How to Live Longer (and Better): 10 Things to Consider
Whether or not you are keeping score, your body is. There are no shortcuts to good health, except maybe knowledge. Throughout the past decade, I’ve tracked the latest research related to breast cancer (my story) and encourage you to evaluate these ten aspects of your life to help you live a longer and better life. Though there are other factors, like your family history, you cannot change; you CAN control lifestyle choices. This article is a wellness self-inventory for creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle — not just about breast cancer.
Note: If you are a headlines skimmer, scan the Wellness Self-Inventory list and tally up your scorecard. If you want (or need) more information and research to back the recommendations, read the entire blog. Yes, grab a cup of coffee, paper, and pencil and keep score of where you need to get to work. You have only one life, and even if you haven’t been, your body IS keeping score.
WELLNESS SELF-INVENTORY
(Award yourself 10 points for each item you currently practice)
- Make healthy food choices (avoid processed and fast food, at least most of the time).
- Obtain and maintain ideal body weight.
3. Exercise regularly.
4. Avoid all tobacco products.
5. Avoid alcohol.
6. See your physician regularly and follow recommended screenings.
7. Perform monthly self-exams.
8. Manage your stress levels.
9. Get 7–8 hours of sleep each night; avoid working nights if possible.
10. Reduce environmental risks. (Pollution, lead, radon…)
Below are my reflections with research that supports each recommendation:
- Make healthy food choices. What we put in our mouths fuels our bodies each hour of each day. Good stuff in, healthy body out. Junk in, problems out. Processed food, meats, snack foods, sugar, fast food, and convenient foods we’ve introduced into our diet the past few decades catering to our lives of convenience are to blame. Our growing desire for easy and fast food preparation becomes the culprits of chaos when our food sources are the “good fuel” to stoke human fire. Check out this article that backs me up on the benefits of eating healthy and this one too.
The best cancer-fighting foods can be found here, and remember to include these seven superfoods in your diet.
2. Obtain and maintain ideal body weight.
When we carry extra weight, we are just asking for problems. Whether wearing out our joints prematurely, eating ourselves into diabetes, or fueling cancer cells, your body weight matters. Use a BMI (or body mass index) to guide you — your height and weight factor into a number (preferably in the range of 18.5–24.9) that is the indicator you’ve got the right weight on your type of body frame. Officially, body mass index (BMI) measures body fat based on height and weight that applies to adult men and women. Here’s the translation:
BMI Categories:
Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5–24.9
Overweight = 25–29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater
If you want to calculate yours, here’s a link from the National Institute of Health.
My BMI has consistently been in or near the 24’s since I became a mom three decades ago. Recently I’ve dipped down to the 22’s with some focused attention on losing some weight (and feel great, by the way). It is my goal to keep it under the magic 25 advised to be in good health. And I love to eat, so staying near my goal weight is a constant struggle. Here’s an article from the Washington Post that links the risk of dying from breast cancer with a lower-fat diet. Another article from CNN links body fat levels to breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women.
My conclusion? Work with your health care professionals to attain and maintain a BMI under 25. Yes, you CAN do it, and it all starts in the grocery store with your choices there, eating less processed foods, and learning how to decode and order food when you eat or order out.
3. Exercise regularly.
Since the first two on the list have to do with food and weight, here is a way to keep your weight down and your physical strength, muscle mass, bone density, and fitness up. You don’t have to be an athlete, but you need to develop a routine to follow that works for you, your body, your abilities, and your lifestyle. Always seek a doctor’s advice before starting any new program, joining a class, or getting a workout buddy for motivation. As I’ve been a life-long athlete, exercising is not a problem for me, but rather when I have physical limitations and can’t work out, then the pounds (and my bad attitude) resurface. Research reveals exercise increases well-being by improving gut health, and more research from the Current Sports Medicine Report may motivate you. The bottom line is simple: get moving and stay active.
