Dan Buettner: How to live to be 100+

 

National Geographic writer and explorer Dan Buettner studies the world's longest-lived peoples, distilling their secrets into a single plan for health and long life.

 

Uploaded on Jan 6, 2010

http://www.ted.com To find the path to long life and health, Dan Buettner and team study the world's "Blue Zones," communities whose elders live with vim and vigor to record-setting age. At TEDxTC, he shares the 9 common diet and lifestyle habits that keep them spry past age 100. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Why you should listen to him:

What do Seventh-Day Adventists in California, the residents of Sardinia, Italy and the inhabitants of the islands of Okinawa, Japan have in common? They enjoy the longest, healthiest lives on the planet. Dan Buettner assembled a team of researchers to seek out these "hotspots of human health and vitality," which he calls Blue Zones, and to figure out what they do that helps them live so long. Buettner, a world-renowned explorer and a writer for National Geographic, travels the world seeking out new Blue Zones (he's found five, to date) and speaking at seminars and on TV, sharing the habits that lead to long life. He is the founder of Quest Network, and has set three world records for endurance cycling.

Quotes by Dan Buettner

• “It’s hard to reach [the age of] 100. We’re not programmed for longevity. We are programmed for something called procreative success.” Watch this talk »
  
• “In Sardinia, the older you get the more equity you have, the more wisdom you’re celebrated for. You go into the bars in Sardinia, instead of seeing the Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar, you see the centenarian of the month calendar.” Watch this talk »
  
• “We know that isolation kills. Fifteen years ago, the average American had three good friends. We’re down to one and half right now.” Watch this talk »
  
• “I asked her what it felt like to hold a great-great-great-granddaughter. She put her head back and she said, ‘It feels like leaping into heaven.’” Watch this talk »
  

http://www.ted.com/speakers/dan_buettner.html