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The Blue Zones Expert: 70% of Your Health Is Dictated By This ONE Thing

Today, I'm joined by best-selling author and explorer, Dan Buettner, as he shares his extensive research and knowledge on lengthening our lifespans.

Dan BuettnerguestJay Shettyhost

Jan 1, 202457mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

55 min read · 10,999 words

0:00 – 3:03
Intro
1. DBDan Buettner
  We make about 220 food decisions a day. Only 10% of them are conscious. If you're unhealthy and overweight, it's probably not your fault, and I'll tell you why
2. JSJay Shetty
  New York Times bestselling author, award-winning journalist Dan Buettner.
3. DBDan Buettner
  These five areas where people are living measurably longer, not only is there plenty of evidence that these approaches work, but also it offers a path to longevity that's enjoyable. [upbeat music]
4. JSJay Shetty
  Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed. All I want you to do is click on the subscribe button. I love your support. It's incredible to see all your comments, and we're just getting started. I can't wait to go on this journey with you. Thank you so much for subscribing. It means the world to me.
5. DBDan Buettner
  The bestselling author and host.
6. JSJay Shetty
  The number one health and wellness podcast.
7. DBDan Buettner
  On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier, and more healed. Now, I love sitting down with people who have deeply studied, obsessed, and excavated insights and ideas for us, people who have focused deeply on mining the world, traveling the world, and finding wisdom, finding tenets of ideas and concepts that can transform the way we live in the modern world. And today's guest is someone I've had on the show before, but I am so excited to see him again after around four or five years it's been since we were last together. I'm speaking about Dan Buettner, an explorer, National Geographic fellow, award-winning journalist and producer, and New York Times bestselling author. Dan discovered the five places in the world dubbed Blue Zones Hot Spots, where people live the longest, healthiest lives. In Dan's new book that I have right now, The Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer: Lessons from the Healthiest Places on Earth, Dan talks about his travels and journeys of living and learning from people all over the world that we'll dive into today. I want you to grab a copy of this book. It beautifully synthesizes and summarizes really complex and difficult ideas and really, really simple and beautiful ones in a way that you can practice them and bring them to life in yours and the people you love. Uh, welcome to the show, Dan Buettner. Dan, thank you for being here.
9. DBDan Buettner
  Oh, you're such a master.
10. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
11. DBDan Buettner
  It's, it's, it's a complete joy to see you again and to, and to be here in your studio.
12. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, and congratulations on your documentary, too, on Netflix. I mean, it's been received exceptionally well. If anyone hasn't seen it yet, make sure you go and see that and get the book at the same time. It's, it's so beautiful because when we met, you'd been dedicated to this work for so long already, and the fact that it's now having another resurgence and, you know, it's becoming even more mainstream, which I love because I think these ideas need to be mainstream.
3:03 – 8:06
How much of our genes determine how long we will live
1. JSJay Shetty
  Talk to us just about how long you've been fascinated and obsessed about this journey and how amazing it is. You just said a moment ago outside to me, you said, "You know, I thought the work had had its course, but here it is again."
2. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah, yeah.
3. JSJay Shetty
  It's just, it's timeless.
4. DBDan Buettner
  1999-
5. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
6. DBDan Buettner
  ... I, I did a, uh, f- read a study in the World Health Organization finding that Okinawa, Japan produces the longest-lived disability-free lives in the world, and I thought, "Aha, that's a great mystery." And it, did a very quick expedition there and became personally on, on fire about the topic. And then in 2004, I got an assignment from National Geographic and a grant from the National Institutes on Aging and, uh, wrote a cover story for National Geographic. And the idea here, Jay, was, you know, so many-- It's very hot in Silicon Valley right now to, uh, search for longevity hacks or anti-aging nostrums and so forth. And instead of looking for secret to longevity in a test tube or, uh, some sort of genetic code, uh, we very methodically found these five areas where people are living measurably longer. And then because only about 20% of how long we live is dictated by our genes, 80% is something else, then we took teams of scientists to find the common denominators and the, the correlates. And I think the reason this, this, the Netflix series is resonating so much right now is because in our fast-paced world where we're constantly looking for answers in technology, we've overlooked this wonderful repository of time-honored wisdom that if we stop, pay attention, you can see not only is there plenty of evidence that these approaches work, but also it offers a path to longevity that's enjoyable.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Absolutely. And I, I'm so happy that you're shining a light on that because I think it's so interesting how obsessed we can get and even how stressed we can get about our health. And almost when you go back to these very grassroots ways and methods and approaches, it's so much more natural and organic. But walk us through that. You said 20% is genes. What's the other 80%?
