blue zones – @habits

22 random learnings from 2022

1
As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren’t just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity *everything* requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.
https://twitter.com/collision/status/1529452415346302976

2
…even up against powerful prescription medications like Adderall and Modafinil: sleep and all sport categories are in the top-10 for every metric, weightlifting and low-intensity exercise are ranked 1st and 2nd for “probability of having a positive effect”, and weightlifting is ranked 3rd for “probability of changing your life
https://troof.blog/posts/nootropics/

3
And so we began. At the time it felt like a fun project, but not any sort of life-changing decision. The big moments rarely do, I think, and the danger of retroactive mythologizing is that it makes people want to hold out for something dramatic, rather than throwing themselves into every opportunity.
from Sid Meier’s memoir

4
Today the CO2 exhalation of all machines greatly exceeds the exhalation of all animals and even approaches the volume generated by geological forces.
from Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants (I think)

5
When people look at Quentin Tarantino, they see a mad creative with a singular talent for making original movies. But Tarantino’s originality begins with imitation. He’s famous for replicating and building upon scenes from other movies, and he once said: “I steal from every single movie ever made.”
https://perell.com/essay/imitate-then-innovate/

6
This realignment would not be traditional right vs left, but rather land vs cloud, state vs network, centralized vs decentralized, new money vs old money, internationalist/capitalist vs nationalist/socialist, MMT vs BTC, and (perhaps most symbolically) Hamilton vs Satoshi
https://nakamoto.com/bitcoin-becomes-the-flag-of-technology/

7
Lessin’s five steps:
1. The Pre-Internet ‘People Magazine’ Era
2. Content from ‘your friends’ kills People Magazine
3. Kardashians/Professional ‘friends’ kill real friends
4. Algorithmic everyone kills Kardashians
5. Next is pure-AI content which beats ‘algorithmic everyone’
https://stratechery.com/2022/instagram-tiktok-and-the-three-trends/

8
The UN estimates that 5 African countries will be amongst the 10 most populated in the world by 2100:
-Nigeria
-the Democratic Republic of Congo
-Ethiopia
-Tanzania
-Egypt
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/10/for-world-population-day-a-look-at-the-countries-with-the-biggest-projected-gains-and-losses-by-2100/

9
Yes, prices would fall and keep falling as technology and a free market did away with a false construct of needing more growth to pay for prices that were only manipulated higher through money printing in the first place. With prices falling to their natural level, and on a path to free, the entire infrastructure required to support price inflation, which was only caused by ignoring the free market, will fall away.
View at Medium.com

10
AIs can be used to generate “deep fakes” while cryptographic techniques can be used to reliably authenticate things against such fakery. Flipping it around, crypto is a target-rich environment for scammers and hackers, and machine learning can be used to audit crypto code for vulnerabilities. I am convinced there is something deeper going on here. This reeks of real yin-yangery that extends to the roots of computing somehow
https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/the-dawn-of-mediocre-computing

11
Bitcoin is here to stay because it is cheap and easy to bring into existence. It is a networked phenomenon that emerges out of equal peers, not unlike electricity and the internet before it. The fear of Bitcoin ceasing to exist arises out of a deep misunderstanding of the nature of these phenomena. It is akin to asking: “What if electricity goes away?”
https://dergigi.com/2022/10/02/bitcoin-is-digital-scarcity/

12
most are just technical ways to reframe the problem: play it faster, play it slower, change the order, change the instruments, add repetition, remove repetition.…They never seem to discuss or argue over these changes, they just play it to see if it works.
https://medium.com/fluxx-studio-notes/10-lessons-in-productivity-and-brainstorming-from-the-beatles-ea14385e27a4

13
In 2020, EVs made up 5.6% of all new car sales in China. Last year, the proportion was over 13%. For 2022, the data shows that EVs will comprise roughly a quarter of all cars sold. This is a case study on how quickly a market can turn

