Longevity is scientifically achieved by exercising every day, eating healthy, and fostering meaningful social connections. Recovery from stress, burnout, bad days, intense exercise, and all the rest of it also inspire longevity. Heather Eliassen expands on these ideas and the Government of Canada scaled Naturalist David Suzuki’s decades-long research that spending time in nature every day – ideally near/on/in water – helps extend life (also, not working more than six hours per day and/or taking lots of naps helps).
Hard.
These approaches are best philosophized by Italians, specifically the 8,000 or so centurions living in Sardinia. Dr. James Borchers builds on these concepts by underscoring how important recovery is to longevity (as a high performing athlete as well as an awesome human).
Here are three recovery tips that will help you recharge and expand in the best way.
Sleep
Sleep is probably the greatest thing ever. Very few problems in my life have not been solved by multiple good nights sleep. Ditto for Lebron James. Arguably sleep and passing are the only things at which Lebron is better at than Mike.
Sleep is when our most profound recovery happens. When we sleep, our bodies repair muscles and tissues damaged during the day. Our brain’s glymphatic system activates, which flushes toxins that contribute to cognitive decline.
To recover is to sleep.
Like, after reading this article … probably have a nap.
Read
When my kiddos want to recover from a tournament or an exhausting day of school they often seek to zone out with video games. Yes, video games can help kids learn to read, but let’s be clear that reading actual paper books engages our brains in focused, stress-free activity that combines silence and flow. Reading physical books doesn’t provoke the alertness response triggered by screens. As little as six-minutes of reading per day can reduce stress and enhance focus. For the record, my often-unmet-goal of 10-minutes-of-reading-per-day will be recalibrated to reflect/match this science-backed metric!
Reading physical books enables narrative transportation because getting lost in the story gives our decision-making prefrontal cortex time to rest, while other neural networks engage in creative problem solving and imagination.
Walk
If my parents live to be 100 it will be because of how much they walk in and with community.
Walking is a bilateral activity. Our left and right sides move in rhythm. My friend Jag rightfully and accurately and scientifically postures that human beings are built for walking and talking (for great distances). We both think that our rhythmic movement and sparkling conversation helps us process emotional experiences well and fosters connection with other humans and nature, too.
Physiologically, walking is the most natural exercise there is. Walking increases blood flow without triggering stress response and the low impact nature of the activity emphasizes circulation and healing without creating new damage.
I gotta say that one of the incredible benefits of having a dog is that I get out walking every day (and every time I go outside with Trixie, our awesome Golden Doodle, I socially connect with at least one person, too!).
