At the age of 102, Abuela Panchita is still a social butterfly.
The cetenarian, who lives on Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula, has a solid support network of friends and family, which includes a son of hers in his eighties who visits her every morning on his bicycle.
Her age and sociability are no coincidence, said Dan Buettner, an explorer and book author who has studied the world's centenarian hot spots over the past several years.
"We know that people who make it to a hundred tend to be nice," he said.
After scouring the globe, Buettner has found several basic threads that connect the longest-lived: a plant-based diet; regular, low-intensity activity; an investment in family; a sense of faith and purpose.
"You see it over and over again: people who are living a long time have a reason to get up in the morning," Buettner said.
Many centenarians eat less and avoid meat.
"You look in Okinawa, these people are consistently eating off of small plates, "Buettner said.
One of the cues for fullness is an empty plate, so stock your cupboard with small plates, Buettner advised.
Nowhere is a strong sense of purpose more acute than in Japan, where the concept has its own name: ikigai. Okinawa boasts the longest-lived women in the world and has the longest disability-free life expectancy in the world.
I think the most valuable findings in Buettner's study is we may not want the longest life expectancy but a disability-free and a happy one. We do not want to live a day longer if we do not have a reason to get up the bed every morning. We do not want to make it to a hundred and twenty if we must work for 20 hours a day just for over feeding and obesity. I would rather jump on to my bicycle everyday to go see someone I love and care.
My column illustration titled "Live long" | June 2013
