Dan Buettner

In blue zones, these places, they're joyful places.

They're among the happiest places in the world.

And they're also living the longest.

And the insight here is that most of what really works at adding good years to your life are things that are going to make the journey worthwhile.

And knowing your sense of purpose is one of them.

Nobody in blue zones go to a gym.

There's no gyms in any of the blue zones, and they don't exercise.

So the insight there is, well, maybe this quote-unquote common knowledge of exercise is misguided.

You look at the history of exercise, which is born more or less in the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s.

He created the presidential medal of physical activity.

Exercise has been a failure at the population level.

Three quarters of us don't even get 20 minutes of physical activity a day.

Meanwhile, people in blue zones are getting the equivalent of 12,000 steps a day without even thinking about it.

Why?

Because every time they go to work or a friend's house or out to eat, it occasions a walk.

They don't have cars or they don't use cars as much as we do.

Their houses aren't full of the mechanical conveniences to do housework or yard work or kitchen work or knead their bread or grind their corn.

They do it by hand.

They have gardens out back.

So they're spending some time, low intensity physical activity, reaching and stretching and bending.