گفتگو

CONVERSATION LESSON

HOW TO LIVE TO BE A HUNDRED

Dan: Aaron Campbell, how are you doing?

Aaron: I‟m doing very well, sir. And you?

Dan: I‟m doing all right. Today we‟re talking longevity. How long do you want to live?

Aaron: I think it would be really, really nice to live to be a ripe old age of, I would say a hundred. I‟d like to become a centenarian, as long as the quality of my life is good.

Dan: I‟d like to be a millenarian.

Aaron: A “millionarian.”

Dan: I‟d like to… Millenarian.

Aaron: Live a million years?

Dan: No, a thousand years, “millenarian.”

Aaron: Oh, a millenarian.

Dan: Actually, that‟s probably not a word. But, yeah I‟m fine with that. I could be brain in a bottle on somebody‟s shelf in a laboratory.

Aaron: Oh yeah, that sounds like a great life, Dan.

Dan: Get a life!

Aaron: That sounds like a great life.

Dan: But yeah, the future is bright for longevity. Every decade it seems like the estimates are creeping up. I don‟t what the… I remember growing up, at least in the US, it was the low 70s. Like 70 for men and 72 for women or 73. I think it‟s in the high 70s in the US now.

Aaron: Yeah, it‟s creeping up everywhere. Mostly due to medical technology, advances in medical technology. I would assume.

Dan: Medical technology and… Yeah, is that why it is?

Aaron: That‟s just my own personal opinion.

Dan: Or I wonder if it‟s in the developing world, if it‟s also access to better nutrition?

Aaron: That could be.

Dan: But probably medicine and nutrition and food.

Aaron: It could be. It could be.

Dan: It‟s probably not access to the book, The Blue Zones. But that is a very interesting book and it‟s the topic of this month‟s lesson.

Aaron: That‟s right.

Dan: There are four main characteristics, right?

Aaron: Yeah, that‟s right. This guy, Dan Buettner, he went around the world and tried to identify communities that had a much longer lifespan than the people living in other areas around there, and he found that there‟s these four different parts. One is moving naturally, the other is diet, the right kind of diet. And then the other two are non-physical things. They have to do with our outlook on life, having the right outlook, and the other is the sense of belonging, whether it‟s to family or religion or to a closed group of people.

Dan: Two physical, two non-physical. I mean, normally, you would probably think of the physical things as being most connected to how long a life is going to live. So I find the physical things tying it to having exercise is part of your everyday life and having the right kind of food or the right kind of fuel for your body is interesting. But the non-physical, that‟s something that we don‟t usually associate with how long you live.

Aaron: Right. But I think the stress is like a really huge, plays a huge role. And I think a lot of stress is self-created. I think a lot of it has to do with our outlook on life and not being able to relax and not being able to let go. And I think the people we surround ourselves with can have a big influence on not just our physical lifestyle, but also on the way we think about things and the way we react to things emotionally.

Dan: You ever heard of the Jim Rome quote, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with?”

Aaron: Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Dan: So you‟re in good company.

Aaron: Oh no. No, I‟m joking. But that‟s interesting, the five people you‟re closest to.

Dan: Yeah, I think it‟s completely unscientific and something he just pulled out of his butt. But I like it because I think you certainly are affected by the people around you and not just of course outlook, you‟re around negative people and you‟re going to be negative. You‟re around positive ambitious people, it‟s going to rub off on you. I mean, also your physical habits. I spend a lot of time around Barbara, and she‟s a really healthy eater so it‟s affected my diet.

Aaron: Barbara is your friend.

Dan: Yeah. And she‟s somebody who focuses a lot on trying to optimize her diet and get the most nutrition possible. She eats a lot of raw food, a lot of vegetable juice. Before I met, not in a million years would I have thought of drinking vegetable juice. So I think not just your outlook but the actual way you live your life is affected by the kind of people that you‟re around the most.

Aaron: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dan: So what were the non-physical things again? A sense of well-being through feeling a part of a community?

Aaron: Yeah, a sense of belonging. And for most people that‟s family. Family first. Just a devotion to your family. And as in the Seventh Day Adventists community, which is a religious community, that could also be feeling part of something that is greater than just this human existence, feeling one with the universe or with God or however you define it. That‟s also a part of it. And right tribe, the people you are surrounded by.

