field of epigenetics grows, there is growing evidence that we influence our genome even more than previous thought.
If you are ready to take control of your life as a Super Ager, this book is for you. If you’re fifty and over, this book will have many, many inspirational ideas and habits. If you are younger, you can put Super Ager habits in place and then coast through to middle age and beyond. There’s a lot of wisdom here: whether you are sixty, seventy, eighty, or ninety-five, there’s something for you here on these pages.
We need to learn preventative medicine based on good habits. As you will learn, contrary to popular belief, healthy habits are life-affirming, not rigid or boring. This is important because the medical system in the United States does not emphasize prevention. Americans spend more than any other country in the world per person per year on health care—about $10,348—yet we are ranked fifty-third in the world in life expectancy, at 79.25 years. In Japan, the average life expectancy is 85.52 years—more than six years longer than in the US—yet Japanese annual healthcare expenses, per person, are less than half of comparable American medical spending. More medical dollars does not mean more years of life. In Ikaria, Greece, modern “health care” is almost totally lacking. This isolated island has two doctors and a broken X-ray machine, yet it boasts the lowest middle-aged mortality rate in the world. In the last twenty years, demographers have defined “Blue Zones®” as areas in the world with significantly larger populations of centenarians. Almost all of the Blue Zones® don’t have the economic prosperity of industrialized countries. Instead, members of many of the Blue Zone® communities remain self-reliant well into old age, despite poverty and lack of material success, and live an average of twelve extra years.
Enter the Blue Zone®
What is a Blue Zone®? A Blue Zone® is an area where statistically unusual numbers of verified centenarians live. There are five current Blue Zones®: Okinawa, Japan; The Nicoya Peninsula, Guatemala; Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; and Ikaria, Greece. Several of these regions are relatively isolated and remote, yet not all are places untouched by modern life. In these regions, people share the following common behaviors:
•Eat a plant-based diet.
•Engage in natural movements, such as walking, gardening, or other consistent physical exercise or movement.
•Have a sense of purpose.
•Belong to a community or faith-based community.
•Take family seriously.
•Practice the ability to relax, let go of worries, or downshift.
•Don’t overeat or eat after sunset.
If you are in good health, you have opportunities right now to optimize the way you live and the way you age. Super Agers are people who step up from our hearts to shine and embrace our aging. What I have learned as a yoga teacher and Yoga Health Coach is that each one of us has a specific and unique way of living and aging. This book is about optimizing that process. When you optimize the way you’re living, you optimize your life. Super Aging requires that you look at and let go of your limiting beliefs, so that you can to shift your habits and lifestyle for the better.
If you are ill or suffering from a chronic health condition, please check with your doctor before following any of the programs outlined in this book. Most of the suggestions in these pages are gentle and have little or no risk. Most suggestions are simple habits, activities, or recipes that are inexpensive and relatively easy to implement.
Discover Your Foundation for Healthy Aging
“You have to study yourself and what you want to do. You have a purpose, and that purpose has to be one that can change.”
—Annie Mays Larmore (1907–2013), participant in the Georgia Centenarian Study
According to Ayurveda, the Vata (airy) stage of life begins at around age fifty. During this time of life, a new kind of wisdom evolves. We move from the Pitta (fiery) stage of life to the air portion of our journey. Western culture typically values the ego and power of the fire element over other qualities, making this transition tricky. Embracing the wisdom of our Vata years means letting go of our old identity and finding a new one. Chip Conley was fifty-two years old when Brian Chesky, one of the co-founders of Airbnb, asked Chip to become his mentor and help lead the growing startup. Back in the day, Chip had been an early “disruptor” of the hospitality industry. In the late ’80s, he transformed a seedy, rent-by-the-hour motel with a pool in San Francisco into a go-to accommodation for touring rock bands, such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He grew a unique boutique hotel business called “Joie de Vivre,” which had 3,500 employees when he sold it in 2010. A few years later, he was approached by Brian Chesky of Airbnb, who was wondering whether Chip would join the Airbnb team and mentor him. Chip was twice the age of the average employee at Airbnb and he would be reporting to a twenty-one-year-old. Even though he was all-in, he quickly realized that things were a bit different than he expected. By the end of his first week on the job, Chip explained to a friend, “I feel more like an intern than a mentor.” In a team meeting, an engineer asked a question that, to someone unfamiliar with the tech, sounded like a Zen koan, “If we drop-ship an item to a customer and they don’t use it, did it really drop-ship?” To get over the generation gap, Chip decided to emulate someone he admired greatly: anthropologist Margaret Mead. Pretending to be a cultural anthropologist was Chip’s way of completely upending his own self-image in order to survive this new stage of his career and life. In his capacity at Joie de Vivre, he was superstar and CEO. While working at Airbnb, he would need to get over any and all of his addiction to admiration. He now advised behind the scenes. No longer would he be the guy with all the answers. Chip became curious: a hallmark quality of the Vata stage of life. His big transition meant letting go of the fire element of the ego and embracing the air element of older adulthood. The Vata time of life is all about wisdom, seeing the big picture, and connectedness. Intuitively, Chip aligned with the Ayurveda model of aging. He transitioned gracefully because he realized Airbnb did not need a second CEO going around spouting Baby-Boomer / Brick-and-Mortar wisdom to a bunch of people who wanted to reinvent hospitality. “I realized quickly I need to listen, with empathy and no ego and very little judgment.” Going from center stage to coaching from the sidelines was not easy. It was the perfect movement from fire to air, from ego to wisdom. Chip Conley spent four years with Airbnb, helping them to grow exponentially. He has stayed on as an advisor to Airbnb because the company told him, “We can’t exactly explain what you do for us, but your intangible value is critical to the company.” This intangible value is exactly what describes the air element or Vata stage of life. It’s all around, intangible, yet essential to life.
Become a Modern Elder
In the words of Chip Conley, a self-proclaimed “Modern Elder,” there are a growing number of older adults who feel irrelevant. How do we create an intergenerational bridge? He likens the “Modern Elder,’ someone who is someone who both serves and learns, is mentor and an intern and student and sage all at the same time. He thinks it is necessary for Boomers because we are going to live at least another ten years longer than our parents. We can create a way to learn from each other and connect generations. This wise advice comes from someone who has embraced the Vata stage of life.
Ayurveda Stages of Life
While science has no definitive model to explain aging or even why we age. There are a few animals, bacteria and plants that don’t actually don’t age. For thousands of years Ayurveda described life in three stages. From birth to puberty, the earth or Kapha stage of life: During this stage, children do a lot of growing. They are alive and full of earth. It is a time of attachment and love, nourishment. This is also why older generations and young children complement each