When new health studies come out, they’re usually focused on what is bad for our bodies. Sure, we know smoking and red meat aren’t great, but now we also have to think about sitting too much, needing sunscreen all the time, and the effects of chronic stress.
Fortunately there are also plenty of researchers looking at the positives. They are studying the small changes we can make every day to lengthen our lives, but more importantly to improve the quality of our lives too. Here are just some of the exciting and weird things linked to living longer.
Red chili peppers
Spicy food lovers rejoice! A study in PLOS ONE linked eating red chili peppers with a 13 percent lower risk of death. So grab some ice water and eat up.
Researchers aren’t exactly sure why these peppers can improve health and help us live longer, but there are a couple of theories. First, spicy foods may help us lose weight. They may also help us eat less overall.
“While the jury’s still out on whether or not spicy foods can actually give us a metabolic boost, there’s no doubt that eating spicy foods may also have a weight loss benefit,” Jaclyn London, R.D. told Good Housekeeping. “That’s because when we consume foods with heat, the natural tendency is to slow down while we eat (since it’s tough to race through anything with hot peppers!), helping us stay in touch with satiety signals and really stop when we’re full — not stuffed.”
Higher education
It’s time to dust off that old diploma and display it proudly. It’s going to help you live longer! A study in the journal PLOS ONE found that those who obtain higher education degrees live longer. In fact, deciding against a college degree could be as dangerous to your health as smoking!
There are a variety of reasons why education leads to a healthier, longer life. For one thing, education gives you more options and control over your life. “[Education] also affects your social network, your access to information, your ability to understand information,” Virginia Chang, an associate professor of public health at New York University and of population health at NYU School of Medicine, told USA Today. “People with higher education feel like they have more agency and self-efficacy; they have more cognitive skills to manage any sort of complicated situation, to navigate the health care system; they have more social support.”
Having more education also usually equals a higher income, which means better access to healthcare. Even finishing high school has a serious effect on health. “We found that over 145,000 lives could be saved if all of the adults aged 25 to 85 who don’t have a high school degree, went on to get a high school degree or equivalent,” Patrick Krueger, an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado-Denver’s Anschutz Medical Campus and a member of the research faculty at the Institute of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado-Boulder told USA Today. “That alone accounts for about 10 percent of all deaths in the U.S. each year.”
Facebook friends
Now I found this one shocking. Did you know that going on Facebook can actually lengthen your life? That is, if you do it right. When you use Facebook to create and nurture positive relationships, you’ll get the healthy benefits. However, just mindlessly scrolling is not what I’m talking about.
A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that receiving friend requests not only makes you feel good, it actually puts you at lower risk for dying. So does posting and looking at people’s pictures. However, sending friend requests and reading text-only messages has no effect on health.
“Among those who do use social media, overall network size is associated with better health,” wrote study authors. “Just like numerous past studies of real world social networks, we find that people with more friends online are less likely to die than their disconnected counterparts.” So go ahead and login without guilt. Just make sure you’re checking out the pictures and truly connecting with friends both online and in person.
Being a tall drink of water
So not only can you reach the high shelves and gain five pounds without showing it, you tall people have another advantage . . . a longer life!
British researchers studied human bone from an excavation site in northeastern England. They analyzed the length of the bones in relation to when these ancient humans died. They found that the longer the bones, the older those people lived.
“For all bones examined, the odds of death before the age of 30 decreased as bone length increased,” the researchers told ABC. To all my fellow short people, there’s not much we can do about this one. Just focus on everything else you can change.
Coffee
Starbucks addicts rejoice! A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that coffee is indeed good for your health and can lead to a longer life. Researchers studied over 400,000 people between the ages of 50-71 over 13 years. They found that the more coffee you drink, the less likely you are to die from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, or diabetes. However, it was unclear exactly how much java the study participants were consuming after their first assessment. A study in Circulation also found an association between coffee and a longer life in those individuals who drink one to five cups per day. The coffee drinkers were less likely to die of heart disease, neurological disease, or suicide.
However, this still shouldn’t be a green light to go crazy with the caffeine. We don’t know if coffee actually protects you from these diseases. “Caffeine itself is an antioxidant, and because of America’s coffee habit, coffee is the number one source of antioxidants in the current American diet, which could be at play in the results of the study,” nutrition expert and author Amy Hendel told Shape.
Bottom line? Don’t worry if you need your daily cup of joe to get through the day. However, drinking it purely for health benefits may or may not help.
Longer, happier lives
Ready to improve your quality and length of life? Pick one or two findings from this list and start making changes today. Start a gratitude journal or take a friend to a funny movie. It looks like the more fun and joy you infuse into your life, with a dash of red chili peppers, the longer you’ll live. Go get it!
Source: Thelist