Well, maybe you can live to one hundred if you follow the advice handed out at a recent event in Rye’s Brewery Yard Club by life coach Dena Smith Ellis, pictured above.
And I was interested as I nearly missed reaching 80 last Xmas, which is why, despite being a past editor of Rye News, I have not featured much in the news since 2019 when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Covid followed soon after while that cancer was being treated (in Eastbourne) and bowel cancer was diagnosed (in Hastings) in 2021, with major surgery last year leading to a long convalescence last year and this year.
But I reached 80 last Christmas so why shouldn’t I reach 100? In so-called “blue zones” around the world people do – but why and how? Well the answer is not simple and does involve changes made by both individuals and society. So not an instant job, hence other articles following on from this one.
So the answer might need a book (I have ordered one from Rye Bookshop) though Dena’s talk picked out highlights. One is diet, and her audience were able to sample various examples (see pic below) and, indeed, my cancers have already forced changes in my diet!
Keeping fit is another, as my surgery added four inches to my waistline which looks like it has been mauled by a grizzly bear and no trousers fit. So I’m trying out aqua-aerobics now Rye’s swimming pool is back.
Ordinary aerobics defeated me I fear last week but it was 30 years since I did them over lunches in a secret air raid shelter near Whitehall – though I never saw Boris there! I was a civil servant at the time (though not that civil).
More information will follow in later articles as long life does require some changes – for us individually and in society – loneliness can, for example, be as bad for us as smoking.
For more info check out “Blue Zones” on the internet or denasmithellis.com or, like me, get a book!
Image Credits: Isabel Ryan .