I Guess I Just Forgot to Die

Some thoughts on Blue Zones and doing more of what we love

We’ve been making our way through Dan Buetner’s ‘Live to 100’ series on Netflix. If you’re not familiar, it’s a mini series based on the Blue Zones. Those areas of the world where people seem to live longer and healthier than the rest of us. 

The thing I find most fascinating about the Blue Zones is how there’s much less focus on diet and exercise than you might think! 

Not NO focus. It’s just not the only thing. 

These people aren’t obsessively tracking everything, trying to find the one perfect diet, or biohacking their way to a longer life, and they’re also not surviving off of fast food and protein shakes or working 60 hours a week, they’re just living! 

The lifestyles in the different regions vary slightly, but there are a few commonalities as well. They eat a diet heavy in plants, incorporate movement into their days, prepare simple meals with local foods, drink only moderately, enjoy time with family and friends, and there’s a strong sense of purpose and connection. 

Which lines up with the research on health and happiness from Harvard’s 75 year study on human happiness, which found that the quality of your relationships is more important than your BMI, cholesterol or genetics, when it came to living a long and happy life.  

Fascinating right?!

One of my favorite parts of the series so far is when they visit a man named Stamatis Moraitis in Ikaria, Greece. Stamatis was born in Ikaria but spent most of his life living in the United States until he was diagnosed with lung cancer at 66 years old. He saw 3 different doctors and got 3 of the same opinions. 6 months to live. 

He decided to forgo aggressive treatment and instead, he and his wife returned to Ikaria, so he could be buried with his ancestors in a cemetery overlooking the Aegean Sea. But in a really beautiful twist of fate he ended up living (healthy and happy) until nearly 100 years old! 

He planted a garden, spent time with his wife, worked his land daily planting grapes for wine, and showed up to play dominos most nights with friends at a local tavern. He was enjoying his life and continued to get stronger, and says at some point, he just “forgot to die.” 

Is Stamatis an anomaly? It’s possible. But I still believe it to be a strong argument for prioritizing joy in our lives and for keeping things SIMPLE when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. 

And yet it is admittedly harder to find this same level of simplicity as these small communities living in the United States. Not impossible, but harder for sure. It’s something we’ve talked about a lot since moving back from Mexico. 

In the U.S. things just run at a faster pace.

People work longer hours, there’s more expectation of efficiency, everything is more expensive, and also a lot more convenient in the U.S.! We don’t have to haul jugs of drinking water up to our house, or walk 119 steps multiple times a day just to get there. We spend a lot more time in the car, and food is much more available (at any time of day or year). I know I’m guilty of overdoing it on the “healthy snacks” these days (looking at you Simple Mills crackers!)

Mexico is not a blue zone. And they have their own challenges with health. And we lived in a fairly small town. But we certainly walked more and enjoyed more communal meals with friends and had more small daily encounters that made it easy to feel like part of the community. And I realized how much it filled my cup to see these familiar faces at such a regular cadence.

Over the years, I’ve found that the less I focus on trying to “be healthy” the healthier I actually feel.

In my mind and in my body.

Not that I don’t care why I’m eating, or I sit around doing nothing all day, but I’m able to trust myself more and to be more intuitive about how I’m eating and moving and spending my time and my energy. 

And I feel less stressed when I’m not so worried about sugar or dairy or seed oils, or sitting being the new smoking, or tracking my blood sugar, not that those things are never helpful, but it’s easier to get distracted and lose track of what’s best for you.

But as I’m always being reminded. . . that’s the practice; learning to trust ourselves enough to know that we already have all the wisdom we need inside of us.

XX 

Ashley

I’d love to hear your thoughts!