14
In practice, the freakishly specific nature of the stuff ambitious kids have to do in high school is directly proportionate to the hackability of college admissions. The classes you don’t care about that are mostly memorization, the random “extracurricular activities” you have to participate in to show you’re “well-rounded,” the standardized tests as artificial as chess, the “essay” you have to write that’s presumably meant to hit some very specific target, but you’re not told what
http://www.paulgraham.com/lesson.html

15
…opportunity and optionality are often inversely correlated. The challenge is that the greatest rewards generally go to people who are tied down in certain ways. People can only become world-class at things they commit to. Ultimately, the more hesitant people are about making commitments, the higher the rewards are for people who do.
https://perell.com/essay/hugging-the-x-axis/

16
Tezuka himself was a strong admirer of Disney animation, as were many of Japan’s pioneer animators. Even today Japanese animators are strongly aware of American animation. But, virtually from the start, postwar Japanese animation has tended to go in a very different direction, not only in terms of its adult orientation and more complex story lines but also in its overall structure. It is important to emphasize the link between television and Japanese animation in terms of anime’s narrative structure and overall style…This serial quality was also reinforced by animation’s connection with the ubiquitous manga, which emphasized long-running episodic plots as well.

17
One of the best ways of accumulating emotion is to go as rapidly as possible from one take to the next. The actor begins the second take on the emotional level he reached at the end of the first take. Sometimes I don’t even cut the camera. I’ll say quietly, “Don’t cut the camera—everybody back to their opening positions and we’re going again. OK from the top: Action!”
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=36326

18
I spent a morning on a Naha beach working out with Fumiyasu Yamakawa, a one-time banker. Every day at 4:30 a.m., he cycled to the beach, swam a half hour, ran a half hour, did yoga, and then met with a group of other Okinawan seniors who stood in a circle and laughed. “Why is that?” I asked. “It’s vitamin S,” he said. “You smile in the morning and it fortifies you all day long.”
From the book Blue Zones

19
The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it — perhaps as much more valuable as roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection and opposition; this is the trial heat which innovation must survive before being allowed to enter the human race
From the book Lessons of History

20
Lorecraft is clearly a strikingly millennial school of management thinking. All the thinkers who belong in this tradition are, as far as I can tell, between about 28-35 or so. They are firmly middle-of-the-pack millennials. Founders of startups who seem to practice a sort of management by lorecraft, such as Conor White-Sullivan of Roam Research, are also in this cohort.
https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/lands-of-lorecraft

21
That carbon dioxide in every exhale has weight, and we exhale more weight than we inhale. And the way the body loses weight isn’t through profusely sweating or “burning it off.” We lose weight through exhaled breath. For every ten pounds of fat lost in our bodies, eight and a half pounds of it comes out through the lungs; most of it is carbon dioxide mixed with a bit of water vapor. The rest is sweated or urinated out. This is a fact that most doctors, nutritionists, and other medical professionals have historically gotten wrong. The lungs are the weight-regulating system of the body.
From the book Breath (more highlights here)

22
Van Gogh was a prolific painter. For a while, he painted a painting every single day. He still only produced 900.
Gauguin: 516. Cezanne: 1300. Picasso: 1885
https://twitter.com/swombat/status/1488306608908259331

The benefits of being religious: a collection of studies and findings

Religious people often take for granted all the benefits that come with such a practice, from a sturdy belief system to a tight knit community. Of course there are many costs too, but in this post, I wanted to share a collection of what I’ve gathered from books, videos, papers, and podcasts that explain the benefits practicing a religion. Here’s a prior post where I shared some useful definitions of religion.

A fairly comprehensive and concise summary, from Elephant in the Brain (a fantastic book which I recently finished and will share insights from shortly):

Compared to their secular counterparts, religious people tend to smoke less, donate and volunteer more, have more social connections, get and stay married more, and have more kids. They also live longer, earn more money, experience less depression, and report greater happiness and fulfillment in their lives.

More findings and excerpts follow…

From the NIH:

Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide.

From Wiley:

We also find that religious attendance at baseline reduces the odds of illicit drug use at follow‐up. Respondents who increased their level of religious attendance over the study period also tended to exhibit a concurrent reduction in the odds of illicit drug use.

