Live Younger Longer

Move more during the day. 
Physical activity is good for you, even if
it’s in small doses. No time or money for a run to the gym? Build
activity into your day. Take the stairs. Walk while you’re talking on the
phone. Go for a 10-minute run, or run for two minutes if you don’t
have time for 10. Also, try to move every hour — even walking to
speak with a colleague instead of making a call or sending an email is
helpful. Why is even a small effort like this beneficial? Because that’s
what your body is programmed to do. People never used to sit around
all day a million years ago. They had to get up and move frequently to
survive the day.
Cut back on meat. 
Evidence shows that a diet that’s packed with
plants more than with animal products tends to be healthier and
decrease health risks. And meat can take up a big part of your food
budget. Switching out meat for inexpensive canned or frozen beans
and legumes in some of your meals could save you money and bring
more plants into your diet.
Go for frozen produce.
Fruits and vegetables that have been flash
frozen preserve almost all of their nutrients. And they tend to be less
expensive than fresh produce. They’re also convenient to store and
easy to add to a meal.

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Make social time active. 
Social life in your 20s and 30s can be heavy
on eating out and getting drinks. Getting in the habit of asking friends
to go for walks, go dancing, go bowling or play an active game can
give you two benefits at once: social time and physical activity. And
you spend less money on getting drinks and eating out.
Rethinking family history
Family health history can feel heavy. If someone in your family has had
heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or another chronic or serious disease, you
probably know that your risk of getting the same disease may be higher
than someone without a family history of these conditions.
It’s true that for some diseases, genetic factors can play a big role. But for
many diseases and health conditions, the way you live every day has far
more to do with your risk than your genes.
Research shows that about 75% of strokes can be prevented by having a
healthy lifestyle. And lifestyle and environmental factors play a role in
about half of all cancer cases.
While it’s true that you’re never too old to make healthy changes that can
make a real difference, it’s also true that making needed changes earlier in
life can yield higher rewards.

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We combined outside exercise and fun on a family vacation to Patagonia, Chile, in 2016
at the Torres del Paine National Park.
A study that followed over 3,000 participants for 20 years, from their mid-
20s to their mid-40s, showed that starting and staying with healthy habits in
early adulthood can significantly lower your risk of heart disease later in
life, even if someone in your family has had it.
So for many of us, what we have to confront is less about the genetic risks
we inherit and more about the habits we learned from our families. Most
people have some family patterns and habits they’d like to keep and carry
on and others they’d like to put to rest.
Parents and guardians play a huge role in teaching kids behaviors and
attitudes around food, exercise, sleep, stress and so much more. Examining

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what you learned from your own upbringing and knowing what you want
for your own children can help empower you to set your own goals and
habits even if they’re new and unfamiliar.
If you have access to your family history, talk to your doctor about what
that history means for you. What does a grandmother having breast cancer
mean for your risk? What about a parent living with a heart condition? And
what are the most important lifestyle factors that could bring down your
risk of the diseases in your family history?
If you’re a parent or you want to be one, know that by making healthy
changes, you’re providing a positive example for your kids that could
change the health trajectory of their lives.