Dan Buettner Quotes & Sayings

Serve yourself, put the food away, then eat. — Dan Buettner

the author of Why We Age: What Science Is Discovering About the Body's Journey Through Life. — Dan Buettner

Select your friendships carefully. Gather people around you who will reinforce your lifestyle. — Dan Buettner

Life expectancy in America is about 79, we should be able to live to 92. Somewhere along the line, we're leaving 13 years on the table. So my quest is
how do we get those extra 13 years? And how do we make those extra 13 years good years? — Dan Buettner

Genuinely happy people do not just sit around being content. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings. — Dan Buettner

Inconvenience yourself: ditch the remote, the garage door opener, the leaf-blower; buy a bike, broom, rake, and snow shovel. — Dan Buettner

One of the big things I've learned is that there's an advantage to regular low-intensity activity. — Dan Buettner

The brutal reality about aging is that it has only an accelerator pedal. We have yet to discover whether a brake exists for people. — Dan Buettner

Of course, Minneapolis, we think, 'Oh well, it's cold there, lethally cold.' But the reality is you adapt to weather ... Humans are consummately adaptable creatures. — Dan Buettner

Walking is the only way proven to stave off cognitive decline - it works. — Dan Buettner

Recent studies found bitter melon an "effective anti-diabetic" as powerful as pharmaceuticals in helping to regulate blood sugar. — Dan Buettner

Drink without getting drunk
Love without suffering jealousy
Eat without overindulging
Never argue
And once in a while, with great discretion, misbehave — Dan Buettner

The happiest people in America socialize about seven hours a day, — Dan Buettner

A doctor may know more than a peasant, but a peasant and a doctor know more together. — Dan Buettner

I live on the water. I live in a neighborhood that's consummately connected to my neighbors. I bump into them every day. I can bike to work. — Dan Buettner

I found that when you are depressed, that's when you do something for somebody else. — Dan Buettner

Singapore is the happiest place in Asia — Dan Buettner

Black beans and soy beans are the cornerstones of longevity diets around the world. — Dan Buettner

I know exactly what my values are and what I love to do. That's worth additional years right there. I say no to a lot of stuff that would be easy money but deviates from my meaning of life. — Dan Buettner

Centenarians are still living near their children and feel loved and the expectation to love. Instead of being mere recipients of care, they are contributors to the lives of their families. They grow gardens to contribute vegetables, they continue to cook and clean. — Dan Buettner

None of the longest-lived people ran marathons or pumped iron. They live exactly as their grandparents before them - surrounded by family and friends. — Dan Buettner

Exercise, from a public health perspective, is an unmitigated failure. The world's longest-lived people live in environments that nudge them into more movement. They don't use power tools, they do their own yard work, they grow a garden. — Dan Buettner

I wake up in the morning and I see that flower, with the dew on its petals, and at the way it's folding out, and it makes me happy, she said. It's important to focus on the things in the here and now, I think. In a month, the flower will be shriveled and you will miss its beauty if you don't make the effort to do it now. Your life, eventually, is the same way. — Dan Buettner

You rarely get satisfaction sitting in an easy chair. If you work in a garden on the other hand, and it yields beautiful tomatoes, that's a good feeling. — Dan Buettner

Many age-related diseases are caused by an immune system out of balance. Excessive or unnecessary inflammation accelerates heart disease, bone loss, — Dan Buettner

Integrate at least three of these items into your daily diet to be sure you are eating plenty of whole food. 1. Beans - all kinds: black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, black-eyed peas, lentils 2. Greens - spinach, kale, chards, beet tops, fennel tops 3. Sweet potatoes - don't confuse with yams. 4. Nuts - all kinds: almonds, peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, cashews 5. Olive oil - green, extra-virgin is usually the best. Note that olive oil decomposes quickly, so buy no more than a month's supply at a time. 6. Oats - slow-cook or Irish steel-cut are best. 7. Barley - either in soups, as a hot cereal, or — Dan Buettner

The name of the game is to keep from pushing the accelerator pedal so hard that we speed up the aging process. The average American, however, by living a fast and furious lifestyle, pushes that accelerator too hard and too much. — Dan Buettner

The people you surround yourself with influence your behaviors, so choose friends who have healthy habits. — Dan Buettner

Have fun, be active. Ride a bike instead of driving, for example. — Dan Buettner

Diet and supplements and exercise programs aren't what is achieving longevity. Having a faith-based community can add four to 14 years. — Dan Buettner

It's hard to reach [the age of] 100. We're not programmed for longevity. We are programmed for something called procreative success. — Dan Buettner

The more things for which you develop a fondness the richer the life you live. — Dan Buettner

That's why the Blue Zones Project was so valuable. It shifted the focus to the environment, to making it easier to obtain healthy foods and to stay active. — Dan Buettner

Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile - Kamada Nakasato, 102-y/o-female fr. Okinawa — Dan Buettner

The longest-lived people eat a plant-based diet. They eat meat but only as a condiment or a celebration. Nothing they eat has a plastic wrapper. — Dan Buettner

The secret to longevity, as I see it, has less to do with diet, or even exercise, and more to do with the environment in which a person lives: social and physical. What do I mean by this? They live rewardingly inconvenient lives. — Dan Buettner

Kids in a home with grandparents are healthier. — Dan Buettner

We often think about happiness as trying to increase our joy, but it's also about decreasing our worry. So what you get for paying those high taxes is, if you're a parent thinking about putting your child through school, you don't have to worry about it, because all education through college is free. — Dan Buettner

The newness effect of a new thing wears off in nine months to a year, but financial security can last a lifetime. — Dan Buettner

I have always followed exactly what interests me and never really worried about the money. And when you think about it, to be able to travel the world ... on an expense account and do exactly what interests you, it just doesn't get much better than that. — Dan Buettner

The luster of an experience can actually go up with time. So, learning to play a new instrument, learning a new language - those sorts of things will pay dividends for years or decades to come. — Dan Buettner

People who are making it to 100 live in environments where they are regularly nudged into physical activity. — Dan Buettner

A long healthy life is no accident. It begins with good genes, but it also depends on good habits. — Dan Buettner

I think we live in a culture that relentlessly pursues comfort. Ease is related to disease. We shouldn't always be fleeing hardship. Hardship also brings people together. We should welcome it. — Dan Buettner

You have to know why you get up every morning. — Dan Buettner

Having a purpose and knowing exactly what your values are will add additional years to your life. — Dan Buettner

Deepen your existing spiritual commitment. — Dan Buettner

In places where women have achieved gender equality, for instance, men tend to be happier than women. And in places where women are still not treated equally, women are often happier than men. Other studies have shown that, despite the popular belief that nobody wants to get older, most people actually get happier after a certain age. — Dan Buettner

If you're eating vegetables you are probably pushing unhealthier food out of your diet. — Dan Buettner

As much as her patients might have wanted to adopt a healthier lifestyle, in other words, everything all around them was pushing them in another direction, down the wrong road. — Dan Buettner

Gratitude always comes into play; research shows that people are happier if they are grateful for the positive things in their lives, rather than worrying about what might be missing. — Dan Buettner