How to Make Your Life Harder to Live Longer

Reading The Comfort Crisis provided further clarity to something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. It’s the idea that contrary to common belief, mine included, we don’t have to work that hard to be “healthy.” Books like Ikigai and shows like Live To 100: Secrets of The Blue Zones are what have led me down this path. In societies where people live the longest no one is focused on hacks, routines, or supplements that we associate with longevity and lifespan in America. Yet they live long and beautiful lives.

Michael Easter drove this home for me in The Comfort Crisis by making something very clear. It’s the small actions, or inactions, throughout our day that are killing us. Whether you want to go back 100 or 1,000 years, the reality is that our ancestor’s way of life made it easy for humans to stay healthy because life was hard. Surviving required being active, self-reliant, aware, and resourceful. There wasn’t time to relax on the recliner, or wallow in regrets of the past or fears of the future. Compare that to the comforts of modern society where “it’s suddenly possible to survive without being challenged” and the reasons why we find ourselves amidst a growing health epidemic becomes clear.

The problem is that instead of getting back to a simpler way of life, which to many might be deemed a more challenging way of life, we’ve instead been sold a lie that vigorous exercise, extreme diets, and unregulated supplements and vitamins, and worst of all pharmaceutical grade medications will save us. So, for most of us, we’ve hitched our life raft to one or more of these items while letting most of our days and actions go by unchanged. The reality is that we don’t need special diets, or high-intensity workouts that leave us in a puddle of our own sweat, and we certainly don’t need pharmaceutical grade medications. We need instead to incorporate small actions into our day that will add up to big changes over the course of our lifetime.

A few weeks ago, my girlfriend joked and said I should publish a post titled “How to Make Your Life Harder to Live Longer.” She was making fun of all the shit I do throughout my day that from the outside appears to make my life harder, but in the long run makes my life easier (like wearing a 30 lb weighted vest as I stand typing this). We laughed, but she was on to something.

When you’re doing a little bit throughout each moment of the day it eliminates the need to play catch up and it eliminates the large swings up and down and it makes it easier to sustain a certain lifestyle. 

The point of The Comfort Crisis is to create discomfort to awaken your best life. Small incremental changes add up and have the power to revitalize your life. So, with that said, I thought I’d share some of the simple ways in which I add a little suck to my day to see if there’s anything that you might be able to incorporate into yours.

How to Make Your Life Harder to Live Longer

• Cook as many meals as you can. Not just for the obvious benefits like eating whole foods over processed or packaged foods, but because cooking will add extra time on your feet. If each meal requires 20 - 30 minutes to prepare and cook, that’s an additional 1 hour to 90 minutes of being active.

• After your meals skip the dishwasher and wash your dishes by hand. Studies have shown that even a 10-minute walk after a meal has the ability to improve your metabolic health. Since it can feel burdensome to get up from a meal and go for a stroll, substitute the walk for standing at your sink and cleaning up the kitchen before sitting back down. Or time your dogs walks for after meals.

• Skip the elevator or escalator and opt for the stairs. At the airport with luggage and running back into your apartment building to grab something you forgot, add some steps to your day.

• Skip the shopping cart, instead use a basket. We aren’t hunters and gatherers anymore, but we can do our best to pretend. Carry your groceries around with you and practice your farmers carry. Weight training doesn’t have to wait for the gym.

• Stand up instead of sitting down to put on your underwear, pants, socks, and shoes. It’s such an easy way to practice balancing on one leg. Maintaining balance as we get older is hugely important. According to the CDC falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among persons aged ≥65 years (older adults), and older adult patients with hip fractures are 3–4 times more likely to die within one-year after surgery than general population. Practice your balance every day.

• Hit your 10,000 steps. On average walking 1 mile burns 100 calories. 10,000 steps is about 5 miles or 500 calories per day. That’s 182,500 calories burned per year! There are so many ways to sneak steps in. Walk and talk. Park far away from the store or walk instead of driving. Cook and wash the dishes (see above). Go for a stroll through town. Clean up the garage. Pace around your house. All steps count.

• Make your walks harder by carrying a load. In The Comfort Crisis he shares our evolutionary development to be able to carry heavy loads. Whether that was a basket filled with fruit or the body of a dead animal, humans evolved to carry weight over long distances. Put on a weighted vest, throw a weight in a backpack, or buy a proper Rucksack with 10, 20, or 30 lbs. You’ll feel the benefits immediately without the intensity of a workout. You can even put it on while standing at your desk.

• Embrace the weather. On average Americans now spend 93 percent of our time inside in climate-controlled environments. If you live somewhere with cold winters, step outside for a few minutes each day with light layers to activate brown fat, a metabolically active tissue that burns white fat (fat we’re always trying to lose) in the cold. Conversely, get outside when it feels “too hot.” The stress of the heat will cause your body to work a little harder without much effort. 

The point is if it’s change you’re seeking start slow. It doesn’t have to be an extreme new workout. It doesn’t have to be going cold turkey on a new diet. Small changes will lead to bigger ones. Figure out ways to resist the comforts in your life and see how it might change you.

Super Market Layouts

Super markets could do good by changing their layout. A space where produce, meat, nuts and other whole foods are showcased over processed foods that come in bags, boxes and plastic, could help influence the food choices people make. It’s something I realized the last time I stepped into our local Sprouts.

We have a Whole Foods directly across the street from us (and I have Prime which entitles us to some discounts). A couple of blocks further is Sprouts. But despite its proximity, my familiarity with the brand, and my Prime membership, I kept finding myself drawn to Sprouts for my grocery shopping. It felt better, but I wasn’t sure why.

The last time we walked into Sprouts I understood why. 80 percent of their store is devoted to showcasing fruit, vegetables, bulk nuts and dried fruit, meat and fish, all in an open and inviting layout. The remaining 20 percent is shelves filled with the typical (healthy versions) of packaged foods.

By contrast, the produce, fruit, meat and fish section in Whole Foods feels claustrophobic. It feels like you’re not meant to spend much time there. Like it’s just a funnel to get you into the aisles where processed food abounds. It feels like an afterthought instead of the main attraction. But it made me think.

What influence could the layout of a grocery store have on the habits of individuals? Whole Foods still far exceeds most grocers in the country, and to be sure is a privilege. But if every store looked like Sprouts, and lured you in with the right foods, what impact would it have?

I know personally, it gets me excited about the food I’m going to eat, and I’m sure it would do that for millions of other people as well.