Living healthier and longer doesn’t have to mean salads and treadmills. Behaviour expert Mark Stibich recommends a few “fun” healthy additions to your habits and diet that are much easier it follow — including indulging in chocolate and having more sex.
“Many activities that are fun and pleasurable are also good for you,” Stibich explains on his blog. “By understanding how these activities can help you live longer and what to do to get the most benefits, you’ll be putting some fun into healthy living.”
Examples of fun healthy living cited by Stibich include drinking red wine (for the antioxidant resveratrol), eating dark chocolate (which can lower blood pressure and cholesterol), playing puzzle games (for regular brain exercise) and having more sex (because why the hell not, eh?)
Of course, it’s highly debatable whether any of these habits will result in a longer lifespan; especially if you go overboard with the wine and chocolate. Then again, most centenarians claim happiness was the key to their long life. I think it’s safe to say that the above indulgences will keep you smiling.
Comments
8 responses to “The Secret To Living Longer: Chocolate, Wine And Sex”
I’m all set then.
One out of three… better than none, I guess!
As Meatloaf said, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. 🙂
Chocolate (cocoa beans) is apparently running out and by 2030 we be all out of it.
Ah, I get tired of these stories, to get the amount of resveratrol that would make any difference, you would have to drink so much that the downside would massively outweigh it.
Same with the amount of dark chocolate required to do any useful lowering of cholesterol or blood pressure.
Having more sex however has mostly upsides, but I guess the wine and chocolate may be helpful in that pursuit 🙂
The final paragraph addresses this. Still good advice! 🙂
Most of this is boils down to stress relief. There is only sketchy evidence associating antioxidants or other “superfoods” to better health or longer life.
But there is plenty of animal and human data showing that stress has deleterious effects on physiology. Mainly through the release of adrenaline and cortisol – the fight or flight response. This is helpful to survive actual threats, but our hectic lifestyle leads to it being switched on inappropriately.
As Lao Tzu said: “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long”.
We enjoy wine, chocolate and sex … they all cause the release of serotonin and dopamine in the brain. Which also switches off the stress response.
So it’s not about what you eat or do. It’s more important to enjoy it and relax as a result.
I’m having more red wine and chocolate to make up for my lack of the rest………….