8. DBDan Buettner
  Maybe 10% is healthcare, you know, how good your insurance is, how much access you have to hospitals and doctors. But the other 70% or so I argue it is largely your environment. We spend over $150 billion a year on diets and exercise programs, but if you look at the, the duration of how long those last, it's measured in months or maybe a year and a half or so. And when it comes to longevity, there's no short-term fix. There's no pill. There's no supplement. It is the sum of lots of small improvements to your lives aggregated over decades. That's what works, and I've been shown nothing else that can work in the, in, in the, in the short run. So, uh, so that 70% is how you set up your environment so that you are unconsciously nudged to do things that favor longevity and nudged away from the things that we know take away from health and vitality. That's kind of the general idea.
9. JSJay Shetty
  And I love that idea about environment. I think the challenge is today that A lot of us would find that environments we grow up in or environments we live and work in are almost set up against longevity.
10. DBDan Buettner
  Yes.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Right? Would you agree with that? And what are some of the ways in which we almost have to not fight, but we have to almost defend, protect, and create environments to grow and be abundant in?
12. DBDan Buettner
  So we're in Los Angeles right now. I happen to know that the average Angeleno spends 47 hours a year not just in traffic, stopped in traffic. In places that are walkable, where there are bike lanes, where there are nice wide sidewalks with trees, so they're aesthetically pleasing, cleaned up playground, the physical activity level of the entire community is 20% higher. Uh, so we live in a nature nation where fewer than 24% of people get the minimum amount of physical activity, which is only about 20 minutes. So just by living in a walkable neighborhood, you're probably gonna get more physical activity over the long term than you are signing up for a gym. The other problem's our food environment. You know, we evolved with, uh, uh, genetic hardwiring to favor salt, favor sugar, yearn for fat, and take rest whenever we can. That served us very well in, in an environment of scarcity and difficulty like we evolved in, but now we live in this environment where we're never more than five steps away from a salty snack or a soda or hamburger or pizza, and, you know, our genes lust for that. Um, and we can try to deploy discipline or presence of mind to overcome it three or four times, but the sixth time you're confronted by it in a day, you know, th- that discipline muscle wears out, and next thing you're, you know, eating that Snickers or digging into that bag of chips. And, and, uh, it's hard to wag your finger at Americans and say, "It's your responsibility to eat healthy" when 97 out of 100 choices out there for most people aren't healthy.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Well, I wanna dive
8:06 – 14:07
The secret to a healthy America
1. JSJay Shetty
  into all the lessons and the insights that we can make shifts. How have you found people being able to apply the Blue Zones work in their modern lives, in these big cities, in places where 97 out of 100 options are unhealthy or toxic or whatever they may be? What examples have you seen? What have you learned about people actually making changes and transformations in their life?
2. DBDan Buettner
  So I, I have two answers, and I- I'll first I'll take it at the community level. So my daytime job for most of the last 13 years has been working with cities. Uh, we're, we're publicly endorsed but privately funded, so we don't get involved with, you know, people worrying about spending, uh, tax dollars. We've gone into cities like Fort Worth, Texas, Naples, Florida, Jacksonville, the whole state of Hawaii, and instead of trying to get people to try to convince people to eat mostly a plant-based diet and to get physical activity, we work with city council to help them, uh, identify policies that favor healthy food over junk food, that favor the pedestrian over the motorist, that favor the non-smoker over the smoker. And we don't come in telling cities what to do. Nobody wants to be told what to do. We bring them menus, and then we go through every item on that policy menu and assess it for, number one, effective. Do people in this room, pu- from the public and private sector think it'd be effective in this city? And two, is it feasible? Is there enough sort of political equity to get these things done? And in every city, we're able to find a half a dozen to a dozen policies that float to the top, and my team can get it implemented, and that's the biggest. According to the CDC, the most powerful lever we have to create a healthier America is policy. It's the most cost-effective. But then we also have a Blue Zones certification program for restaurants, grocery stores, workplaces, and schools. In over five years, we can usually get 30 to 40% of those places to agree to optimize their designs and their policies so people mindlessly move more, uh, eat better, you know, cafeterias are healthier with healthier choices, socialize more, we all know, uh, loneliness kills, and then know and live their purpose. And it only works when you're comprehensive, and from the time people wake up till the time they go to bed, they are nudged.
