15 Myths & Misconceptions About Longevity

Summary

The Dan Buettner Podcast

Episode: 15 Myths & Misconceptions About Longevity

Date: May 21, 2026
Host: Dan Buettner

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dan Buettner, National Geographic explorer and renowned Blue Zones researcher, tackles the most common myths and misconceptions about longevity. Addressing criticism and skepticism—especially with the rise of so-called “longevity washing” on social media—Dan systematically breaks down the true drivers of long, healthy lives as observed in the world’s longest-lived populations. He debunks the hype around expensive supplements, “superfoods,” extreme biohacking, and more, returning the conversation to evidence-based strategies anyone can use, regardless of genetics or geography.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. The Reliability of Blue Zones Research ([02:47])

• Myth: Blue Zones are unreliable due to poor record keeping.
• Reality: Dan details rigorous age-verification practices for centenarians and supercentenarians, including cross-referencing multiple records and visiting cemeteries.
  • “The science of demography, the work that we undertake to make sure people are as old as we say they are, is exhaustive.” – Dan Buettner [03:40]
• Reference to peer-reviewed publication in The Gerontologist that outlines these methods.

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2. Genetic Influence on Longevity ([04:41])

• Myth: Genes solely determine longevity.
• Reality: About 20% of lifespan up to age 100 is dictated by genes; making it past 100 becomes more influenced by genetics.
  • “Most of how long you're going to live is a function of your environment, where you live, your zip code, the people you surround yourself with.” – Dan Buettner [05:34]
• The environment and daily behaviors are the strongest predictors for most people.

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3. The Vegan Myth ([06:11])

• Myth: Blue Zones follow a strict vegan diet.
• Reality: Diets are overwhelmingly plant-based but not vegan.
  • “People in blue zones were not vegan… over 90% of the calories that are consuming are coming from plants.” – Dan Buettner [06:29]
  • Meat is traditionally eaten about five times a month.
• Modern dietary shifts toward processed and animal-based foods are leading to more disease and shorter lifespans in Blue Zones.
  • “These blue zones will be gone in a half a generation because they're eating too much meat, too much cheese, and too much processed food.” [07:58]

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4. Superfoods and Supplements ([08:24])

• Myth: Longevity can be bought in a bottle or powder.
• Reality: There’s no “superfood” guaranteeing longevity.
  • “There is no such thing as a longevity superfood… The secret to eating 100 is to eat low on the food chain.” – Dan Buettner [08:28]
• Consistency with simple, plant-based, whole foods over decades is key.

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5. Physical Activity: No “Hard Labor” Required ([09:27])

• Myth: Extreme exercise is necessary for long life.
• Reality: Regular, low-intensity movement is the pattern.
  • “They're not running marathons... they're staying active all day long.” – Dan Buettner [10:04]
  • Shepherds in Sardinia, for example, are “lazy boys” yet walk extensively.
• Rest, napping, and family meals are built into the day.

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6. Retirement and Purpose ([12:50])

• Myth: Retirement naturally extends life.
• Reality: Retirement is often followed by a mortality spike.
  • “I think one of the biggest myths we've been sold is the retirement myth... We know that the year you retire, there's a huge mortality spike and it's arguably the most dangerous year of your adult life.” – Dan Buettner [12:53]
• The antidote: Remaining useful and connected, with purpose (e.g., ikigai in Okinawa).
  • “Staying useful in a way that you get to use your strengths and your passions for the good of somebody else. That's the formula.” [13:43]

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7. Portability of Blue Zones Principles ([14:10])

• Myth: You must live in a Blue Zone to benefit.
• Reality: The core lessons—movement, diet, social connection, and purpose—can be applied anywhere.
  • “Almost all the lessons are [portable]... If you want to live longer, don't try to change your habits or your behavior. You'll probably fail... Shape your surroundings so you unconsciously do the right thing long enough.” – Dan Buettner [15:35]

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8. Wine and Longevity ([16:04])

• Myth: Any alcohol is bad for longevity.
• Reality: Moderate, daily red wine—traditionally produced and consumed at meals with friends—is a feature in some Blue Zones and may confer benefits.
  • “In blue zones... almost all of them are drinking regularly and most of them are drinking a little bit every day. With a few caveats. Number one, it is homegrown red wine... It's consumed with friends, it's consumed at a meal.” – Dan Buettner [16:13]
• Cautions against generalizing; context and moderation are key.

