Dan Buettner must be very used to being called “young man” by now– despite being nearly 50 years old and quite well-accomplished, he’s been researching the communities with the oldest citizens in the world, and has begun to unlock the secrets to a long and full life.

    So what is it, exactly, that makes people in some parts of the world (Buettner calls them “blue zones”) live so long?
There are five things he has found as a common thread from Japan to Costa Rica to Loma Linda, California.

    5. A Sense of Faith

    Loma Linda, California, boasts the highest concentration of Seventh-Day Adventists in the world, and the average Adventist man lives 11 years longer than the average American man. This is also a factor in Sardinia, where a large Catholic population fuels one of the “Blue Zones” and lives far longer than the average Italian.

    4. A Sense of Purpose

    Japan possesses an overwhelming sense of purpose, Buettner reports, and the concept has a name: ikigai. Loosely translated, it means “that which makes one’s life most worth living.” It strikes him then, as no coincidence that Okinawa has the longest disease-free life expectancies in the world.

    3. Low-Intensity Activity

    Low-intensity activity does a phenomenal job of keeping the body in working order without placing too much stress on an aging system: getting out an walking, or enjoying some form or recreation also contributes to a sense of independence that allows the mindset needed for the other points to flourish.

    2. An Investment in Family

    Family, like the previous item, helps develop support structures, as well as an essential mindset of caring; Buettner simply states that he’s never met a mean centenarian.

    1. A Plant-based Diet

    Finally, yes, there is one essential oddity– a diet that’s drastically different from that of most Americans.

    Consistently, Buettner reports people eating small portions and not much meat in their diets. This accounts for the widespread success outside of the United States, especially in places like Italy, Japan, and Costa Rica, where culture has embraced a different style of cooking.
丹·布特尼（Dan Buettner）肯定已經很習慣別人稱他為“年輕人”了--盡管他已年過半百，成就卓越，他對世界上最長壽的地區(qū)做了不少研究，向人們揭開了生活豐富、健康長壽的秘訣。
    
    那么秘訣到底是什么呢？確切地說，是什么讓世界上這些地區(qū)的人們（布特尼稱他們?yōu)?ldquo;藍色寶地”）壽命如此之長呢？

    他認為有五點秘訣，這些是居住在日本，哥斯達黎加及加利福尼亞的羅瑪琳達的人們的共同之處。

    5. 信仰

    加州的羅瑪琳達以其高度集中的基督復臨安息日會教友聞名于世，而在那里信仰基督再臨的人比一般美國人的平均壽命要長11歲。在另一塊“藍色寶地（意大利的）”撒丁島，居住著大量的天主教信仰者，他們的平均壽命也比一般的意大利人長許多，信仰也是這塊寶地人口長壽的一大因素。

    4. 目標

    日本人的目標感是全世界無與倫比的。布特尼稱，這種概念有一個名稱：ikigai，籠統翻譯過來的意思是“目標使人的生命充滿價值與意義。”而讓布特尼震驚的是，不出意外的是沖繩島的人口壽命長度為世界之首。

    3. 低密度運動

    低密度的運動對保持身體正常運作有著顯著的成效，它能抵抗壓力對衰老的影響：出門散散步，或是進行一些娛樂消遣。同時，這也能促使心智的獨立，使它在其他時間活力充沛。

    2. 對家庭的重視

    和前面提到的因素一樣，家庭能建立起一個人情感上的最大支持，同時它也是心智舒緩的一個重要源泉；布特尼只是很簡單地說到，他從未見過一個吝嗇的百歲老人。

    1. 遵循素食為主的飲食原則

    對，最后一個重要的特點就是--他們的飲食原則，這與大多數美國人是截然不同的。

    布特尼始終說道，長壽的人的飯量都不大，飲食中肉類含量也很少。這種做法對健康的重要性在美國以外的地區(qū)已經廣泛得到證實，特別是在意大利，日本和哥斯達黎加這些地方，那里的文化奉行的是一種不同于美國的烹飪方法。