How can the Blue Zones and Lifestyle Medicine help us improve our wellbeing?🌍
- Blue Zones are regions of the world that have a higher number of individuals who live longer than the expected average. These include Sardinia (Barbagia Region), Okinawa (Japan), Nicoya (Costa Rica) and Ikaria (Greece)
- Researchers have identified several principles common to Blue Zones that contribute to longevity and well-being.
These include:
- Moving naturally
- Eating wisely
- Resilience to stress
- Getting adequate sleep
- Keeping strong family ties
- Having strong community support
- Respecting the planet
- Having a purpose in life
- Meanwhile, Lifestyle Medicine (LM) is a rapidly developing field that examines lifestyle-related risk factors
for noncommunicable diseases and ways to modify them, increasing life expectancy and improving quality of life.
LM focuses on six pillars:
- Healthy eating
- Regular exercise
- Avoidance of risky substances
- Stress management
- Restorative sleep
- Forming and maintaining relationships (Philips, 2020)
- A study by Kreouzi et al. (2022) compares the principles of Blue Zones to the Pillars of Lifestyle Medicine and reviews recent research on the association between behavioral factors and longevity. The review supports the link between healthy eating, physical activity, avoiding risky substances, stress management, mental health, restorative sleep, positive social connections, and well-being with longevity. The authors suggest further studies to understand how behavioral and genetic factors contribute to longevity and well-being.
