized for having the highest proportion of elderly persons in Japan.
Based on the authors’ research, they have these things in common.
They eat right.
They eat a wide variety of food — an average of 18 foods each day and over 200 different types of food, in general. They eat 5 servings of fruits and veggies per day.
Grains are the foundation of their diet — noodles and rice. They like cane sugar, fish (3x a week) and a citrus fruit called shikuwasa. This fruit is part of every meal.
Food is served in small plates and they stop eating when they are 80% full.
They move every day.
There is constant movement. They keep themselves busy with volunteering, social activities, gardening, and dancing. Some other activities they do are tai chi, qi gong, and radio taiso.
Vegetable gardening is one of their favorite activities. In fact, most of the supercentenarians interviewed by the researchers own a vegetable garden and work on them every day. Some sell their harvest at the local market.
They go from one location to another only by biking, driving or walking. Okinawa is the only Japanese province without trains.
They maintain close, social relationships with their families and community.
Reading this part of the book reminded me of this TED Talk by Robert Waldinger entitled ‘What Makes A Good Life? Lessons From The Longest Study On Happiness’.
These are the three things they found out from the study:
- That social connections are really good for us, and that loneliness kills. It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to the community, are happier. They’re physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.
- That it’s not just the number of friends you have, and it’s not whether or not you’re in a committed relationship, but it’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.
- That good relationships don’t just protect our bodies, they protect our brains. It turns out that being in a securely attached relationship to another person in your 80s is protective, that the people who are in relationships where they really feel they can count on the other person in times of need, those people’s memories stay sharper longer.
This is a study done in America and appears to be consistent with the lifestyle of the residents of Ogimi.
Almost everyone in this village volunteers for some kind of cause or organization. They socialize — sing, dance, celebrate together. They smile a lot and seem to have caught that one thing that makes this life worthwhile: happiness.
Final words
Living longer doesn’t have to mean being stuck at home, living with a disease with nothing else to look forward to.
These are lovely Ogimi photos from photographer Stefanie Sinclair. I also found this blog about a young traveler’s visit to Ogimi.
The supercentenarians of Japan are living proof that a long life can be a satisfying, content life. One that most people in the world can only dream of. To them, it is not out of reach.
