Living Longer
Diane von Furstenberg
“The older you get, the older you want to get.” ~ Keith Richards
“Let’s talk about aging, body changes and how to embrace all of that,” said Julia Louis-Dreyfus to her 76-year-old Wiser Than Me guest, Diane von Furstenberg.
“To begin, I would change the word aging to living.” replied von Furstenberg. “Instead of asking children or adults how old they are, we should ask, ‘how long have you lived?’ Whether their answer is 11 or 76, the language automatically changes everything. Aging for me is life. It’s not a decay. It’s a continuation of life.”
I love this reframing of aging and have been using it since I first listened to the podcast. I’ve personally never been shy about sharing my age and am disheartened when people find how long they’ve lived to be shameful. You’re born when you’re born which (as Bill Bryson marvels) is a remarkable achievement in itself and should be met with awe and wonder.
Which brings me to Blue Zones, Yoga Medicine and healthy aging living.
Blue Zones are geographic areas identified by Dan Buettner where people live exceptionally long lives and have a high quality of life in their 90’s and beyond. Buettner identifies nine healthy habits (the Power 9) as the reasons for this healthy longevity: 1) They live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it; 2) They have a purpose; 3) They have routines that help them shed stress; 4) They stop eating when they’re 80% full; 5) They mostly eat plant-based diets; 6) They drink alcohol regularly but in moderation; 7) They belong to faith-based communities; 8) They put their families first; and 9) They have social networks that support healthy behaviors.
I tend to write about things I’m working on, so the point of this blog isn’t to tell you how to live your life or to make you feel bad if your lifestyle doesn’t match all or part of the Power 9; rather it’s to motivate myself (and maybe you) to embrace habit #1.
I’m fortunate to have worked most of my life in jobs that didn’t require sitting for hours every day: from waiting tables in college, to teaching high school, to being a stay-at-home mom and now a yoga teacher, steady movement has been a big part of my life. But I’m noticing that as I age live longer, I’m feeling less inclined to move and more inclined to sit.
Which brings me to Yoga Medicine. I’m 60 hours into a 300-hour training to become a Yoga Medicine® Therapeutic Specialist which will allow me to create personalized therapeutic programs that integrate modern science and research with traditional practices and experiences. The training has eight units (some 55 hours long), and the main takeaway I’ve come away with so far is how important frequent and varied movement are to health and longevity. As my student, Nancy Ayler Milby, once told me: “Motion is the lotion; rest is rust.”
I still need to sit at my computer for hours sometimes, and I seem to require more downtime these days, but I’m going to continue to move frequently in as many ways as possible as my body allows because, to reframe Keith Richards’ above quote: “The longer I live, the longer I want to live.”