4. Avoid all tobacco products.
Yes, Captain Obvious, I think we all know ingesting tobacco in any form is not healthy and creates multiple problems from health to finances. Don’t start and if you have, seek help to stop. However, too much research on this to pick takes it from the Surgeon General and stays away from tobacco altogether. Research published in Breast Cancer Research from the Generations Study cohort concludes: “Smoking was associated with a modest but significantly increased risk of breast cancer, particularly among women who started smoking at adolescent or peri-menarcheal ages. The relative risk of breast cancer associated with smoking was greater for women with a family history of the disease.” More from that research is found here.
5. Avoid alcohol.
Yes, you may talk yourself out of this one, but enough research has shown that alcohol not only packs on the pounds but may also fuel inflammation and disease. The solution? Don’t start drinking or quit if you have. I quit on 12–31–2018 and haven’t looked back. Do you need research to back this up? Though the final verdict may still be out, we know that alcohol causes inflammation and contains high levels of sugar, both of which should be avoided or limited for good health. Here is more information from the research front. I guess I like to crunch my calories these days more than drink them…
6. See your physician regularly and follow recommended screenings.
This will vary depending on your gender and age. It starts with visiting your physician annually and following through on recommended tests and screenings. Ahem, with a milestone birthday coming up, just typing this reminds me it is time for my colonoscopy. Here is a background doc from the American Cancer Society that may be helpful. As new screening technologies come on the market, they will help us diagnose and treat diseases earlier and more effectively. Get ’em on your calendar just like changing the oil in your car (or have you put that off too?)
7. Perform monthly self-exams.
An extension of visiting your physician is up to you to monitor your body and report any changes you notice. Don’t rely on the Internet docs to diagnose yourself. Visit the real MDs who know you and your body. This seems logical, but it seems we are either embarrassed or afraid (or both) to share changes in our bodies that are uncomfortable (for us) to verbalize. Remember, your doctor has heard it all and can only help you if they know what’s going on with your body. The Mayo Clinic has information on breast self-exam and awareness for reference.
8. Manage your stress levels.
This one is tricky. Sometimes we think we manage stress — work, illness, death of a loved one, financial pressures, but they manifest themselves in other ways — binge eating, deprivation, isolation, self-harm, depression, declining health. Your body takes its cues from your mind. If you are on overload and not dealing with “it” in a healthy way (think yoga, physical exercise, meditation, talking to a professional or a friend, etc.), it will manifest itself in ways harder to deal with down the road. Think of stress as a dandelion in your lawn. It sprouts up and calls attention to itself as a nuisance. Once it appears, you can either ignore it by mowing it down each week, spraying it, or digging it up. But if you dig it up, you MUST get all the roots, or the weed will pop up again and again. The same goes for stress. Here is research about stress using mouse models that shows that stress hormones can help breast cancer grow, spread, and diversify, making it harder to treat. And here is another article about chronic stress. The bottom line is to take care of yourself as priority #1.
9. Get 7–8 hours of sleep each night; avoid working nights if possible.
You can convince others you only need 6 hours of sleep, but your body needs time to relax, repair and recharge daily. Don’t shortchange yourself, your family, your coworkers, or your friends by picking up the slack and cutting down on your sleep. Here’s more to convince you to head to bed earlier, as well as research on the link between working night shifts and a higher rate of cancer. It’s not just beauty rest, folks.
10. Reduce environmental risks. (Pollution, lead, radon…)
The environments where we live, work, eat and play can and do affect our bodies. Please pay attention to your surroundings and minimize exposure to things like lead (think paint in an older home and water in older pipes), toxins from yard chemicals, air pollution, radon (especially important in older homes with basements), and even non-organic food we purchase at the grocery store. It seems a pain to wash our melons and fruits; however, the more our farmers battle Mother Nature, the more our food needs to be questioned and prepared properly. Here is a background document from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences that may be helpful.
Post Script: Smile, laugh, enjoy life, and do the best you can to control what you can. This article was not meant to make you paranoid or shame you, but rather to share knowledge with you to make better choices for your future. Remember, you are the author of your life and are writing your next chapter right now. I am hopeful it is a very long novel, and you have the needed information to make the best choices you can in the pages ahead. And don’t forget to send postcards along the way.
