Three Principles For Living A Long Healthy Life
“Longevity isn’t just about living longer, it’s about living better longer”
6-minute read
My goal with this series of articles on longevity is to give you a simple, actionable framework you can use to improve your health and add more good years to your life.
This first article is an important launching point for the longevity journey I plan to take you on. Here, I’ll introduce the most important ideas and principles that’ll create a foundation you can use to build your own systems for living a long and health life.
But first let me tell you why I’m writing these articles in the first place.
When I worked in hospice care with the old and dying, the one regret I heard over and over was:
“I wish I took better care of myself when I was younger. This isn’t how I thought old age would be. ”
The San Diego Hospice in California, where I interned for a year, is the final resting place for some of the most successful and influential people in the world. So, when they said “Joshua, please take my advice, you’re still young…never take your health for granted,” I definitely paid attention.
When most people I talk to now think about old age, they imagine themselves retired, traveling, relaxing with their family, and then passing away peacefully in their sleep, surrounded by their loved ones.
This unfortunately is not the reality for the majority of people, regardless of how successful, wealthy or affluent you are.
The majority of people have a cognitive blindspot when it comes to things like illness, aging, and death because the reality can be quite depressing.
What’s missing in most people’s retirement fantasy are all the doctor’s appointments, the gradual loss of your ability to move, to hear, to see, to think, and to even recall the most important and cherished memories of your life.
The thing is, while you can’t extend your health and life indefinitely, you do have a lot of control over how long you live and how healthy you can be.
Almost everyone wants to live a long and healthy life but something I’m 100% sure about is it won’t happen by accident, and following the hottest and most trending health hacks on social media won’t get you there either.
You need a good framework, based on solid principles, to guide your efforts and decisions.
Here are 3 principles I’ve learned over the past 25 years about how to live a long and healthy life that will act as the foundation for the rest of our journey into living better longer.
Principle 1: All disease arises when a person is out of alignment with their own biological and psychological needs.
This idea comes from Traditional Tibetan Medicine and Psychiatry, and I love how simple and profound this statement is at the same time.
When I was in clinical practice I used this first principle as a mental model to help me understand the most complicated cases. When someone came to me with a chronic pain or disease that other doctor’s couldn’t help, I always started by asking myself: “where is this person’s actions and choices out of alignment with their physical or psychological needs?”
I’d always ask them: “what are you eating, how are you moving, what chemicals are you using, how are you using your mind, what is your social environment like?”…and I was always able to pinpoint some areas of misalignment that, when corrected, would often be the missing piece for overcoming the person’s pain or disease.
It’s a challenging process though because most people have become desensitized to what their body and mind actually need. The average person’s personal navigation system has become hijacked by powerfully addictive things like sugar, alcohol, processed foods, and a sedentary lifestyle that prioritizes comfort over health.
In a world where the biggest priorities are looking good, being entertained, avoiding discomfort, and consuming unhealthy food that’s been engineered for maximum sales profit, it’s hard to pay attention to our body’s signals when we’re out of alignment.
Suffering is your body and mind trying to get your attention, but with so many distractions in modern life it’s hard to know exactly what to pay attention to.
It’s not until you get really sick, injured, depressed or anxious that you actually start to pay attention.
And then you usually double down on the very habits or behaviors that are hurting your health in the first place because it’s often easier to get sick and take medicine than it is to change how you live.
This is where the second principle comes in.
Principle 2: A good doctor can cure any kind of disease, a great doctor can prevent any kind of disease, but the superior doctor nourishes the Roots Of Life.
This one comes from Classical Chinese Medicine and has also been a powerful guiding principle in my clinical practice and also for my personal life.
I love it because it puts our healthy life choices above the ability to cure or even prevent disease. It switches the focus from focusing on disease to focusing on life. And, it puts the power for living a long and healthy life right in our own hands!
Over the past 25+ years of working in healthcare I’ve often thought long and hard about the Roots Of Life and always come back to the same 6 things:
How well you sleep and recover.
How you move your body and exercise.
What you eat and how much you eat.
How you tend to your emotional health.
Who you surround yourself with and how you nurture your close relationships.
How much time you spend in nature.
The problem is, nourishing these roots is always easier said than done.
This is why you need a system.
When you have a personalized system to evaluate and improve these key areas of your life like sleep, exercise, diet, emotional health, and relationships, the Roots of Life…then you can rebuild your personal navigation system that will lead you toward better health and a longer life.
And then you need to be empowered to take responsibility for your health.
This leads us to the third and final principle which is actually the most important of the three.
Principle 3: You are ultimately 100% responsible for your current health and your the future health now.
Our current health care system is really good at delaying death, but it really fails at keeping us healthy, vital and happy. In fact, the more money we spend on healthcare, especially in the U.S., the sicker and less healthy and happy we seem to become.
So, having a good health insurance plan is no guarantee of a long and healthy life.
In fact, relying only on your doctor, your health insurance, hospitals, and the pharmaceutical industry to be responsible for your health and longevity is a sure-fire way to end up like the majority of people who retire at 65 and die in their 70’s.
As one of my mentors used to say: “If you do what most people do, then you’ll get what most people get, regardless of what you want.”
And in the case of health and longevity, what most people get is not good, and definitely not good enough for you and me. Otherwise you would have bounced from this article a while ago.
This means that if you really want to live a long and healthy life, you need to take 100% responsibility for your own health.
Not just for your current health but also for your future health…and it needs to start now.
What’s the point of living a long life, if you’re just gonna be sick and miserable?
Here are a few questions you can use to apply these principles to your life and start living better longer now.
Where are you out of alignment biologically or psychologically? What does your body and mind need that you’re not giving it? What are you giving your body and mind now that it absolutely does not need?
What are the Roots of Life for you and what needs your attention the most right now?
How do you see yourself aging over the next 20-60 years? Does it fill you with hope? With dread?
Do you have a realistic picture of your later years, and more importantly do you have a plan now to ensure a long and healthy life in the future?
What can you do now to take 100% responsibility for living better longer.
This article is just the first of a series on how to live a long and healthy life according to science and ancient wisdom. If you want to learn more about the art and science of longevity be sure to subscribe to the newsletter.
Also come start a conversation with me on Instagram or LinkedIn.
I’m happy to chat with you.