Dan Buettner Quotes

Have fun, be active. Ride a bike instead of driving, for example.

Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile.

A long healthy life is no accident. It begins with good genes, but it also depends on good habits.

The people you surround yourself with influence your behaviors, so choose friends who have healthy habits.

If one fails to develop goals that give meaning to one’s existence, if one does not use the mind to it’s fullest, then good feelings fulfill just a fraction of the potential we possess. True happiness involves the pursuit of worthy goals. Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.

You have to know why you get up every morning.

I wake up in the morning and I see that flower, with the dew on its petals, and at the way it's folding out, and it makes me happy, she said. It's important to focus on the things in the here and now, I think. In a month, the flower will be shriveled and you will miss its beauty if you don't make the effort to do it now. Your life, eventually, is the same way.

The longest-lived people eat a plant-based diet. They eat meat but only as a condiment or a celebration. Nothing they eat has a plastic wrapper.

Drink without getting drunk Love without suffering jealousy Eat without overindulging Never argue And once in a while, with great discretion, misbehave

Having a purpose and knowing exactly what your values are will add additional years to your life.

Gratitude always comes into play; research shows that people are happier if they are grateful for the positive things in their lives, rather than worrying about what might be missing.

The more things for which you develop a fondness the richer the life you live.

Life expectancy in America is about 79, we should be able to live to 92. Somewhere along the line, we're leaving 13 years on the table. So my quest is -- how do we get those extra 13 years? And how do we make those extra 13 years good years?

Select your friendships carefully. Gather people around you who will reinforce your lifestyle.

True happiness involves the pursuit of worth goals; without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.

The beauty of moving naturally, i.e. walking and gardening, is they're low impact. You're less likely to fall down and break a hip. Setting up your life so you're nudged into general physical activity every day is a strategy for your entire life from age 10 to 100.

Walking is the only way proven to stave off cognitive decline - it works.

I think we need to think about our physical activity as a reward, as something enjoyable and something we look forward to doing, not something that we regard as self-flogging.

Serve yourself, put the food away, then eat.

Exercise, from a public health perspective, is an unmitigated failure. The world's longest-lived people live in environments that nudge them into more movement. They don't use power tools, they do their own yard work, they grow a garden.

Diet and supplements and exercise programs aren't what is achieving longevity. Having a faith-based community can add four to 14 years.

If you’re eating vegetables you are probably pushing unhealthier food out of your diet.

You rarely get satisfaction sitting in an easy chair. If you work in a garden on the other hand, and it yields beautiful tomatoes, that's a good feeling.

So setting up automatic savings plans, and buying insurance as opposed to buying a new thing. The newness effect of a new thing wears off in nine months to a year, but financial security can last a lifetime.

Inconvenience yourself: ditch the remote, the garage door opener, the leaf-blower; buy a bike, broom, rake, and snow shovel.