3. JSJay Shetty
  Hmm.
4. DBDan Buettner
  Uh, unconsciously nudged into slightly better behaviors over the period of decades. And in every city we worked in, and Gallup measures this, uh, we've seen the obesity rate go down, life satisfaction go up, and healthcare go down a lot. And in a country where we're spending $4.4 trillion on healthcare, uh, that's an important consideration.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's incredible to have these very-- I love how you're approaching it almost from a very macro level, like in the sense of it's not just about micro habit changes, it's about redesigning entire cities or reformatting entire cities, which, which I was fascinated when we first met and you walked me through the models and I remember you showing us how you were thinking parks and spaces could be redesigned and how schools and homes and how they all need to be close to each other. And I was thinking, "Wow, this is... It's such a practical but macro level." I wanna dive into some of these areas because I wanna give people a small tour of this beautiful book that you've created, and of course, highly recommend that everyone grabs the book for all the full details. But the Blue Zones are Sardinia, Nicoya, Loma Linda, Ikaria, Okinawa, and Singapore. And so they're not necessarily the most-- they're not predictable, and they're not the places that you'd go, "Oh, yeah, I know that place." Like, of course those people live a long time. They're, they're, they're... And I've only been to-- I've been to Sardinia before, and I remember going and meeting with some of the people then. I was totally blown away. I've been to Singapore before, and I met some local individuals. But I wanted to dive into a couple of areas that I highlighted. So I wanna talk a little bit about a few things that may sound counterintuitive to people. Uh, one of these, one of these ones was the plant-based diet, because I think a lot of people, right now there's a lot of debate over plant-based versus meat-based diet, but this was something that you saw across the board as quite a strong indicator of longevity?
6. DBDan Buettner
  I think people should eat what makes them feel the best, and I, I'm not here to tell people what to eat. But I'm also write for National Geographic, and I'm-- my feet are held to the fire. Um, so if I wanna talk about a diet of longevity, the p- our process was to aggregate dietary surveys in all five Blue Zones. Universities go out and find what the, what the population is eating, and we did that o- for over the past 80 years, so 155 dietary surveys over 80 years. So we know what a centenarian was eating when they were 20 and what they, what they were eating when they were newly retired and recently.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Wow.
8. DBDan Buettner
  I had oversight from Harvard to do what's called a meta-analysis, and if you really wanna know what a centenarian has eaten most of his or her life, uh, it is about 90 to 95% whole plant-based food.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
10. DBDan Buettner
  Uh, contrary to sort of the, the popular keto diets and so forth, it's very high in carbohydrates, but complex carbohydrates, r- carbohydrates. Both jelly beans and, and lentil beans are carbohydrates, and obviously, you know, in a way, carbohydrates is the worst word in the nutritional dictionary 'cause I would argue simple carbohydrates like jelly beans are the most toxic components of our diet, whereas beans is the most healthy. Uh, the, the five pillars of every longevity diet in the world are whole grains, greens and other garden vegetables, it's all seasonal, tubers like sweet potatoes. Uh, in Okinawa, until 1970, about 65 to 70% of all the calories consumed were from purple sweet potatoes. Uh, nuts as a snack, and then the cornerstone of every longevity diet in the world is beans. And if you're eating a cup of beans a day, it's probably worth about four years of extra life expectancy.
