Want to live to 116? The secret to longevity is less complicated than you think
Spaniard Maria Branyas has experienced earthquakes, war, plague and fire and is still active at the age of 116. She is of sound mind, strong, mentally alert and gives advice on X (formerly Twitter) on how to add those extra decades. “Order, peace, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity and staying away from toxic people,” she writes. Natural yogurt, genes and luck also helped.
Branyas has agreed to be part of geneticist Dr. Manel Esteller’s research into why, although she is already a supercentenarian chronologically, her biological age is so much lower. Ninety may not yet be the new fifty, but the number of people aged a hundred or more is increasing, and many of them are defying notions of decline and fragility.
Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122 in Arles, France, after moving to a nursing home five years earlier, advocated a daily dose of port, chocolate and a cigarette. Humor was in her lifeblood. “I’ve never had just one wrinkle,” she told an interviewer. “And I’m on it.”
According to UN estimates in 1995, there were 95,000 centenarians worldwide. It was predicted that by 2100 there would be a ‘silver tsunami’ of more than 20 million people.
Extending human lifespan seems to be the current obsession of billionaires, who sacrifice middle age on ice baths, Spartan diets, vitamins and exercise marathons in the hope that, like jellyfish, hydras and deep-sea worms, they can shed senescent cells and can rejuvenate. , be the immortal Peter Pans. But is a constant struggle to stop death a life worth living?
The interesting thing about Calment and Branyas is that they achieved healthy lifespans without this self-punishment. Of course, the work of scientists trying to genetically reverse the degenerative aspects of aging is important, but so is the question of how we can learn to live well before it’s too late.
Not so long ago, people were born, worked, retired and died before they had time to take the retirement gift out of the box. But what if the traditional cut-off point for paid work is five or more decades away? What gives you joy? How do you pay for it? How do we deal with our age when family is dead, friends have left, ambition has been pushed aside and income is likely to be limited, living in a largely female post-centennial world in a worn-out welfare state?
It’s not all gloomy. In her witty and wise book No more timeWriter Lynne Segal quotes poet May Sarton: “Old age can be a wonderful thing…I’m more sure of what my life is about, and have fewer doubts about myself to overcome.”
Maybe it is only in “early old age” – 70? 80? – for the pieces to fall into place and finally begin to understand how you got to this point, for better or for worse.
Traditionally, women are valued for their youth and reproductive potential. As more people pass 100, will respect be given to qualities other than looks and ovaries? Will the long-distance woman with a life full of experiences and acumen start to count again?
Poverty, lack of education and poor investment in public health and the vital social infrastructure of clubs, activities and care all kill people prematurely. But one of the longest studies of male human development, begun in 1938, gives reason for hope for those who nevertheless still have decades ahead of them. Close relationships, more than fame, success, social class, IQ, genes and income, were better predictors of a long and happy life.
According to the research, the passport to a healthy and long life is to avoid alcohol and tobacco, practice optimism and empathy, delay gratification, look for the funny side of life, keep learning – like Branyas, the longest-living woman in the world, advises. Most of us know the formula: the catch is applying it when next month’s bills are the most pressing concern.
Time is gold, and paradoxically time is on the side of the very oldest, because they have so much more of it, freed from work, child-rearing, caregiving and juggling. Both men and women, when they are so close to death, may appreciate what they really need to appreciate in life.