Book Link: Ikigai
Meaning: The happiness of (always being busy/ Having a purpose in life)
Island of Okinawa around 24.5 people life over the age of 100 for every 100,000 inhabitants
Blue Zones places where people have a long lifespan
Diet, Exercise, Ikigai, Strong Social Ties (Broad circle of friends & good family relations)
Eat till stomach is 80% full only. Helps prevent the rapid cellular oxidation when overeating. In Japan a typical meal consist of meal that consist of 5 plates, this helps to trick the brain into thinking we are eating a lot.
It is customary in Okinawa to form close bonds with local communities. A moai (an informal group) of people that share the same interests.
Antiaging Secrets
Aging’s escape velocity is the movement at which technological advancements can increase our life expectancy my one year or more, which will lead to us achieving biological immortal.
It is important to exercise our brains just like our bodies. Our neurons start to age in our twenties however it is slowed down by intellectual activity, curiosity and desire to learn. Dealing with new situations, playing games, interacting with other people are act as antiaging strategies.
Stress has been linked to premature aging. On sampling blood it was found that the antibodies in the book reach an level similar to when reacting to pathogens, activating the proteins that trigger an immune reason. The problem response damages healthy cells as well. A sustained state of emergency can affect the neurons associated with memory, as well as the release of certain hormones which can cause depression. While stress is bad,, low levels of stress are found to be beneficial.
Sitting for very long periods of time is harmful for the body. Walking for even 20 minutes each day can have a positive impact on the body. Getting the right amount of sleep is also essential. We should try to replace harmful habits from our daily routine with positive ones.
From Logotherapy to Ikigai
Logotherapy pushes patients to consciously discover there life’s purpose which causes them to calm their nerve and push forward. We all have a reason for being logotherapy helps the patient find their reason.
Morita Theory Principals
- Accept your feelings: If we try to fight our emotions it will become more intense
- Do what you should be doing: Do things and naturally learn and make discoveries
- Discover your life’s purpose
Find Flow in Everything you do
Flow State: Pleasure, delight, creativity and process when we are completely immersed in life
When we are in the flow state our mind is “in order”. The opposite happens when we try to do something when our mind is on other things.
The Seven Conditions for Achieving Flow
- Knowing what to do
- Knowing how to do it
- Knowing how well you are doing
- Knowing where to go
- Perceiving significant challenges
- Perceiving significant skills
- Being free from distractions
Strategy 1: Choose a difficult task (but not too difficult!)
Take up tasks that we have a chance of completing but that are slightly outside our comfort zone
Easy: Boredom
Challenging: Flow
Beyond our Abilities: Anxiety
Strategy 2: Have a clear, concrete objective
Vague Objective: Confusion, time wasted on meaningless task, Mental Block
Clear Well Defined Objective: Flow
Obsessive Desire to Achieve a Goal: Fixation of objective, Mental block
Strategy 3: Concentrate on a single task
Our brains can take millions of bits of information but can only actually process a few dozen per second. When we say we’re multitasking what we’re really doing is switching back and forth between tasks very quickly.
Studies have shown that working on multi tasks at the same time can reduce our productivity by at least 60 percent or by 10 IQ points.
The Ikigai Diet
Japan has the highest life expediency in the world: 85 years for men and 87.3 years for women
Okinawa’s Diet Miracle
- Locals eat a wide variety of foods, especially vegetables. They eat a average of eighteen different food each day
- They eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. On a daily basis they consume at least 7 types of fruits and vegetables
- Grains are the foundation of their diet. Japanese people eat white rice every day sometimes with noodles
- They rarely eat sugar, and if they do, it’s cane sugar
- Okinawans eat fish an average of three times per week, unlike in other parts of Japan, the most frequent consumed meat is fork
Additionally,
- Okinawans consume, in general, one-third as much sugar as the rest of Japan’s population (sweets and chocolates are very rare)
- They eat half as such salt as the rest of Japan; 7 grams per day compared to the average of 12 grams
- They consume fewer calories, an average of 1785 per day, compared to 2,068 in the rest of Japan
The key to staying healthy while consuming fewer calories is eating food with a high nutritional value and avoiding those that add to our overall caloric intake but offer little to no nutritional value. If we regularly consume too much calories
Sanpin-cha: A mix of green team and jasmine flowers is consumed by Okinawan’s almost three times daily. Green tea has proven to reduce the free radicals present in our bodies, keeping us young longer
Gentle Movement, Longer Life
Research done of the Blue Zones suggest that the people who live the longest are not the ones who do the most exercise but rather the ones who move the most.
Metabolism slows down by 90% after 30 mins of sitting. The enzymes that move the bad fats from the arteries to the muscles, where it gets burned off, slow down. After 2 hrs. good cholesterol drop by 20%. Just getting up for 5 mins is going to get things going again.
Resilience and Wabi-sabi
Resilience is our ability to deal with seatbacks. The more resilient we are, the more easier it will be to pick ourselves up and get back to what gives meaning to our lives.
Resilient people know how to stay focused on their objectives, on what matters, without giving in to discouragement. Their flexibility is there source of strength. They concentrate on the things they an control and don’t worry about those they can’t.
Ascetic: Person who lives life by leaving behind all worldly pleasures
Cynics: People who lead Ascetic lives
Stoics: There is nothing wrong with enjoying lives pleasures as long as they do not take control of your life as you enjoy them
We finally land our dream job, but after a little while we are already hunting for a better one. We win the lottery and buy a nice car but then decide we can’t live without a sailboat.
The Stoics believed this kind of desires and ambitions are not worth pursuing. The objective of a virtuous person is to reach a state of tranquility. In order to keep their minds virtuous, they practiced negative visualization. They imaged the worst that could happen in order to be prepared for the worst.
Other central tenet of Stoicism is knowing what we can control and what we cannot can’t. Worrying about things that are beyond our control accomplishes nothing.
Both Stoicism and Buddhism reminds us that the present is all that exists, and its is the only thing we can control. Instead of worrying about the past or the future, we should appreciate things just as they are in the moment, in the now. Stoics also recommend reflecting on the impermanence of the things around us.