Tag Archives: health

The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer

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BlueZones.com

The front-cover blurb on this 2008 NYT bestseller by Dan Buettner is “A must-read if you want to stay young!” Based on that, you’d wonder why every person on the planet hasn’t bought or read The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer, since who doesn’t want to stay young?

The next best thing is to live to a ripe old age and in vibrant health right up until the end. Buettner travelled five “Blue Zones” around the world to study locations that have statistical proof of the extended longevity of many of its residents. They include Sardinia (Italy), Okinawa (Japan), Loma Linda (California), Nikoya (Costa Rica) and Ikaria (Greece.)

In the United States, there is only one centenarian (someone 100 years old or more) per 5,000 people. In the Sardinian “Blue Zone” they found seven centenarians in a single village of 2,500 people.

Fortunately, these Blue Zones often share common lifestyles that North Americans can emulate.  Buettner — who originally visited the Blue Zones courtesy of National Geographic magazine — concludes with a chapter he titles Your Personal Blue Zone, providing nine major ways affluent and stressed out North Americans can emulate the lessons learned by the centenarians in the Blue Zones.

Create a pro-longevity environment in your own home: your personal Blue Zone

Continue Reading…

Why “Healthspan” trumps “Lifespan”

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Dan Richards (youtube.com)

By Dan Richards,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Advisors spend a great deal of their time with clients who ask, “Will I run out of money?” As a result, few issues get more attention than the sustainable withdrawal rate in today’s environment.

But new research shows that an equally pressing question is, “How can I enjoy life in my 60s, before health issues creep in?”

Remarkable growth in lifespans

A couple of years back, I wrote an article titled “Will I be able to pay for a hip replacement when I’m 85?,” highlighting the boomer focus on withstanding the ravages of age. In another article, I described boomers as not your parents’ retirees. Compared to their parents: Continue Reading…

A longevity guru’s tips on Happiness

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Thrive

By Jonathan Chevreau

Happiness, longevity, health and money are all (as you might expect) intertwined. In his book, You Can Retire Sooner Than You Think (also reviewed here at the Hub), Wes Moss focuses on the five money secrets of the happiest retirees.

One of the books he mentions is Dan Buettner’s The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. We will review that book, first published in 2008, in due course.

In the meantime, we’re going to look at Buettner’s followup book on happiness: Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, originally published by National Geographic in 2010.

To research the book, Buettner travelled to four of the world’s allegedly happiest countries, two of which I’ve visited myself: Denmark and Mexico, and two I haven’t: Singapore and San Luis Obisco (in California). In each locale he contacts local elders known for their wisdom about happiness and how the city or country built its infrastructure to maximize it.

He then wraps it all up by summing up what these nations have in common with a chapter entitled Lessons in Thriving.

He concludes there are six “life domains” that can be shaped to boost one’s chances for happiness. These six “thrive centers” are: Continue Reading…

Twice as many retirees now rely on home equity: Fidelity survey

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By Jonathan Chevreau

House made of money in handSeniors are now twice as likely  to rely on their home equity to fund their retirement than before the financial crisis, says a Fidelity retirement survey. They’re also more likely to work in retirement, provided they can find employment.

Since 2005, the number of Canadian retirees relying on home equity to fund retirement has more than doubled from 14% to 36%, says the survey, commissioned by Fidelity Investments Canada ULC.

Conducted by The Strategic Counsel, the 10th Fidelity Canadian Retirement Survey of retirees or workers 45 or older also finds:

•  Since the financial crisis, the number of retirees saying it has been more difficult than expected to retire has dropped from 28% in 2009 to 20% in 2014

• More pre-retirees expect to work full or part-time in retirement (62% in 2014 compared with 55% in 2005) Continue Reading…

10 things retirees won’t tell you

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Delayed or Secure Retirement fund planVia BC-based certified financial planner Fred Kirby comes this Marketwatch piece on ten things retirees won’t tell you. Several of the points may resonate with readers of this site, although of course our distinction between the terms “Retirement” and “Financial Independence” may make some of the points moot. We may riff off this list at some point in the future, but in the meantime also check Monday’s guest blog by Matthew Erdrey on a similar theme, and watch for a similar post on Boxing Day.

Below is Marketwatch‘s list of ten; click through on the above link for the complete piece:

1.)  We’re broke.

2.)  Retirement is more stressful than it looks.

3.)  We spend too much time by ourselves.

4.) We’re in denial about our health problems …

5.) … and our health costs are huge.

6.)  We’re coming after your jobs.

7.) We still get frisky.

8.) We’re planning to move in with you.

9.) That big Hawaii trip? It’s more like a pipe dream.

10.) We’re scam magnets.