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9. Stress Management ([18:10])

• Myth: Blue Zones are stress-free environments.
• Reality: Stress exists everywhere, but daily rituals (napping, ancestor veneration, prayer) help unwind it and keep inflammation low.
  • “The Okinawans have their ancestor veneration... The Adventists pray... Icarians and the Costa Ricans are napping just about every afternoon.” – Dan Buettner [18:48]
• Lower inflammation is crucial for age-related disease prevention.

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10. Social Networks ([20:13])

• Myth: Loneliness doesn’t impact longevity.
• Reality: Loneliness can cost up to 8 years of life expectancy.
  • “Loneliness is associated with losing about eight years of life expectancy…” – Dan Buettner [20:18]
• Health behaviors are “contagious” among close social circles.

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11. Religion and Spirituality ([22:05])

• Myth: Spirituality guarantees a longer life.
• Reality: Regular participation in faith-based communities (community, ritual, and social support—not necessarily belief) is the key longevity ingredient.
  • “Scientists measure something called religiosity... people who show up and participate are living longer.” – Dan Buettner [22:11]
• It’s about attendance, singing in community, and social engagement.

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12. Multi-Generational Living ([26:00])

• Myth: Multi-gen households don’t affect longevity.
• Reality: Close family ties and shared life boost life expectancy for all.
  • “We make our family a priority... When mom and dad get old, they don't move out... they're given that sense that they matter.” – Dan Buettner [26:08]
• Children, parents, and grandparents all benefit—worth about 3 added years per person.

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13. The Power of Purpose ([27:52])

• Myth: Purpose is not related to lifespan.
• Reality: A strong sense of purpose can add about 8 years to your life.
  • “People who could articulate their sense of purpose were living about eight years longer than people who were rudderless.” – Dan Buettner [28:10]
  • Each Blue Zone has a word for it: ikigai, plan de vida, etc.

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14. The Money Myth ([29:30])

• Myth: You have to be wealthy to live long.
• Reality: Many Blue Zones are below the US poverty line. Cheap, staple foods (beans, tubers, grains) are the pillars of their diets.
  • “In blue zones, people are poor... we found the poorest people were living the longest and they had the longest telomeres.” – Dan Buettner [29:40]
  • Walking instead of driving builds more movement into daily life.

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15. Why Most People Fail at Healthy Habits ([31:48])

• Myth: Willpower and discipline are all you need.
• Reality: Changing your environment is far more effective than relying on willpower.
  • “Remember, if you want to live a long time, you want to shape your environment so that you mindlessly make slightly better decisions every day for decades.” – Dan Buettner [34:16]
• Choose walkable neighborhoods, stock kitchens with whole foods, and curate positive social circles.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “There's a massive amount of longevity washing right now, and frankly, it's making the simple path to a long life feel a lot more complicated than it actually is.” – Dan Buettner [01:41]
• “We live in a sea of junk food, but you can cook at home and you can completely control your home environment.” – Dan Buettner [14:46]
• “People say, well, I can't afford two cars in our household. Well, guess what? It's way better for your heart... if you're taking the bus to work.” – Dan Buettner [30:43]

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Key Timestamps

• 02:47 – Reliability of Blue Zones research and age verification
• 04:41 – Genetics and longevity
• 06:11 – Diet: Vegan myth and what Blue Zones people truly eat
• 08:24 – Superfoods and supplements: Busted
• 09:27 – Physical activity and the “hard labor” myth
• 12:50 – Retirement and purpose
• 14:10 – Applying Blue Zones lessons anywhere
• 16:04 – The wine and longevity debate
• 18:10 – Stress management rituals
• 20:13 – The power of social networks
• 22:05 – Faith and regular community participation
• 26:00 – Multi-generational living
• 27:52 – Purpose as a longevity elixir
• 29:30 – The money myth
• 31:48 – Why habits fail, and how to engineer a longevity-supporting environment

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Summary

Dan Buettner dispels the most stubborn myths around longevity, showing that the secrets of Blue Zones don’t involve magic pills, perfect genes, or unattainable wealth. Instead, the foundation is consistent, simple, plant-based eating; lifelong movement built into daily routines; strong purpose and close relationships; ritualized ways to manage stress; and, most crucially, structuring your environment to make the healthy choice the easy choice. The timeless advice: it’s not about willpower and fads, but about shaping your surroundings and relationships to support purposeful, social, gently active, and joyful living.

