Longevity: Guide to healthy aging

The secret of a long and fulfilled life lies not only in extending our lifespan, but also in the quality of this additional time. Taking care of your health is the ideal way to ensure a fit life in old age. The following nine strategies for healthy and fit aging will help you lay a good foundation:

1. Healthy eating: You are what you eat. In keeping with this logical credo, a balanced, nutritious diet forms the basis for physical and mental fitness well into old age. Vegetables (especially cabbage), fruit (especially berries), legumes, nuts, whole grain products, high-quality fish and valuable vegetable oils should be on your plate particularly often. Oils with monounsaturated fatty acids (e.g. linseed oil) and green tea with an extra portion of antioxidants should not be missing from the menu of longevity fans.

2. Reduce calorie intake: Less is often more, even when it comes to food – because regardless of your motives, voluntarily reducing your food intake has an astonishingly positive effect on our body. Fasting or interval fasting can also have health benefits: systematic abstinence not only helps you lose weight, but also triggers a regenerative “cell cleansing” process at the cellular level.

3. Daily exercise and sports: Exercise is a true anti-aging weapon! 3-5 hours of sporting activity per week offer a plus for body and mind. Endurance sports not only strengthen the heart, circulation, immune system and muscles, they are also said to protect against cancer and Alzheimer's disease to a certain extent. According to one study, men who jog live on average 6.2 years longer than their inactive peers, while women who jog gain 5.6 years (Schnohr P. et al. 2013). In addition to endurance sports, strength training should also be done from time to time. This helps to maintain muscle mass well into old age, which counteracts many age-related ailments.

4. De-stressing: constant stress not only damages your health, it also accelerates the aging process. You should therefore regularly de-stress your life by regularly escaping your daily hamster wheel and using these time-outs to relax. Even people who don't like to sit still should take care to offer their body real deceleration and rest in order to give the body time for much-needed regeneration processes.

5. Learning: a new language, a new musical instrument, a new skill – it's never too late to learn something new! Daily variety keeps our brain active and helps prevent dementia.

6. Optimal weight: A healthy weight is the right weight at any age. Being overweight for years or decades, on the other hand, can increase the risk of certain diseases (e.g. diabetes, cardiovascular diseases) that often only strike in the last stages of life and cost the person affected quality of life and lifetime.

7. Sleep: Sleep is more than just a nightly necessity; it is a crucial component of our health and longevity. A long-term study by Harvard University in the United States showed that good sleep habits can increase life expectancy by almost five years for men and around 2.5 years for women (Li H et al. 2024).

8. Less alcohol, no cigarettes: Alcohol and cigarettes can make you ill and cost you years of life. That is no big secret. While smoking should be avoided altogether, if you do not want to give up alcohol, you should limit your alcohol consumption to a maximum of 100 grams of alcohol per week. This amount corresponds to about five glasses of wine.

9. Socializing: We are social beings from birth. Friends and family are not only important for our well-being, social contact also activates our brain and thus counteracts dementia.