More Wiley:

It finds that religious people, members of minority religions, and people in religiously diverse countries were more likely to help a stranger. Individuals living in devout countries were more likely to help strangers even if they themselves were not religious. The results suggest that religion plays a particularly important role in promoting the prosocial norms and values that motivate helping strangers

From Wikipedia:

What Andrew B. Newberg and others “discovered is that intensely focused spiritual contemplation triggers an alteration in the activity of the brain that leads one to perceive transcendent religious experiences as solid, tangible reality. In other words, the sensation that Buddhists call oneness with the universe.”

From the great book Blue Zones.

Healthy centenarians everywhere have faith. The Sardinians and Nicoyans are mostly Catholic. Okinawans have a blended religion that stresses ancestor worship. Loma Linda centenarians are Seventh-day Adventists. Ikarians have traditionally been Greek Orthodox. All belong to strong religious communities. The simple act of worship is one of those subtly powerful habits that seems to improve your chances of having more good years. It doesn’t matter if you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or Hindu.

From the podcast, Research on Religion:

My notes: Religion offers an extra layer of protection from PTSD for soldiers returning from the battlefield; Why? Possibly, if you’re strongly religious going into war, your community, practice, and faith can be protective and supportive; BUT if you’re only weakly religious, war can shatter those beliefs, and shock you out of faith. You may come back atheist, which is a double whammy where you lose your faith and suffer from this traumatic battlefield experience. The latter happened after WWI in Britain, where many returning soldiers faced nihilism, depression, and suicide

From Harvard epidemiology professor Tyler VanderWeele’s Reddit AMA:

A recent study I led found that women who attended religious services more than once per week were more than 30% less likely to die during a 16-year-follow-up than women who never attended. We found that attending religious services increases social support, discourages smoking, decreases depression, and helps people develop a more optimistic or hopeful outlook on life.

My speculation, though we do not yet have data on this, would be that groups that not only have social gatherings, but also have a shared sense of meaning, healthy behavioral norms, and a common vision for life would have a larger effect on mortality in follow-up than, say, merely showing up for a regular card game. Religious service attendance likely affects health not simply because of social support, but also because it potentially shapes so much of one’s outlook, behavior, beliefs, and one’s sense of life’s meaning and purpose.

In our study on depression, the associations between religious service attendance and subsequent depression were likewise pretty similar for Catholics and Protestants. The one outcome where we found a difference was suicide. The association between religious service attendance and suicide was protective for both Catholics and Protestants but the association was stronger for Catholics. For Protestants those who attended services were about 3-fold less likely to commit suicide; for Catholics, those who attended services were about 20-fold less likely to commit suicide. My guess is that this is the outcome which will vary the most across religious groups.

Interestingly enough, diet quality does seem to be one outcome where religious service attendance is associated with poorer health behavior. Perhaps the church potluck is indeed the culprit. Fried chicken, anyone? ;)

But, yes, with smoking and excessive drinking, religious service attendance is associated with greater likelihood of ceasing these behaviors. I do think people sometimes turn to religion when they are in particularly difficult circumstances.

There have been studies, even randomized trials, of what is sometimes called “intercessory praying” or praying for others. The standard design of these trials is that patients are randomized to receive prayer from someone else; patients themselves, however, are often “blinded” in the sense that they don’t know whether or not they are being prayed for. Some of these randomized trials have suggested an effect of prayer; other studies have suggested no effect; and the research remains controversial. Two reviews that I am aware of have attempted to synthesize all available evidence but they themselves are divided.

From the Journal of Evolutionary Economics.

It is frequently suggested that religion and particularly values associated with religion provide circumstances conducive to entrepreneurial activity (Dodd and Seaman 1998; Henley 2014; Parboteeah et al. 2015). In particular, the work of Weber (1930) is repeatedly cited in this line of reasoning. According to Weber, Protestant Christian values such as ambition, perseverance, and wealth accumulation serve as important motivators for the economic behavior of religious individuals

This is just what I’ve gathered to date. There will be lots more. I’ll probably also do a post on the known / quantified / accepted costs of being religious, too. Stay tuned.

