Yoga and Blue Zones - Can Yoga Help You Live to 100?
Since Netflix dropped Dan Buettner’s Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones, curiosity has been awakened within to question the habits of my days. What is aiding in my health and what is to the detriment of it? Thankfully, through my yoga practice, becoming aware and accepting where I am is not as difficult as it once was. This singular thought spawned another question, does yoga encompass all the major categories of the blue zones?
Can yoga actually help you live to 100?
First, let me share what a “Blue Zone” is. A blue zone has been described as a place where people live significantly longer than the average lifespan of the world.
Dan Buettner tells us the four categories of blue zones are:
Make Movement a Habit
A Positive Outlook is Everything
Eating Wisely
Connect with Others as Often as Possible
If we were to take the four categories of blue zones and apply them to yoga, we can see how embracing a yogic practice of movement and beyond, will help you live longer.
The following correlations, findings, and suggestions are meant to awaken curiosity within you as well and are not meant to be taken as medical or health advice.
ONE. Make Movement a Habit.
Movement - the easiest way to live longer through yoga. The first assumption of “doing yoga” is the stretch; the movement of it. The physical act of yoga is the surface of the practice, but most times is the launching pad that pushes one to explore the other elements of a yoga practice. One of the more important takeaways from Dan’s exploration of movement in blue zones is that the movement wasn’t marathon running. The movement was not throwing weight in the gym. Truthfully, the movement wasn’t even yoga (OOF!). The movement Dan is referring to is natural movements, walking, gardening, and climbing stairs. Our American lifestyle makes it more difficult to do natural movement and puts an emphasis on intentional, “capitalistic” movement. We have to fight for an hour of the day to move and that hour might cost us $60 - $100 a month and still not produce life-lengthening functional fitness results. Yoga as a physical practice offers an opportunity to build muscles through body weight asanas and flows and offers that functional fitness we actually need to keep our body limber and strong. You might as well spend money on a practice that will introduce movement that builds a naturally strong core, is easy on the joints, and will help you change the way you think about yourself and the world around you, a movement practice that will help you live longer.
TWO. A Positive Outlook Is Everything.
It is not new news that stress kills. Risk factors such as stress and lack of exercise raise your chances of getting high blood pressure or Hypertension. Uncontrolled or un
mitigated hypertension, can lead to heart attack and stroke. Many other factors play a role in this illness, but for the sake of blue zones and yoga, we will focus on stress. How much of it you have, how that stress sits in your body and mind, and how you rid yourself of it. Dan mentions that our friends in Blue Zones, “maintain a state of calm and have lower stress levels across the board.” How? Faith, Unwinding Regularly, and Finding Purpose. Yoga provides space for all of these elements to exist at once.
Faith. Yoga is not a religion. Let us start here. There is no god or gods in the practice of yoga. There are stories that are correlated with certain asanas. There is speak of the divine and the sound of god (OM). Yoga encourages connection with something bigger than ourselves, but the act of prayer towards a god is not a requirement of the practice. The principles of yoga focus more on finding connection, balance, and separation from the illusion and expectation of the world from what we truly need for ourselves to become enlightened. To find samadhi.
Unwinding Regularly. Have you ever done a supine twist after a long day? The physical unwinding sensation can bring emotion and relief to us instantly. Not only does yoga provide a physical space to unwind, it also lends itself to providing a mental space to decompress. When you are on your mat, for that moment, you have nowhere else in the world to be. For that moment it is just you with your body, mind, and breath. For that moment, you can give yourself permission to feel without the threat of anyone else knowing, seeing, or judging. On your mat, in that moment you can shed all identities of yourself, if you allow, and just be the raw version of yourself. In that moment you can unwind, release, and rest. We should do all of the above as regularly as we can.
Finding Purpose. Let us journey back to the idea of faith and yoga. To find samadhi or enlightenment, grave and deep stillness, of the mind, we must first move through a list of dependencies. There are prerequisites to getting to this state of connectedness, one of which is purpose. You must know yourself so thoroughly in order to connect with you or your God. This journey to purpose in yoga is described as Svadhyaya or self-study. As Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra says: “Study thy self, discover the divine” II.44
The increase of faith, unwinding or releasing stress, and finding your purpose can reduce the stress your mind and body hold and change your perspective of life.
THREE. Eating Wisely.
What is the saying? We are what we eat. It lives on through time because it is true. Our Blue Zone folks seem to eat a mostly plant-based diet, wine, and in moderation. In the Aryuvedic Diet, the science sister of yoga, the second brain lives in the gut. Dr. John mentions, “According to Ayurveda, the seat of the mind, emotions, and nervous system is in the gut.” Eating wisely and yoga go hand in hand even outside of the Aryuvedic Diet due to the emphasis on listening to your body on what to eat and staying mindful and aware throughout the eating process.
FOUR. Connect with Others As Often As Possible.
Take a moment to ponder these questions: What does the ‘right’ tribe look like to you? What do they talk about? What is this tribe’s interest, goals, and motivations in life? How does that tribe treat you? What kinds of things do that say to you? Are they supportive? Do they make you feel important and enough? Does that tribe tell you what you need to hear and are there to help you navigate to your best self? Does the tribe you just thought of describe your current tribe? If the answer is no, one might take a moment to explore what changes need to be made. No one is perfect, and there is no promise that the person next to you doing yoga is the best person for your life. We all come with baggage and bad habits. Practicing yoga can mean you want to find a deeper connection with yourself and others. This possibility could mean that the person next to you in class is someone who might have a bit more grace with themselves and be able to hold a bit more space to motivate and be there for you. My favorite thing about teaching is forming connections and bonds with others. You being to know people on another level This change in tribe does not have to include a yoga class, but the yoga class might help the change in tribe.
You might not have a desire to live to 100, but you likely want to get all the life out of the time you have. Healthy, enjoyable, fun, bright life out of the days we are given. Implementing these elements of the Blue Zones in your day through a yoga practice might be the easiest next step in creating that life for the years ahead.
AIMwell is not affiliated with Dan Buettner, but appreciates all the work he has done.