Transcript

[Dan Buettner]

Lemonade Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts I I can't stop scratching my downtown. Mm, yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI. Just chat your symptoms and get virtual care. 24. 7 Healthcare just got less painful for the past 20 years, I've been on a quest to, in a sense, reverse engineer longevity. The idea is that only about 20% of how long you live is dictated by your genes. The other 80% is something else. So I reasoned that if I could find areas where people live verifiably longest and then find their common denominators, I could distill some lessons for the rest of us. This whole process started with working with demographers, and these are scientists who study populations and there's a subset of them that actually study long lived populations. And I found the best of the best. And we identified five areas where people indeed are achieving the outcomes we want. And that means they're living to 100 at the highest concentrations. But more importantly, at middle age they can expect to enjoy the most healthy years. And that's what the rest of us really want. And the concept is blown up. We won three Emmy Awards with the Live to 100 documentary. I've written six New York Times best selling books. It's all over social media. But along with success comes the skeptics. And I've been seeing it everywhere lately. People claiming that longevity is all about expensive supplements or biohacking or your morning coffee, or that the blue zones are just the result of bad record keeping. Well, there's a massive amount of longevity washing right now, and frankly, it's making the simple path to a long life feel a lot more complicated than it actually is. And today I've put together a list of the toughest questions, the biggest skeptic critiques, and the most common myths currently circulating on social media. We're going to spend this episode clearing the air. We're going to talk about the paper Ghosts of Centenarians, the Truth About Carbs and Wine and why the goal isn't necessarily to live to 125, but to make sure our health span actually matches our lifespan. So let's get into the realities of blue zones. What works and what doesn't work?

[Podcast Host]

Is the blue zones research reliable?

[Dan Buettner]

So let me just talk about centenarians and supercentenarians. These are people who make it to 110. So because blue zones have a high concentration of the oldest old, they therefore also have a very high concentration of people who are making it to 110. The problem is that the older people are, the harder it is to verify their records. We limit our age verification more or less to people who are 100 or maybe 105. And we check their birth records and then we cross check those birth records with baptismal records, and then we check their death records and we cross check that with their civil registry and often the cemetery records. We actually go to the cemetery and see their gravestone. Or if they're still alive and they're serving us tea, we can be pretty sure. Well, we can talk to them and we can maybe draw some conclusions from what they have to say. But the science of demography, the work that we undertake to make sure people are as old as we say they are, is exhaustive. There is a new article you can Google, Blue Zones and the Gerontologist. It's a top tier, peer reviewed academic journal. And it will take you through all of the exhaustive steps that we take to assure a blue zone is really a blue zone. So now you have it. Now you know that these people have achieved the outcomes we want. 80% of that longevity is explained by something other than genes. And we start to look at the diet and how they connect and where purpose comes into it, their geography, in some cases their geology. And this is where we get into more myths.

[Podcast Host]

Can Anyone live to 100 if they have bad genes? Genes?

[Dan Buettner]

So I've just said that only 20% of how long you live is dictated by your genes, but that really is only up to about age 100. If you are making it beyond age 100 and you're still healthy, you've probably won the genetic lottery. So the power of genetics for Living beyond age 100 is probably 40 to 60%, but getting to 100 is only 20% attributable to genes. So yes, having long lived parents stacks the deck in favor of living longer yourself, but it doesn't guarantee it. Most of how long you're going to live is a function of your environment, where you live, your zip code, the people you surround yourself with. For some people, single digit percentages who have amazing discipline, they might be able to keep their minds focused learning long enough, do the right things and avoid the wrong things for the decades necessary to make it to a healthy age. 90 or 100. Most of us can't do it. So for most of us, living in an environment that nudges us into moving every day, eating slightly better food, connecting socially, living with purpose and shedding stress function of the environment. That is what is going to get us to 100. Much more assuredly than having the right set of genes.