1-Page Cheatsheet: Dan Buettner’s Blue Zones

blue-zones-dan-buettner Here’s my 1-page cheatsheet to Dan Buettner’s Blue Zones: 9 Lessons For Living Longer From The People Who’ve Lived The Longest [Amazon].

Why Blue Zones

I chose this book because #1 living longer is a strong personal interest, #2 this book is frequently mentioned in longevity journalism, and #3 you can tell Dan’s genuinely enthusiastic about the subject.

In Blue Zones, Dan explores 5 regions of the world where people live much longer than the norm. His team attempts to understand why this occurs, examining everything from diet to family structure to genealogy to culture, with a focus on field research + interviews.

From Dan’s Wikipedia entry…

Dan Buettner is an American explorer, educator, author, public speaker and co-producer of an Emmy Award-winning documentary who also holds three world records for endurance bicycling…during his bicycling trips, Buettner became interested in demographics and longevity and began his research into “blue zones,” his term for the regions on Earth with the longest life expectancy, disability-free life expectancy or concentration of persons over 100.

Lessons and Highlights

There are 5 blue zones. I’m going to focus on less-common advice unique to each region (eg, we all know eating vegetables is a good thing).

Zone 1: The Barbagia region of Sardinia, Italy

All the centenarians I met told me la famiglia was the most important thing in their lives—their purpose in life…some 95 percent of those who live to 100 in Barbagia do so because they have a daughter or granddaughter to care for them.

Maria estimated that her father drank a liter of Sardinian wine every day of his adult life, and more during festivals, when he tended to be the life of the party.

When compared to cow’s milk, goat’s milk delivers a powerful nutritional punch: One glass contains 13 percent more calcium, 25 percent more vitamin B6, 47 percent more vitamin A, 134 percent more potassium, and 3 times more niacin

Walk a lot, every day: shepherding offered the best profession. The work was neither stressful nor strenuous, but it did require miles and miles of walking a day.

Zone 2: Okinawa, Japan

“Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile.” – Kamada

Sweet potatoes are a delicious way to pack in vitamins and minerals. High in fiber, vitamin A, potassium, vitamin C, and folic acid, “sweets” are also easy to prepare. Prick one with a fork, microwave it for about five minutes, and just season with salt and pepper.

Before each meal she takes a moment to say hara hachi bu, and that keeps her from eating too much.” “Hara hachi bu?” I repeated. “It’s a Confucian-inspired adage,” Craig chimed in. “All of the old folks say it before they eat. It means ‘Eat until you are 80 percent full.’

Okinawans eat an average of three ounces of soy products per day. Tofu, their main source of soy, may play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease. Greg Plotnikoff recommended that consumers select fermented soy products over nonfermented soy products whenever possible. “The medical literature demonstrates comparatively much better nutritional content in fermented soy,” he said.

“Roles are very important here in Okinawa. They call it ikigai—the reason for waking up in the morning.”

Zone 3: Loma Linda, California

We found that nut eaters also had a two-year advantage, which seemed to relate largely to heart disease.

Religion has provided Adventists with the extra nudge that seems crucial for turning intentions into habits. We’ve all heard the phrase, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” For Adventists, healthiness is next to Godliness.

Zone 4: Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica

Jorge Vindas, who was with me, had interviewed about 650 seniors in Nicoya and calculated that 75 percent of the men had had sex outside the marriage. He told me that Faustino was just being Nicoyan.

The Nicoyan diet featured portions of corn tortillas at almost every meal and huge quantities of tropical fruit. Sweet lemon (Citrus limetta), orange (Citrus sinensis), and a banana variety are the most common fruits throughout most of the year in Nicoya.