Dan: I think these circles of community are really all around us. It‟s obvious there‟s your family, and then religion, your religious group if you‟re religious, the people that you work around, your coworkers, and of course your friends and whatever social circles you‟re around from hobbies to volunteering. How do you think that you‟d rank your social life in terms of feeling like you fit it?

Aaron: Yeah, I think it‟s really important. For me, it‟s my family. I‟m not just talking about my immediate family, my wife and children, but also my extended family, my parents, my sister, aunts and uncles, and cousins. That‟s always been an important part of my life in the sense that I feel that those people are there for me. If in a time of need, if I ever needed help, those are the people I would go to and I am 100% sure that they would help me. And having that sense of having that safety net there I think takes away a lot of the stresses, the potential stresses that could be there when you think about the uncertainty of the future and how we cannot predict what kind of terrible situations we might be in when we need help. And if you have that? Wow, that can really make you less stressed out.

Dan: It really affects… Of course stress isn‟t all physical. There‟s a lot of chemicals in our body like cortisol that rises when we‟re feeling stressed and those do have an effect on longevity. So your family and your tap dancing club, I know is very important in your life. You rely on those tap dancers.

When did you start tap dancing?

Aaron: Dan, I don‟t tap dance. That‟s a fantasy that you have.

Dan: Don‟t be shy.

Aaron: I don‟t tap dance, but I know you want to be a tap dancer.

Dan: One day. So a sense of belonging…

Aaron: And having the right outlook and what that means is having a life purpose on the one hand, and on the other, being able to downshift at certain points of the day or certain points of the week where you just let go and you relax and you don‟t worry about anything. So those are the two main things.

Dan: I like that expression „downshift‟. It‟s a word we use in connection with a car when we‟re shifting down and slowing down the revolutions of the engine.

Aaron: Of the engine, yeah. Essentially.

Dan: And we also can use a „downshift‟ to say we‟re relaxing or slowing down our life.

Aaron: So do you get downshift built-in to your daily life?

Dan: Not as much as I‟d like, especially these days.

Aaron: Yeah, I feel the same. It‟s a lot harder these days. But one of the things I‟ve been doing recently more and more is visiting the public baths, the Japanese sento. And that is a great way to just let go and relax and it‟s almost a physical sense of well-being because you‟re surrounded by really warm water and steam and things like that, and you just can really let go. It‟s nice. Do you ever visit the public baths?

Dan: I love the public baths. I love the onsens. It‟s very relaxing. What was I going to say? A sense of belonging and… Yeah, you were asking me do I downshift, and I probably not. Just like you, I got a family, I‟ve got a job, we‟ve got Deep English. We‟re always struggling to make these lessons and make everything work and keep the community going. But even though we‟re so busy with Deep English, I think we both get some satisfaction and that we‟re able to reach out to people all over the world. How amazing is that?

Aaron: Yeah, and I think that fits into my ikigai, my life purpose. It‟s about taking what I‟ve learned and what I can do in my profession and trying to provide benefit to other people. That brings me a sense of well-being.

Dan: Putting value out to the world. When I think about all of the people, not just the people who buy our products, but also the people out there, the tens of thousands of people who are enjoying our free lessons at the same time, like I feel humbled.

Aaron: Yeah, I almost feel like a sense of connection to something bigger than me in that sense. It‟s kind of cool.

Dan: And I think that that‟s interesting point, bring up a connection to something bigger than yourself. I think that‟s what behind a lot of people‟s attraction to groups and movements and doing charity and helping people and joining religions or doing work projects where they feel like they‟re putting value into the world. You feel like you‟re part of something bigger than yourself. Some psychologists might say that the flipside of that is we are trying to soothe our fear of death, that we‟re always, as human beings, we‟re carrying around the knowledge that we will die one day and we will cease to exist. And that‟s one of the most frightening things, even if consciously, like I don‟t consciously think… I‟m not afraid of dying in one sense. I don‟t think about it or worry about it. But maybe on a deeper level there is a fear of one day this life will come to an end and that‟s why some psychologists say we seek to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, whether it‟s religion or doing something meaningful in our life.

Aaron: Because that carries on, whereas our individual self does not.

Dan: Yeah. So if you believe in that sort of psychological view that we all are trying to deny death in some way by being a part of meaningful endeavors, meaningful works in our life, or groups in our life, then…

Aaron: Well, that takes stress away. That‟s really what it comes down to.