[Podcast Host]

Are people in the blue zones vegan?

[Dan Buettner]

All right, let me tell you the vegan myth. There's a lot of these carnivores out there that think that blue zones is vegan propaganda. It's not. People in blue zones were not vegan. There's a tiny percentage of people from Loma linda that are 100% vegan. But people in blue zones are overwhelmingly eating a whole food plant based diet. And we know this from doing a meta analysis. 155 dietary surveys done in all five blue zones over the last hundred years. And when you average that all out, it's very clear that over 90% of the calories that are consuming are coming from plants. The five pillars of every longevity diet in the world are whole grains, greens and garden vegetables, tubers like sweet potatoes, nuts and beans. They do eat meat, but they're only eating meat on average, traditionally speaking, about five times a month. Now I know these sort of carnivore protagonists will go to a blue zone and they'll see that people are eating a ton of meat these days. And the answer is they're right. But until about the year 2000, so about 75 to 80 years into a hundred year old's life, they were eating the traditional diet. And what we captured was the traditional diet. And I'll tell you another thing. As the American food culture creeps in to the blue zones, as they start eating fast food and processed food and these meaty, cheesy, eggy, sweet diets, their diabetes is thundering upward, their cardiovascular disease thundering upward, and their life expectancy is plummeting. So these blue zones will be gone in a half a generation because they're eating too much meat, too much cheese, and too much processed food. But that wasn't their diet traditionally. Their diet traditionally was largely whole food, plant based. And we ought to be paying attention to that if we want to live longer without chronic disease.

[Podcast Host]

Do superfoods and supplements help you live longer?

[Dan Buettner]

Let me tell you something right now. This is a huge myth. There is no such thing as a longevity superfood. Marketers will sell you these powders or these gels or, or these things you can add to your food and they'll say they'll help you live long. They won't help you live longer. They, they may add a nutrient you need. But most Americans have plenty of nutrients. They may add more fiber, which isn't a bad idea. They may, they may add more protein, which is a bad idea for most Americans. But there's no food that you can eat this week or this month or even this year that's going to make sure you're living in 20 or 30 years from now. The secret to eating 100 is to eat low on the food chain. Simple peasant foods. Figure out how to make it taste delicious and put those foods in every meal for the next 20, 30, 40 years. That will add good years to your life.

[Podcast Host]

Are people in the blue zones actually

[Dan Buettner]

working out the hard labor myth? You look in people in the blue zones, they do work, and they often work hard, but not usually. They tend to have jobs that require physical activity. I, I think of the shepherds of Sardinia. In Sardinia, the shepherds are called the lazy boys. Why? Because they tend to wake up when the sun is warm. They, they spend a couple hours with their animals and then they're out pasturing them, which involves a gentle stroll through beautiful mountainous terrains. They're not running marathons or pumping iron or running up a hill with a rucksack. They're staying active all day long. The way our bodies evolve, by the way, and you don't see overly difficult labor in any of the blue zones. People take time to rest, they take time to take a nap, they come in for lunch and they eat with their family. They're working regularly a large portion of the day, but they're not overdoing it. They don't have six pack abs, they don't have enormous biceps, but they have the kind of body physiques that will carry them for nine or ten good decades.

[Podcast Host]

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[Dan Buettner]

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[Podcast Host]

Can retirement shorten your life?

[Dan Buettner]

I think one of the biggest myths we've been sold is the retirement myth that after your lifetime of work, we should shut down and enjoy the fruits of our labor. And it's not a bad idea if you hate your job, but for most of us, it's a bad idea. We know that the year you retire, there's a huge mortality spike and it's arguably the most dangerous year of your adult life. Why? Because people lose their sense of purpose. They lose their routine. They often lose their social network. When they retire from their job, they come home and sometimes come home to a troublesome spouse and a lazy boy chair and a TV set. And that is not good for longevity. The very clear message that I took away from the Blue zones is when you get older, you might shift your job, but staying useful, that's the idea. Staying useful in a way that you get to use your strengths and your passions for the good of somebody else. That's the formula which keeps people going in their 80s, 90s, and hundreds. In Okinawa they call it ikigai. Here we call it purpose. And me personally, I call it one of the best longevity strategies ever invented.