Zone 5: Ikaria island, Greece

One day at work, Stamatis, now in his early 60s, felt short of breath. It seemed to be happening more and more often. He fatigued quickly. Climbing stairs was a chore. Often he was forced to put down his brush by midday. His doctor took x-rays and quickly concluded that Stamatis had lung cancer, perhaps from years of inhaling paint fumes or his three-pack-a-day smoking habit. Stamatis wasn’t sure why. Four more doctors confirmed the diagnosis. They gave him six to nine months to live. Sensing the end was near, he decided to reconnect with his religion. On Sunday mornings, he forced himself out of the house and hobbled up the hill to a tiny Greek Orthodox chapel where his grandfather had once served as a priest. When his childhood friends discovered that he had moved back, they started visiting him regularly. They would talk for hours, invariably bringing him the locally produced wine, which he sipped all day long. Today, 35 years later, he is 100 years old and cancer-free. He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs, or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move to Ikaria.

Dr. Leriadis mentioned wild marjoram, sage (flas-komilia), a type of mint tea (fliskouni), olive tree leaf infusions, rosemary, and a tea made from boiling dandelion leaves and drinking the water with a little lemon. “People here think they’re drinking a comforting beverage, but they all double as medicine,” he said. “The panacea here is honey,” he added. “They have types of honey here you won’t see anyplace else in the world.

Your kindergarten teacher may be onto something—napping is good for you. Any time you can rest and recharge is good, but a study by the University of Athens Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health found that people who took naps had lower coronary mortality than those who didn’t. The researchers defined “regular” naps as the kind that took place at least three times a week for about 30 minutes.

The Mediterranean diet is not a creation of some doctor or nutritionist; it’s a centuries-old eating lifestyle followed by the peoples living in southern Europe and northern Africa. It differs from country to country, but olive oil, fruits, vegetables, legumes, some fish, and wine comprise the building blocks.

The 9 Overall Lessons

Lesson 1: Move Naturally

Longevity all-stars don’t run marathons or compete in triathlons; they don’t transform themselves into weekend warriors on Saturday morning. Instead, they engage in regular, low-intensity physical activity, often as part of a daily work routine.

Lesson 2: Hara Hachi Bu

Hara hachi bu—a reminder to stop eating when their stomachs are 80 percent full. Even today, their average daily intake is only about 1,900 calories (Sardinians traditionally ate a similarly lean diet of about 2,000 calories a day).

Lesson 3: Plant Slant

Most centenarians in Nicoya, Sardinia, and Okinawa never had the chance to develop the habit of eating processed foods, soda pop, or salty snacks. For much of their lives, they ate small portions of unprocessed foods. They avoided meat—or more accurately, didn’t have access to it—except on rare occasions.

Lesson 4: Grapes Of Life

Epidemiological studies seem to show that people who have a daily drink per day of beer, wine, or spirits may accrue some health benefits.

Lesson 5: Purpose Now

Okinawans call it ikigai, and Nicoyans call it plan de vida, but in both cultures the phrase essentially translates to “why I wake up in the morning.”

Lesson 6: Downshift

Sardinians pour into the streets at 5 p.m., while Nicoyans take a break every afternoon to rest and socialize with friends. Remember Ushi and her moai? They gather every evening before supper to socialize.

Lesson 7: Belong

Healthy centenarians everywhere have faith. The Sardinians and Nicoyans are mostly Catholic. Okinawans have a blended religion that stresses ancestor worship. Loma Linda centenarians are Seventh-day Adventists. Ikarians have traditionally been Greek Orthodox. All belong to strong religious communities. The simple act of worship is one of those subtly powerful habits that seems to improve your chances of having more good years. It doesn’t matter if you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or Hindu.

Lesson 8: Loved Ones First

The most successful centenarians we met in the Blue Zones put their families first. They tended to marry, have children, and build their lives around that core. Their lives were imbued with familial duty, ritual, and a certain emphasis on togetherness.

Lesson 9: Right Tribe

Seventh-day Adventists make a point of associating with one another (a practice reinforced by their religious practices and observation of the Sabbath on Saturdays). Sardinians have been isolated geographically in the Nuoro highlands for 2,000 years. As a result, members of these longevity cultures work and socialize with one another, and this reinforces the prescribed behaviors of their cultures. It’s much easier to adopt good habits when everyone around you is already practicing them.

