The Japanese life expectancy is the world’s highest, at 87.32 years for women and 81.25 years for men. We dive into Japan’s top secrets to good health and longevity.
Japanese diet is balanced, with staple foods like omega-rich fish, rice, whole grains, tofu, soy, seaweed and vegetables. All these foods are low in saturated fats and sugars and rich in vitamins and minerals that reduce the risk of cancers and heart disease. One of the oldest lady of Kagoshima, Japan shares her secret which is good sleep, moderate activities and 3 small meals. One of the major reasons is that Japanese not only eat healthy but eat less. Japanese train their young generation by developing healthy eating activities starting from primary school level with focus on lunches with plenty of fruits and vegetables. This habit lasts till Japanese whole life span.
Japanese lead an active lifestyle and not the sedentary one and this active lifestyle is imbibed at a very young age. Most of the Japanese children go to school walking or cycling. Government also promotes such activities with the help of radio and other media. Most people prefer walking or cycling to the train station, prefer standing on the train, then walk down to office.
Japan has one of the best healthcare systems in the world with special focus on preventive healthcare by facilitating healthcare scanning at school, corporate and community levels.
Ikigai is also an important tool which help Japanese keep themselves healthy and worthy. And it is proven medically that Ikigai is helpful in healthy and long life.
Ikigai is ‘reason for being. Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means your ‘reason for being. ‘ ‘Iki’ in Japanese means ‘life,’ and ‘gai’ describes value or worth. Your ikigai is your life purpose or your bliss. It’s what brings you joy and inspires you to get out of bed every day.
Basic rules of Ikigai includes:
1. Stay active; don’t retire. Keep the purpose of life, do not retire and keep doing work you love irrespective of age. It will give you purpose of life to grow and keep growing. This will keep good hormones in your body intact which slowdown aging.
2. Take it slow, don’t be in a hurry. Walk slowly and you’ll go far. If you hurry, you will remain stressed which means more stress hormones like cortisols, more inflammation, less immunity and faster aging.
3. Don’t fill your stomach. Keep 20% empty. Whether its Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, or Japanese traditional health system, do never fill your stomach completely, eat less and live more.
4. Surround yourself with good friends and live in community
“Friends are the best medicine as they are the best stress buster. Your stress level is reduced significantly, if you live in community and have lot of friends. Have fun, laugh, behave like child, dream and above all be always ready to help others. Helping others give you the best feeling and a purpose in life, share your stories with friends, listen their stories, in other words live a light and tension free life.
5. Maintain your health with active lifestyle and moderate exercise
Sedentary lifestyle is the root cause of 80% life threatening diseases, be active and do moderate exercises to keep yourself in shape.
6. Smile
It cost nothing to smile but can keep you young and healthy, so keep smiling so that all the good and healthy hormones can remain in good quantity in your blood to keep you happy and healthy.
7. Live with nature
The more you go away from nature, the more you will be sick and unhealthy. Follow the nature’s rules for healthy and long life. Japanese use shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) which means connect with nature using the five senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. It is a mindfulness practice to help you reconnect with nature so that you can rejuvenate the body and give the mind a moment of peace and give your body what is needs.
8. Show attitude of gratitude.
Always thank by showing attitude of gratitude to your parents, friends, co-workers, family who were always there with you to make you feel happy and healthy.
9. Live in the moment
All philosophies of the world come to one simple conclusion for a stress free happy life and that is live in the present moment. It helps you in removing burden of the past and tensions of the future. “Stop regretting the past and fearing the future. Today is all you have. Make the most of it. Make it worth remembering.”
10. Always be ready to help others. Helping other will boost rush of happy or anti-ageing hormones.
11. Follow your ikigai
Always believe and follow you Ikigai means purpose of life, make your life worth.
Apart from all this Japanese also enjoy good genes which help them keeping healthy.