[Podcast Host]

Can you apply Blue Zone principles to any city?

[Dan Buettner]

Then there's the myth of, well, I don't live in a blue zone. I can't live a long time. Well, the reality is that most of the lessons we learn in Blue Zones are portable. The idea that we can set up nudges so that we move every day, that idea is portable. We can bring that to Manhattan. In fact, living in Manhattan or New York city occasions between 9 and 12,000 steps a day because you got to walk everywhere there. So that's a perfect nudge. The idea of eating mostly a whole food plant based diet. It's harder to do if you're in middle America and live in a sea of junk food, but you can cook at home and you can completely control your home environment. Being socially connected, a very strong feature of all blue zones, we all have the power and the option to curate a social circle around us of people who care about us, with whom we can have meaningful conversations we can count on on a bad day. Takes effort. It's a counterintuitive longevity hack. But I'll tell you what, it's worth about eight extra years of life expectancy. And we can all take the time as we learn from blue zones to identify our purpose, to know our values, to know what our, our passions are, are what we like to do, and most importantly, to have an outlet for them. So while blue zones themselves are not portable, almost all the lessons are. And they all revolve around one important rule. If you want to live longer, don't try to change your habits or your behavior. You'll probably fail in the long run. Shape your surroundings so you unconsciously do the right thing for long enough so you can live out the potential of your body.

[Podcast Host]

Is a glass of wine good for you?

[Dan Buettner]

I call this one the dry myth. And I know that a new wave of research has come out suggesting that no amount of alcohol is healthy for us and that it's associated with light, brain damage and breast cancer. But I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt, in blue zones, especially the Mediterranean blue zones, people making it into their 90s or hundreds, almost all of them are drinking regularly and most of them are drinking a little bit every day. With a few caveats. Number one, it is homegrown red wine. Home produced red wine. So it's organic, it's not rum and coke and it's not a cosmopolitan. It is red wine. It's consumed with friends, it's consumed at a meal, so it interacts with the food, probably quadruples the antioxidant absorption and it's a feature at cultural events. So context matters for us. I still argue that a glass or two of red wine is good for most of us. Why? Because if you look at the national academies of science, they're finding is that people who drink a glass or two of red wine a day have about 10% lower all cause mortality. And though perhaps chances of breast cancer go up a little bit, the overall effect seems to be positive. It's been part of the Mediterranean diet for at least 6,000 years. In fact, the original Mediterranean diet was three foods. Know what they were, Olive oil, bread and wine. That's the original Mediterranean diet, been around for at least 6,000 years. And you can't really pull the red wine out of the Mediterranean diet and call it the Mediterranean diet. So for my money, you want to live to a hundred at the end of the day, especially with the meal and with friends, go ahead and join that. Enjoy that glass of good red wine.

[Podcast Host]

Do people in the blue zones avoid stress better?

[Dan Buettner]

Another myth is people think, well, if, if I lived in one of those blue zones in the Mediterranean or Southeast Asia, I wouldn't experience stress and of course I'd live longer. Let me tell you something. People in the blue zones suffer from the same stresses that we do. They're no different than the rest of us. They worry about their kids, they worry about their health, they worry about their money. In fact, people in blue zones live below what would be considered the US poverty line. So they're just like the rest of us. What they have that we've forgotten, that our grandparents and great grandparents always paid attention to were sacred daily rituals that unwound the stress of the human condition. The Okinawans have their ancestor veneration and a few minutes every day to remember where they came from and to relinquish their day to ancestors who they believe oversaw them. The Adventists pray, which, whether or not you're Christian or some other religion, it's not a bad idea to stop, slow down, take stock, and to be thankful for the life we have. They take naps. The Icarians and the Costa Ricans are napping just about every afternoon, or at the very least they're, they're doing happy hour at the end of the day, spending some time to unwind with friends. And these daily rituals help lower stress, lower cortisol, which also tends to lower inflammation. Why is that important? Because inflammation is at the root of every age related disease from Alzheimer's to cardiovascular disease to cancer. So if we can get that inflammation out of our lives by downshifting, it's effectively a free supplement or non pharmaceutical pharmaceutical to help us make it into our 80s and 90s in full health.

[Podcast Host]

Can your friends affect your lifespan?