Dan: Yeah, so in trying to deny the inevitable death, we‟re actually kind of prolonging our life in a physical sense if it‟s making us healthier.

Aaron: Sure. When I reflect on these non-physical aspects of Blue Zone lifestyles, both of them seem to have a very stabilizing effect psychologically, very stabilizing, and emotionally, too. If you have a life purpose, if you wake up in the morning and you know exactly what you have to do and what you are here to do and you‟re surrounded by people who support you and you‟ve got that safety net there and you are devoted to your family and to your community, it‟s like wow. All the stresses of life can be so much more diminished in that situation as opposed to someone who‟s on their own and worried about their future, et cetera, et cetera. But you know what surprised me most about thinking about Blue Zone lifestyles?

Dan: What‟s that?

Aaron: One of the physical aspects which is exercise. I found it really interesting that not one of these communities – well, the people in these communities - actually exercise as an activity or something that they plan to do. And that struck me, it‟s really interesting, like natural movement was just built into their daily lifestyle. And in our American culture, we‟re always hearing in the media and from our friends and all around, how important exercise is, how you got to get out there and exercise if you want to be healthy. You have to get out and you have to exercise. You should play sports or you should go to the gym or you should go swimming, and you have to set time aside for it and make it a priority. And it‟s like, wow, not really. I mean the only reason you have to do those things is because we have such a sedentary, unhealthy lifestyle in the States, in general. People sitting in chairs and sofas, and going from an air-conditioned room into the garage where there‟s a car waiting and they drive the car to the supermarket and they do their shopping and then they drive to the shopping center and the post office and drive back home and drive back home. It‟s just… It‟s a car culture. And you‟ve got to make time to do those things.

But here in Japan for example, you and I both know there are just a lot more natural movement taking place in terms of getting up and down off the floor or having to walk up and down flights of stairs at subway stations, or just getting around town, there‟s a lot more walking. And when I have American friends come to visit me in Japan, that‟s one of the things I always hear from them is, “Oh, how much walking we did today.” And it‟s like, well that‟s lifestyle of Japan. And of course, the diet, too.

Dan: So back to these people. Blue Zones is built into their lifestyle, but maybe they would be even healthier if there was health clubs. They were also working out…

Aaron: I wonder about that. I don‟t know. Maybe.

Dan: Doing some aerobics, lifting some weights, some jazzercise, or tap dancing like you enjoy, to bring it full circle. So clearly the modern world, we have to find ways because most of us don‟t have jobs that require physical effort. We could head into the country and grow some crops.

Aaron: Well, Ellsworth Wareham I think is a good example of that. At the age of 97, he didn‟t have to build a privacy fence. He chose to do it. That kind of mentality that… And I think these are ways that we could build, we can make our lifestyles a little bit bluer in this sense of the world, a Blue Zone sense of the world, is by looking for opportunities to do more physical things. Instead of, let‟s say taking a train to work, I mean we could walk, we could ride our bikes more. We could, instead of going to the supermarket in a car, we could walk or ride a bicycle, things like that.

Dan: You ever try to do that? You ever try to park your car further away in the farthest parking space or?

Aaron: No.

Dan: Yeah, I know you don‟t drive too often.

Aaron: I don‟t drive much.

Dan: Or you can park your bicycle in a far away place.

Aaron: Here‟s something. When we met a few weeks ago to do a recording, I walked there and that was about a 90-minute walk.

Dan: Yeah, that was impressive.

Aaron: And I just did that the other day when I met you for dinner with Barbara.

Dan: Yeah, but you want to do that every day you‟re going to have to get rid of your family.

Aaron: Yeah. No, I don‟t have time. But that‟s an example of the type of thing you could do. And the other thing about living here in Japan as an American is that I‟ve noticed is portion sizes when it comes to diet. I’ll never forget when I first came to Japan, my very first couple of weeks here, I had an American stomach in the sense that I was used to eating until I was full. And I was used to really large portions. And I‟ll never forget, I went to this one place for lunch, and I ordered the lunch set.

And I ate it and it was really small, and I was still hungry. So I called the waitress over and I ordered another lunch set. And she just looked at me like I was crazy. And two lunches, what do you need two lunches for? But as the longer I lived here, the more my stomach got used to eating smaller portions.

