Most of us want to live a healthy long life.

Who doesn’t?

Older people that suffer from multiple illnesses, often age related, lose their desire to live. Healthy people don’t.

So, the idea is simple: stay healthy to live a long life.

Of course, there are examples of people that did all the right things for decades, like healthy eating, drinking alcoholic beverages on special occasions only, not smoking, exercising, living in the healthy countryside and despite of all that, they get cancer at the age of 49.

The statistics do not lie: people that live near a busy motorway die younger, people that smoke have much higher chances of getting heart diseases and long cancer and those who are overweight and do not exercise enough have very high chances to become diabetic.

Today, many people start taking medicines on a daily basis before they turn 50. Something must be wrong with them. We all know that medicines have side effects. Maybe not so in the short run, but you cannot go on and on and not face any of those side effects in the long run.

Mental illness like Dementia and Alzheimer are also fruits of our modern habits. Exercise helps to keep the brain in an healthy condition. Dementia patients do have small holes in their brains. As a consequence, the different parts of the brain stop to communicate with each other. Information that is stored in a central place cannot be retrieved when we need it. For example, to recognize a face, many parts of our brain are involved and collaborate to quickly retrieve and combine the information from our memory and to make the comparison with the individual we have in front of us. Once certain places in our brain start to fall apart, our capability to do this very complex activity will be reduced.

Keep on moving and your brains will stay healthier.

To live a healthy long life, there are a few important habits:

• eat healthy
• daily exercise
• sleep well
• avoid pollution
• hygiene; keep yourself, your clothes and your house clean
• have fun to be happy
• constantly work on your social relationships
• freshness of your food
• buy healthy food only, so you cannot be tempted to eat the bad stuff
• embrace change
• get enough fresh air: ventilate, go outside

Your circumstances and the environment you live in play an important role too:

• the air you breath from traffic and industry
• the quality of the drinking water
• the cleanliness of your direct environment, neighbors, neighborhood
• dangerous roads, railways
• an airport close by
• the (travel)distance to your work
• the (travel) distance to school
• the climate – very hot or very wet is not ideal

Of course, many people cannot afford to move to a better place, but you can at least improve a few things in your life that will be beneficial for your health.

On our page on healthy life tips, you can find many ideas. I am sure you can add your own ideas to it.

The key to a healthy long life, is to optimize your circumstances and to create your healthy habits as soon as possible. The earlier you start in life, the greater and the longer you will benefit from it.

Even if you get ill at 50, say you are diagnosed with cancer. You will resist the side effects from chemo therapy, operations or radiation therapy much easier. Your body will be much stronger and the recovery will be quicker and easier. Both for you and for your loved ones.