[Dan Buettner]

So the other myth that loneliness won't hurt me, it will hurt you. So loneliness is associated with losing about eight years of life expectancy and I don't know of any other intervention out there that can help you save eight years of lost life other than connecting with others. There's a very serious scientist out there named Nicholas Christakis who showed that health behaviors are as contagious as catching a cold. If you're hanging out with people who are overweight and unhealthy, your chances almost double of being overweight yourself. If you hang out with people who, who do drugs or alcohol, you're more likely to get involved with those dangerous substances. And if you're, if you hang out with lonely people, you're more likely to feel lonely. So one of the best tonics for longevity there is is to make the effort to find two or three people who care about you, who have healthy habits, who you can see frequently face to face. We evolved as a species with other humans. In fact, arguably the reason our species has thrived is because our tendency to want to be around others and to collaborate with others. A very famous anthropology study showed that two chimpanzees given a five gallon bucket of water, they'll never figure out to each take a hand and lift that five gallon bucket, but two five year old humans will. We like social interaction. We thrive on it. It makes us feel good. And most things in life that feel good, a nice meal, sex, being with others, they're good for us.

[Podcast Host]

Do religious people really live longer?

[Dan Buettner]

I call this one the spirituality myth. So people think, well, if I'm spiritual, I'll live longer. And that's not necessarily true. Scientists measure something called religiosity, and that's simply measured by how often you show up to a faith based community. Could be Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Christian, doesn't matter. But it shows very clearly that people who show up and participate are living longer. And the ones who live the longest are the ones who show up to church four times a month and sing in the choir. How about that? So we don't know if that's because people who go to church have a better social network or if it's because they're downshifting once a week or less likely to get involved in risky behaviors, or if because there's a God and God favors people who show up and worship her. All we know is going to your faith based community favors longevity. I've spent my career studying how the environment, environment impacts our health. For me, that balance is found between the constant excitement and variety of Miami and the deep remote peace of my lake house in Wisconsin. Since I can't be in both places at once, I list my lake house on Airbnb when I'm away. It allows people looking for a restorative escape to enjoy that silence while I'm gone. That same idea, matching a space to what people need in a given moment, can apply in a completely different setting, too. If you live in a city that hosts major events, your home can be part of the excitement when big moments roll into town. When thousands of fans arrive for a concert or a major sporting event, they're not just looking for a place to stay. They're looking to be part of the experience. Listing your space on Airbnb during those times can be a simple way to to meet that demand and earn some extra income. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how [e-mail] host

[Podcast Host]

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[Podcast Host]

Who benefits the most from multi gen living?

[Dan Buettner]

So the opposite of myth is reality. And one of the realities I like to talk about is the family first reality. And I'm not talking here about sort of the political version. I'm talking about the real version where we make our family a priority. We make our partner put them first. We put time and energy in our kids, and we keep our aging parents nearby. This is a very clear feature of the Blue Zones. They tend to live in extended families. When mom and dad get old, they don't move out, they don't get warehouse into some retirement home. They stay at home where they're put to work, they tend the garden, they make the traditional recipes, they help care for the kids. They're given a job in the family, and they're given that sense that they matter. And they rise to the occasion. They stay active, their brains stay engaged. And it's very clear it's adding to their life expectancy. Living in a extended household's probably worth three years of life expectancy to everybody in that household. And it's not just Grandma and grandpa, it's the children too, because they get better care. They benefit from the resilience and the wisdom and sometimes the financial literacy of grandma and grandpa, who've been seen 7, 8, 9 decades of the real world and absorb that experience and can convey that to the benefit of the younger generations. So I understand that there are a lot of families where people don't get along, but if you can overcome that and stay together, it stacks the deck in favor of longevity. That's the reality.

[Podcast Host]

What is the number one predictor of. Of longevity?