14:07 – 18:14
The overconsumption of meat is hurting us
1. DBDan Buettner
  They do eat meat, and I readily acknowledge that. The Adventists don't all eat meat, but in all Blue Zones, on average, they were eating meat about five times per month. The average American eats about 220 pounds of meat a year, which is just too much. I think, uh, there's plenty of evidence to show that that level of meat consumption's highly associated with about a doubling or tripling of your chances of cardiovascular disease and even type 2 diabetes. In Blue Zones, they might be consuming, uh, 20 pounds of meat a year, and it's a celebratory food. It's usually, uh, from an animal that's had a pretty decent life. Uh, not to say that that justifies killing it, but, um, it's just a whole different way of, of consuming meat and, uh, and much lower quantities. So is there room for meat in people's diet? Probably, but a lot less than I think we're consuming.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, and I love how you've connected, and I mean, the amount of analysis that's been done is, is truly remarkable, and obviously the amount of years. The fact that you know what someone was eating at 20 years old and, and what they've eaten for their whole life is, is pretty phenomenal. One of these ones that you had here was laughing with friends, and you know, I think laughter is-- laughter and crying both are such underestimated emotions and expressions, and I almost feel like I wonder if every one of us who's listening and watching right now did a personal audit on how much we laughed per week-
3. DBDan Buettner
  Oh, yeah
4. JSJay Shetty
  ... I would be intrigued-
5. DBDan Buettner
  Very insightful
6. JSJay Shetty
  ... to see-
7. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah, yeah
8. JSJay Shetty
  ... how, how many of us, and I would love that. Everyone who's listening and watching, just for the next seven days, it sounds like a stupid activity, and maybe this makes you laugh, and that's great. Uh, write down how many times you, you truly laughed, not just like, "Ha ha ha," but like truly laughed every day. What did you discover about the importance of laughter? Because that sounds like such a subtle, soft, small thing, but you, you put it in the book.
9. DBDan Buettner
  Well, it's hard to quantify, quite honestly, but the, where that comes from, uh, the word sardonic, which is a type of kind of slightly biting but good-natured, uh, humor, comes from Sardinia, and it very much pervades the culture. There, there's a lot of sort of ribbing, good-natured ribbing of each other.
10. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
11. DBDan Buettner
  And, um, that's sort of a, a social currency. So when they get together at the end of the day for their glass of wine or two, it's usu- they're not sitting around griping about politics or what the left is doing or what the right is doing. They're, uh, poking fun of each other or the shepherd over the hill. And, um, so that was-- that's an anecdotal ob- observation, but it just seemed to be one of the propellants of, of, uh, a very hearty and healthy, uh, social life. I wrote that cover story for National Geographic in 2005. I don't think anybody was connecting social, the quality of your social relations with health or longevity until my first articles and books were. And, um, I, I think there's a, a general realization that transcends Blue Zones that, you know, if, if you could put the healthful properties of a good social life in a tablet, it would be a billion-dollar blockbuster drug. Being, having at least three friends who you can laugh with, who care about you on a, on a-
12. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
13. DBDan Buettner
  ... a bad day is worth about eight years of life expectancy over being alone. And I don't know-
14. JSJay Shetty
  Wow
15. DBDan Buettner
  ... of any other supplement or pill that will give you anywhere near that.
16. JSJay Shetty
  We inherently know that. Like, when someone hears that, they say, "Yeah, yeah, I have three friends." But I think, like you said, it's the topic of conversation. It's the energetic exchange. It's the vulnerability and the depth of that relationship that seems to be stifled. Like you're saying, like we're all searching for the magic pill, but you're saying actually just having three friends that you can call on a bad day is actually going to increase your life expectancy greater than any pill you could take, which just to think about that for a second, like you make it sound so easy, but that's a really powerful point. But we maybe don't engage as effectively with three people in our life. Where have we gone wrong in that social space? What did you
17. DBDan Buettner
  Kind of come across.
18:14 – 26:45
Time spent in cars
1. DBDan Buettner
  There's this great Harvard researcher named Robert Putnam. He wrote a book called Bowling Alone, and when he first raid- wrote it in the late '80s, he, he calculated that, uh, the average American has three friends. Uh, now he now calculates we're down to under two. So y- we may think that we're socially connected, but as a nation we're getting less and less, uh, socially connected. And I think, uh, you know, part of it is this thing right here. It's we're using this as a proxy for the face-to-face conversations like we're having right now, which isn't nearly as good. Part of it's our environment. We spend about twice as much time in our cars than we did in 1980. If we're in our cars, we're not out walking, interacting with people, and having those serendipitous social interactions that can lead to friendships.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
3. DBDan Buettner
  We spend four and a half hours a day at least, uh, interacting with our screens. Yet, yet again, another time taken away from social interaction. And we are humans. The reason why we're successful over other simians is that we have this capacity to feel empathy for each other, to cooperate with each other. And at the end of the day, most things that feel good-
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
5. DBDan Buettner
  ... uh, favor our health and our longevity. It's why we get hungry and it feels good to eat or-
6. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
7. DBDan Buettner
  ... you know, we get that little urge and it feels good to have sex. These are all things that sort of favor the thriving of our, of our species.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. I wanna pick out a few things that really resonated with me there. First is you spoke about serendipitous moments, and I think that that's such a, again, it's become so random or rare now to bump into someone at a grocery store and start a conversation. We're in a line at anywhere, whether it's the doctor's, whether it's a store, whatever it may be, and everyone's on their phone, and it would be rare, or actually we'd see it as weird if someone said hello to us.
9. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah.
10. JSJay Shetty
  We'd kind of look around going like, "Are you okay?" Like, "What do you need?" It would be uncomfortable, and I actually think that when those synchronous or serendipitous moments happen where you kind of have a moment of surprise or delight, or you bump into someone that feels familiar. I had this happen to me through a work thing last week. We were going on a work project. One person on the team hadn't come to an event yet. We hit it off immediately, and it felt like serendipity, and it was through work and I was just like, "I wanna build a relationship with this person." And I often feel that way. And because I moved country and I moved cities, so I moved from London to New York to now LA, I've had the positive pressure of having to rebuild community. And I remember when I moved to New York and then moved to LA, I said to my wife, I was like, "We're not just-- I'm not just trying to build my career. I wanna build community at the same time," because you can't really have one without the other. I could have an amazing career here, but if I don't have community, how meaningful is my career going to feel? And so they were both pursuits and efforts. And I remember having this really, and I still do it today, and I'm 36 years old and I'm not shy about it. If I connect with someone or if I enjoy someone's company, I'll just say, "Hey, do you wanna come over for dinner? Let's hang out." And I try and avoid going out for dinner, and I try and avoid going to bars and restaurants because I find them to be loud, I find them to be impersonal, and I find them also to be short. Like you'll go out for dinner for an hour and a half, and then everyone will look at their phone and leave. And I almost think that if there's someone that I deeply want to connect with, I'd rather meet them one-on-one, and if they can come over to my apartment or my home or whatever it may be, that intimate time and ordering food in kind of creates more time. You're now gonna spend three hours with someone. It's likely that you're going to extend that period of time. And another thing that's been massive in helping me is I think often we hide in groups, so we go out with big groups. We go out with 20 people. We go out with 30 people, and you then end up having... Or you go out with six people and you end up having five shallow conversations as opposed to one or two deeper ones. Now, I'm not saying I don't hang out in groups. I do and I enjoy it, and my wife and I throw regular game nights, and we love that kind of stuff. But I also crave deep, intimate, valuable conversation as well, and I know my friends do. And so to me, I've, I've tried really, really hard and sometimes, you know, you wear your heart on your sleeve and you say to someone, "Hey, do you wanna hang out?" And they're like, "No." [laughs] And, and it's okay because I feel like if, if I do feel that with someone and someone feels it back with me, that's the beginning of a beautiful friendship as an adult, and I feel like we make less friends as adults than obviously we did as kids. And-
11. DBDan Buettner
  Especially for men.
12. JSJay Shetty
  Especially f- oh, yeah, interesting. Go ahead, sorry.
13. DBDan Buettner
  No, no, but I'd actually like to explore this idea-
14. JSJay Shetty
  Please
15. DBDan Buettner
  ... of positive pressure to socialize. I think there are a lot of Americans who would love more social interaction. It's just hard.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
17. DBDan Buettner
  And I'm wondering what you d- like if you're a middle-aged American living in Iowa in a small town, how would you use this positive pressure and actually start to build network or build meaningful, uh, relationships?
