The Longevity Paradox

The Longevity Paradox explores ways to live a longer, healthier life and “die young” as a senior, instead of having to go through illnesses, all by focusing on the microbiome and improving our lifestyle as heart surgeon Steven Grundy suggests.

With so many diets out there, it can be challenging to find the right formula for living healthy. However, simply taking a look at the populations who live longest, such as the Okinawans, can give us the answer. It seems that a plant-based diet is one good approach to dieting.

While animal protein is good and nutritious, the author recommends avoiding intaking more than three ounces a day. When it comes to carbs, aim for the complex ones that come from purple potatoes, yams, and other resistant starches. In contrast to these, rice, corn, and grains don’t keep you full for too long. They also increase your blood sugar drastically.

When it comes to cardio, it seems that too much of it can cause unnecessary stress in your body. While it’s great to exercise, forcing your body to practice too much sport can weaken it and stress it. In other words, don’t overtrain! Do your regular exercises, but hear your body out when it wants to rest. In the end, it’ll also help you achieve better results.

First thing first, let’s explain the concept of deep sleep. The usual sleep cycle lasts about seven to nine hours. During this period, we enter deep sleep, which refreshes us the next morning. During this stage, our eyes move rapidly, our breath increases, and we experience dreaming.

Deep sleep is particularly important when it comes to living a longer, better life because it’s during this stage that our brain gets cleared from all toxins. The lymphatic system is responsible for washing out the debris from your brain during deep sleep.

When this process occurs, your brain cells shrink in size. This allows a particular fluid to enter your brain and clear it up. To enter this phase of sleep, you have to prepare your brain to slow down. Therefore, allow your body to go into resting mode by eating your last meal four hours before you go to sleep.

While avoiding blue light from screens before sleep is also important, having your body spend all its energy on clearing itself instead of digesting food is essential for deep sleep. Meat and heavy foods take longer to digest, but you’ll want to avoid any meals whatsoever as you get closer to hitting the bed.