[Dan Buettner]

When I first wrote Blue zones in 2008 and I came back and I said that purpose is one of the key ingredients to longevity, people rolled their eyes. It made no sense at all. But about that time, a guy named Robert Butler, who was the first director of the National Institutes on Aging, had just published a study examining people's writing over decades, older people. And they found very clearly that people who could articulate their sense of purpose were living about eight years longer than people who were rudderless. And coincidentally, in all blue zones, there's vocabulary for purpose. Plan de vida in Costa Rica, ikigai in Okinawa. And it's very clear that people who wake up in the morning with a purpose, they're not suffering from the existential stress of feeling lost or feeling worthless. They get out of bed, they get out of the house, they do something active, they do something useful, they contribute. And all of these things, even though they seem outwardly focused, are actually benefited inwardly as these people are getting their physical activity, keeping their brains engaged, and probably living with less stress. So taking the time to know your purpose, one of the best things you can do to live not only longer, but better. And at the end of the day. What's the point of living a long time unless it's a rich existence?

[Podcast Host]

Is longevity more affordable than we think?

[Dan Buettner]

I'm going to call this one the money myth, because I think most of us think that we have to be rich to afford to live a long time, to afford being able to buy organic vegetables, or to afford to be able to buy the supplements or the gyms or the, the private coaches or the top notch health care or insurance program. But the reality is in blue zones, people are poor. Their income is lower than what is the poverty line in the United States. And indeed, in one place in Costa Rica, we found the poorest people were living the longest and they had the longest telomeres. So this is interesting. True in America, if you live in a poor zip code, your life expectancy is lower. If you can't afford to get out of a dangerous neighborhood, it's going to be bad for your life expectancy. But you don't have to be rich to eat healthy. The true longevity foods in the world are things like beans. And last I checked, you can get a pound of beans for about $2. Whole grains, rice, also very cheap. It's these are the type of foods that are typically found on the lowest shelves in the grocery store because they have the lowest profit margins. But they're the best for you over in the produce aisle. Sweet potatoes, also very cheap. Even regular potatoes, tubers are good for you. So these are the fundamental building blocks of the longevity diet. All of them are dirt cheap. People say, well, I can't afford two cars in our household. Well, guess what? It's way better for your heart and for your level of physical activity if you're taking the bus to work. Plus you might even meet some fellow commuters along the way. Why? Because if you're taking the bus, you have to walk to the bus stop every morning, walk from the bus stop to work and do it in reverse. And that adds up to more physical activity than the majority of Americans get in a typical day. So no, to live a long time, you don't need to be rich. You just have to know how to focus your energies in America.

[Podcast Host]

Why do most people fail at healthy habits?

[Dan Buettner]

The biggest myth when it comes to longevity is that you can change your behavior or your habits to live longer. You can't. Maybe single digit percentages of people listening or watching right now will have the discipline and the presence of mind to do the right things and avoid the wrong things for the decades necessary to make it to a healthy age. 90 or 100. Most of us don't. What we need is an environment that nudges us, that engineers our unconscious decisions. In blue zones there none of these people making it to 100 in Sardinia or Okinawa are on miracle diets or taking supplements or pumping iron or running triathlons or doing any of the things that we do that we think makes us live longer, be healthier. They live in places where they're gently nudged to do the right thing every day for decades. They live in places and most of us have the power to do this, to choose neighborhoods where, where we can walk to our favorite coffee shop, where we can walk to a grocery store, where our kids can walk to school, where our families can walk to a park. Most of us have the power to choose that neighborhood. And that will be for most Americans, the number one driver of the amount of physical activity they can get. We have the power to shape our kitchen environment so that the only foods we bring into our kitchens are whole grains, beans, fruits, vegetables. We can set up our kitchen so it's fast and easy to make these simple peasant ingredients. And we can buy the right books. And you know, there's probably one or two blue zones books that can help you do this, but it doesn't have to be a blue zone book, but cookbooks that can give us recipes to show us how to make mostly whole plant based food taste delicious. We have the power to shape our kitchens to do that. And we have the power to, to shape our social network. We can hang out with people who sit around and bitch, or sit around and eat hot dogs and watch tv, or we can hang around with people who have a positive outlook, people whose idea of physical activity is pickleball or walking or gardening, people who care about you on a bad day. Friends are long term adventures and friends have a measurable impact on, on our health behaviors. So remember, if you want to live a long time, you want to shape your environment so that you mindlessly make slightly better decisions every day for decades. And that adds up for the average American for another 10 years and it will stack your deck to live to 100. And I hope I'm there to celebrate it.

[Podcast Host]

Thanks everyone for sending in your questions. If you have more than, please put them in the comments.