18. JSJay Shetty
  I find places of equal value, and that could be a bar, a restaurant, a pool bar, a, a darts place. I don't know. I'm thinking places that people in England definitely go to connect, like, you know, I think sports. To me, finding... I, this has happened recently to me here. It's like, and I know this isn't Iowa, but the idea of I have made-
19. DBDan Buettner
  Almost. [laughs]
20. JSJay Shetty
  I... [laughs] I haven't made-- I have made so many new friends simply playing pickleball. So pickleball has taken over the nation. I go to a local park like literally 10 minutes down the road. I go there and I play, and if we've lost a doubles partner or whatever, we'll go up to someone random or someone-
21. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah, yeah
22. JSJay Shetty
  ... will come up to us and say, "Hey, are you guys looking for another pair?" And we're like, "Yeah, sure." And all of a sudden you're on a text thread and you're all friends and you're playing pickleball together twice a week. And so I've found that sports, places of equal value, I think charities and give back opportunities are amazing places. I think there are so many social networks inside a city that we're not even aware of. Obviously people's schools and your children's schools and communities. I think there are just so many opportunities to meet like-minded people and I think if we go there wanting to connect and find people of equal value, I think it's possible. And so I don't know, I've never been to Iowa, so I can't speak specifically for there, but-
23. DBDan Buettner
  No, no
24. JSJay Shetty
  ... I definitely feel like get-
25. DBDan Buettner
  It's great stuff. It's real
26. JSJay Shetty
  ... yeah, getting, getting into places of, yeah, finding tangents to connect on. I don't think you're gonna bump into someone at a grocery store. I don't think you're gonna bump into someone on the street anymore. It doesn't work like that. But you will bump into someone if you went to a class, a course, a program, an event. I went on a world tour this year. We went to nearly 40 cities across the world, and I had people who turned up to my show single, alone, came by themselves and left with a group of friends.
27. DBDan Buettner
  I love that. [laughs]
28. JSJay Shetty
  Right? Like, and that's, that, I think that's possible, but because you're going to a place where you feel safe.
29. DBDan Buettner
  And they share interests, obviously.
30. JSJay Shetty
  Correct. Share interests.
26:45 – 30:32
Using elders as a longevity strategy for community
1. JSJay Shetty
  Another one that stuck out, and I want to go into so many more, but this one kind of on that community element, and again, potentially more anecdotal but, but really powerful and a big part of how we lived in the monastery and, and how I was raised, celebrating elders. And I, I love that idea because my wife's, one of my wife's favorite people in the world, or her favorite person in the world, is her grandmother, who's thankfully still with us, and she loves celebrating her. She loves spending time with her. She loves learning from her. She, a few years ago, she sat down and interviewed her just for herself so she'd have those memories to hold onto her grandma's experiences. She went and asked her grandmother to share with her, like, old photos and all of this kind of stuff. Uh, when I think about my monk teachers who are twice my age and celebrating them and being present with them and learning from them, I think celebrating elders is such a part of society that's completely been lost, but especially in Sardinia that stood out. Uh, walk us through what you saw there.
2. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah. It's very easy to map respect of, of elders as, as a longevity strategy for a community. So you go into these sort of old man, uh, bars up in the mountains, and instead of seeing the, the Sports Illustrated, uh, swimsuit of the month, you know, uh, you would see the centenarian of the month. And, um-
3. JSJay Shetty
  They actually have that?
4. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
6. DBDan Buettner
  Yes. In, uh, in, um, Bonai it's called, in, in the cluster of the Blue Zone. I mean, that's just a, a outward manifestation, but in, um, in Sardinia it would shame the family to put your aging parent in a retirement home. So they all stay nearby or usually living in the home, and they're not just recipients of care. I think a lot of people are afraid of that. They're expected to participate. So the women are helping with childcare. They, they are the keepers of the food tradition. Uh, the men, you know, they're still advising when to plant, when to sow. They know how to make that wonderful Blue Zones wine, which has very high levels of antioxidants. Um, so it's this beautiful virtuous circle where older people are told they matter. They're, they're given a reason to get up in the morning, to take their meds, to stay physically fit, to eat right. Uh, so they're living longer. And then there's something called the grandmother effect that shows that a household with a grandmother living in it, or at least nearby, or grandfather or grandmother, those children have lower rates of mortality and lower rates of disease.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
8. DBDan Buettner
  So this circle is what sort of, uh, think of it an upward ratcheting of, uh, the life expectancy of the whole community.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. And, and that becomes harder, like even for us. Like we've moved away. We're not close to our, our own parents, and of course our grandparents getting older as well, and it's harder when you've, the world is growing and the world is getting bigger and you're, you're moving and traveling more. Is there a way of keeping that connection through phones, through FaceTimes, through visits? Like does it, can it still have a similar impact or-
10. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah. Or, or even more immediate, have a surrogate grandparent. Uh, there's a Yale researcher named Becca Levy who found that just having a positive attitude towards aging lowers your mortality by about 40%. And, and part of that-
11. JSJay Shetty
  Wow
12. DBDan Buettner
  ... is having older people in your life and learning from their wisdom and honoring it. Not, you know, forcing them to retire, but finding a way for their wisdom to put work even though they might not have as much fluid intelligence as they had when they were 30.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, I, I have a lot of ... That, that makes me feel really good. I'm really happy you brought that up as such a research point. I definitely have people in LA that I, I see as those elders in my, in my life and in my world that Can replace those people that I don't always have access to. That's really powerful. Uh, a couple of things that I want to surprise people with is, because this was huge, a couple of fun ones.