Then when I went back to the States for a visit, it was obscene, the portion sizes, especially at restaurants. It‟s just absolutely obscene, my wife and I went to this really nice restaurant for our anniversary, and this is about 10 years ago. And we looked at the menu and the menu was wonderful, and we‟re really looking forward to tasting all these different gourmet foods. And we ordered the appetizer to start with and it was like a sample platter. By the time we finished the appetizer, we were full. We couldn‟t even, we haven‟t even gotten to the main course when were full. So, it‟s just portion sizes are important.

Dan: We just had dinner at Tadg‟s which is a local Irish pub restaurant here in Kyoto. And we were definitely getting western portions. By the time we finished those appetizers, I felt like I had eaten two thanksgiving dinners. I felt sick.

Aaron: You were looking green.

Dan: I think I had one bite of the main course, the quinoa. And that was all vegetarian, too, but it was super heavy and super big.

Aaron: Yeah, it‟s just big. Big and heavy. So eating light, caloric restriction, these are things that people who live a long time do. There‟s a saying in English, I‟m sure you‟ve heard it before: “It takes a lean horse to run a long race.”

Dan: I‟ve never heard that before. You sure you didn‟t make that up?

Aaron: Really? My dad used to say that all the time. Maybe because my dad‟s from Kentucky, and that‟s big horse racing…

Dan: Takes a lean horse to run a race.

Aaron: To run a long race.

Dan: Okay.

Aaron: Takes a lean horse to run a long race.

Dan: So I think you should try to make more movement, more activity part of your daily life.

Aaron: Why? I‟m pretty active.

Dan: You said you‟re trying… you‟re on a little fitness kick, right?

Aaron: Well, that‟s true. Yeah, I could use a little more exercise.

Dan: So go get me a cup of coffee.

Aaron: You want me to go get you coffee?

Dan: Two creams, one sugar.

Aaron: I‟ll be happy to do that for you, Dan. I‟ll be happy to do it.

Dan: Okay. Go do it.

Aaron: I‟ll walk to Starbucks and walk back.

Dan: So are you going to, speaking of that, are you going to try to include some of Blue Zone habits in your life?

Aaron: I think for me the physical side it a little more important these days. I feel like I‟ve got the non-physical side covered in terms of my outlook and being surrounded by good people. I really feel I‟m blessed in that sense. But the natural movement and exercise, I think both of those… Oh sorry, the natural movement and the food, the diet, I think I could eat less. I still eat too much. I think I could make more of my diet plant-based. I still eat probably more meat than I should, in terms of my health. And getting more exercise. Of course, I can always use more of that. I spend a lot of time in front of a computer sitting, which is bad. In fact they‟ve said sitting nowadays could be worse than smoking cigarettes, if you‟re doing it too much. And I do. I do too much sitting. So maybe another thing I can do is start fixing my office so that I‟m standing while I‟m using my computer instead of sitting. I know you do that.

Dan: Yeah, it‟s great. I love it.

Aaron: I need to do that. Maybe that‟s what you could do in terms of service, is you can come to my house and you can setup a standup desk for me.

Dan: You know what else I would like in addition to a stand up desk is, I would like a treadmill desk or a bicycle desk.

Aaron: Yeah, that‟d be fun. Bicycle desk, that‟s what I would like to have. Let‟s do that. Maybe, let‟s have bicycle desks.

Dan: Yeah, race to work. Race through work. What I‟m trying to do is I… It‟s kind of cheesy, but gratitude journals, without the journal part.

Aaron: You mean like where you set aside five minutes and reflect on how grateful you are to me for all of the wonderful things that I do for you?

Dan: Every morning I‟m trying to think about how grateful I am to be mentoring you, and to be coaching you to be a better person and I do that for about five minutes every day and I think if it‟s one thing I‟ve done in this life is I‟ve helped Aaron grow up to be a man. No, seriously. Actually, every morning for the past few days, I try to start the day thinking of all the things that I‟m grateful for.

Aaron: Yeah, that‟s a good thing to do.

Dan: And I try to think about as much as I love Deep English, sometimes I get stressed out having to produce all these lessons and all the things we have to do for the business side. And I just try to think about what a great opportunity we have and how we‟re connecting with people all over the world and I feel really grateful. So to all of you listening, thank you. We really appreciate all of you.

Aaron: And I echo Dan‟s sentiment.

Dan: Okay, I think that we‟re at an end.