There's a lot of common sense in Dr. Peter Attia’s book about living a longer, healthier life. It’s just a little long. His 500-page book, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity could be summarized as thus: Eat less. Sleep more. Exercise. Oh yes, and meditate.
Attia tries not to be too prescriptive, particularly when it comes to diet. But he stresses one thing in particular: don’t eat too much. Your body’s cells need time without food. According to Attia, while fasting periodically has not been scientifically proven to improve health, studies show that eating less overall leads to better outcomes. Especially when it comes to refined sugar, a contributor to type two diabetes, less is better.
Attia states some of the obvious: don’t smoke and don’t over-eat. Don’t gain too much excess weight, unless it’s muscle (we can all relate to the nasty side-effects of muscle weight gain, can’t we?)
But even for us skinny guys, it’s not all good news. Even if you appear healthy, you may be dealing with a number of genetic factors that increase your risk of cardiovascular disease. On this subject, Attia goes into doctor’s details about everything going on in your blood. To be honest, it got a little heavy. I’ll trust that my doctor is on top of things.
What we can all do is exercise. Exercise is the elixir to so many of our health issues; disease and injury can often be prevented or delayed when we commit to moderate physical activity at least three to four times a week.
He also emphasizes the importance of strength conditioning as we get older. We tend to lose about 10% of our muscle mass every decade we age, which can lead to injury and physical decline. This is a tough one for me to get enthused about as I haven’t lifted a barbell since I was 13. There’s something inherently boring about lifting weights... For me, at least, there has to be an incentive, and I don't need to impress the girls anymore.
Then there’s sleep. Attia’s prescription is simple: get enough of it, at least 7-8 hours a night. Not only does it regenerate your mind, it may reduce the risk of diseases like Alzheimer's. Also helpful to prevent dementia: Challenge your mind as you age. But don't just do crossword puzzles. Learn another language or pick up dancing – something that involves more complicated movements rather than simply walking or running.
This all sounds great, you might be thinking, but maybe you don’t really want to do all that. Hey, I understand. I don’t want to do a lot of things too. Not all of us have the ruthless dedication of the author. But it might help to look 10, 20, and 30 years into the future, as this doctor advises, to think about how you want to feel at that time. How do you want to spend retirement – limited by injury and disease or active and feeling good?
You don’t have to be obsessed about it either. Even this self-proclaimed health nut of an author says in an interview that he’s not totally obsessed. He’ll eat a cookie, you know, if his kids make it for him. And he occasionally skips his daily exercise routine – you know, for family events. He even allows himself an alcoholic drink most nights of the week.
Notably, he also stresses the importance of mental health. As with anything, it does no good to have a perfect body but a poor mental state. Attia was forced to confront an abusive past to deal with his anger management issues. The vulnerability expressed in the last chapters of the book were some of the most illuminating to me.
A meditation retreat might sound daunting (10 minutes a day is tough enough), but it did wonders for the author. Along with counselling, we should not discount the importance of dealing with past trauma and the personal demons we all carry with us.
In conclusion (this feels like a grade 8 book review), it’s a good book. A little long, but worth reading; a helpful reminder as to what will make us healthy and, even more importantly, feel good long into the future.
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