30:32 – 35:14
Green tea can add to your longevity
1. JSJay Shetty
  This, ideal to drink seven cups of green tea a day. I think this was on your TikTok. I- seven cups of green tea. Talk me through that. That sounds like a lot. Hard to do.
2. DBDan Buettner
  I was just in Kyoto last week with a researcher who actually very clearly mapped it to frailty. Seven is ideal, but as lo- little as three cups of green tea a day, uh, i- is associated with about four extra years of healthy life expectancy, and we don't know why. I mean, you can, you can guess it's probably the antioxidant- oxidants or the catechins they call, but it ... Or there's, there's probably 1,500 compounds in green tea. We don't know for sure, but green tea's been around for a long time, and, uh, it's consumed daily in volume by at least two of these Blue Zones. And, um, you know, it's one of these things that, you know, ra- rather than turn to the superfood or the super beverage, why not drink what we, uh, learn from our, our, uh, ancestors who've achieved the outcomes we want, which is a long, healthy life.
3. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, absolutely. My wife and I created this, uh, sparkling adaptogenic tea called Juni, and we put one cup of green tea in there, and so that's one of the seven at least.
4. DBDan Buettner
  I'm doing this for my longevity.
5. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs] Uh, it's got zero grams of sugar in it.
6. DBDan Buettner
  Plus, it's delicious.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Thank you. It's got zero grams of sugar in it, only five calories.
8. DBDan Buettner
  Brilliant.
9. JSJay Shetty
  It's all natural, uh, products. It's, you know, it was, it was part of that. Like, how do you create something that's fun and healthy at the same time? And I'm glad you enjoy it.
10. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah, that's right. Yes, and that competes with the sugar sweetened beverages and much, much better off grabbing a Juni than a-
11. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
12. DBDan Buettner
  ... you know, a Pepsi.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, ex- [laughs]
14. DBDan Buettner
  [laughs]
15. JSJay Shetty
  You said it. No. No, but, no, but that was the goal. It was like, I think it's about what, what we, what you're doing here as well. It's about how do we make alternatives accessible, and how do we make-
16. DBDan Buettner
  That's right
17. JSJay Shetty
  ... healthy options accessible?
18. DBDan Buettner
  That, you hit the nail on the head.
19. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
20. DBDan Buettner
  And easy.
21. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
22. DBDan Buettner
  And you remove the friction of price.
23. JSJay Shetty
  Correct.
24. DBDan Buettner
  You know, I was, uh, I named Singapore a Blue Zone 2.0.
25. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
26. DBDan Buettner
  And the reason is in, in, in one lifetime, life expectancy has jumped 20 years. They now have the highest, uh, uh, health adjusted life expectancy in the world. So they live the longest, healthiest life. It's not some coincidence from some ancient culture. They very deliberately went, went about making, uh, unhealthy food more expensive and harder to get. Uh, so for example, they tax sugar. We all know sugar's not good for us. Uh, if, uh, a Coke in Singapore has 20% less sugar than the same Coke in America, so they've, they've mandated it has to be less sugar. Meanwhile, they, they subsidize things we know are good for us, like brown rice. They know that driving, especially in traffic, is bad for the air. It's bad for, you know, kids get killed in accidents. You don't get much physical activity when you're sitting in the car. So they've made car driving incredibly expensive. $100,000 just to have the right to drive a car, 300% tax on top of that. Therefore, 89% of people in Singapore walk, but they take-
27. JSJay Shetty
  89%?