Fun Facts

Scientific studies suggest that only about 25 percent of how long we live is dictated by genes, according to famous studies of Danish twins. The other 75 percent is determined by our lifestyles and the everyday choices we make
Most vitamin requirements are best achieved by eating six to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Very few people do that, so probably the cheapest, least expensive multivitamin you can buy is not a bad idea to help achieve them (I’m a big fan of taking lots of vitamins, will probably write a post about it!)
Jeanne Calment, the documented longest-ever lived person, attributed her longevity to port wine, olive oil, and a sense of humor :)
As he zeroed in on municipalities that had the greatest numbers of long-lived people, he circled the area on a map with blue ink—giving rise to the term “Blue Zone,” which was later adopted by demographers

Here’s a list of all 1-page cheatsheets, and a list of all books!

Thanks – I hope that was useful! What could be added or changed or removed? Which books would you like me to read and summarize?

February: Amazing books and articles that I read and recommend

Every month, I’ll post the best stuff I read, watched, listened to, etc. in the prior month. So this is from January.

Books

January was a huge month, in part because I was traveling. When traveling, I read a lot in my down time, and I’d just bought an iPad mini (and then promptly left in the seatback pocket of an international flight).

I finished:

Blue Zones by Dan Buettner [Amazon]. Given my interest in living forever, this was high on my list of longevity/health-related books.

Buettner does a great job combining storytelling, health science, and applicable advice into a fast read. Hara hachi bu!

Good without God by Greg Epstein [Amazon]. I created a Good Life Guide for this book, check it out here.

Well-written, thorough in scope, and with real passion/emotion.

SPARK: The revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain by John Ratey [Amazon]. This book immediately changed my behavior. Basically a long, well-constructed argument for why we should all be runners.

Since finishing it, I’ve run on average 30 minutes/day, 5 days/week. Trying to up that to 45 minutes; ultimate target: one hour/day, 6 days/week. Aerobic exercise, to slightly adjust a frequent Ratey saying, is like “miracle-gro for the brain”. Better focus, better memory, better mood, better sleep, better sex, better everything. Read it now!

Articles

I mostly consume RSS feeds (using Netvibes), the occasional article from Facebook/Twitter, and what my friends forward. Here’s the best stuff this month. Note that not all of it is “fresh”: I emphasize quality, not topical-ity.

That which does not kill me makes me stranger (Daniel Coyle, NYT). The best article I’ve read on ultra-endurance athletes. Snippet: Around Day 2 of a typical weeklong race, his speech goes staccato. By Day 3, he is belligerent and sometimes paranoid. His short-term memory vanishes, and he weeps uncontrollably.
What is your biggest secret desire that you are ashamed of telling anyone? (Reddit). Amazing, the secrets we hold. Snippet: In the middle of the night, I would pack one bag and drive away from my life. Not look back for one second and drive clear across the country. Find a small, rural town and just rebuild where nobody has an idea of who I am.
The distractions of social media, 1673 style (Tom Standage). History repeats itself, which is why its valuable to understand history. Coffeehouses!! Snippet: With the promise of a constant and unpredictable stream of news, messages and gossip, coffeehouses offered an exciting and novel platform for sharing information.
A Pickpocket’s Tale (Adam Green, The New Yorker). Read this, and watch the videos too. Will blow your mind. Snippet: Attention is like water. It flows. It’s liquid. You create channels to divert it, and you hope that it flows the right way.
late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope) (Dave McClure). Another classic from Dave, honest, powerful, irreverent. Snippet: Most folks thought I was a decent fellow, but over the hill with my best days behind me… and I guess I thought so too. I watched as other friends helped make companies like Google and Facebook and Twitter into juggernauts, but mostly I was on the sidelines, only peripherally involved in their big ideas.

For a complete list, check out my Amazing media page. All of these will be added there.

In a followup post, I’ll talk about movies and podcasts.

What did you read/watch in January that blew your mind? Share away! Thanks as always for your time.