28. DBDan Buettner
  89%. Yeah. Only 11% people own cars in Singapore. But what that means is that there's all this tax revenue that they're able to sink into a fast, efficient, clean, and air-conditioned, wonderful, uh, public transport system, and nobody's more than about 300 meters away, uh, from fast, much faster than driving public transportation. You know what the side benefit of that is? Everybody takes about 7,500 steps a day without even thinking about it.
29. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
30. DBDan Buettner
  So they're already ahead of 75% of Americans just getting to work in the morning or going out to see their friends or going out to eat because they're walking to the subway.
35:14 – 42:00
The benefits of beans
1. JSJay Shetty
  things that you think are marketed, promoted, or focused on for us to become healthier that are having the opposite impact?
2. DBDan Buettner
  Anytime anybody markets you a superfood, you can be pretty sure it's not. Um, many, if not most of them, have added sugars or processed ingredients whi- which aren't all that good for you. Basically, any packaged food that, that trumpets some health benefit, it's probably all not ... that, all, not all that good for you. In Blue Zones, the, the foods they eat have one ingredient, you know, the, as it comes out of the ground for the most part. It's combined in wonderfully delicious ways-
3. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
4. DBDan Buettner
  ... uh, but it's not processed.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. And it's seasonal too, right?
6. DBDan Buettner
  It's often seasonal, but, uh, several of the Blue Zones only have two growing seasons, so they still have to get through winter.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Right.
8. DBDan Buettner
  The cornerstone of, of all these longevity diets are beans and grains, which store beautifully for years at a time, and, and those sort of get people through, uh, the times where their gardens aren't producing. By the way, you know, we put enormous burden on ourselves trying to tell, uh, Americans that they need to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Um, you go into the inner city, a lot of people don't know what to do with fresh fruits and vegetables. They don't have a taste for them. A much greater, easier solution is beans and rice Beans and corn tortilla, uh, beans and pasta, pasta e fagioli. Whenever you have a bean and a grain and you put them together, you have a whole protein. They're cheap. Almost every ethnicity knows how to cook them and make them taste delicious. Uh, they're usually fast to combine and cook. We would serve Americans much better if we sent the message to eat healthy, uh, to start your journey to perhaps living to 100, eat beans and rice.
9. JSJay Shetty
  What's really hard is I'm, I'm listening to you and, and, and, and I see this as the challenge too. It's like, it almost seems like all of our bad decisions, whether it's what we eat, whether we walk, whether we work out, are primarily based on high levels of stress. So when we're stressed, you're going to reach for unhealthy food because it makes you feel better. When you're stressed, you're more likely to reach for sugar. When you're stressed, you're more likely to sleep in or try to sleep in or have bad sleep, and then you don't have energy to work out. You're more likely to skip a workout or skip walking because you feel stressed. You wanna rush home in your car and just get in front of the TV. And so, so much of our choices are all based on a lot of stress, and obviously in the Blue Zones, they don't have a stressful life, I imagine.
10. DBDan Buettner
  You're right fundamentally that, yeah, stress drives poor decisions, and it also, if we're eating a meal and we're stressed, uh, you're mixing, you're interrupting the digestion, uh, process with cortisol, which is not good for, not good for you. But people in Blue Zones suffer stress just like we do. They worry about their kids, they worry about their finances, they worry about their health.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
12. DBDan Buettner
  If you're unhealthy and overweight in America, it's probably not your fault.
13. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
14. DBDan Buettner
  And I'll tell you why. In 1980, uh, about 15% of Americans were, uh, obese. Now it's 42 going to 43% of them. So almost tripling of the obesity rate. Uh, there's seven times as many people are suffering from type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes. That's not because, uh, 35 years ago people had more discipline-
15. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
16. DBDan Buettner
  ... or better diet programs or they, or they were better people, or they were exposed to less stresses. What has changed is our environment. I've mentioned before-
17. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
18. DBDan Buettner
  ... we- we're driving more, but also the number of fast food restaurants has gone up exponentially. Over 50% of all retail outlets, including the place you get your tires changed and the place you pick up your diabetes medicine, force you through a gauntlet of sugar-sweetened beverages, chips, and sodas. We make about 220 food decisions a day. Only 10% of them are conscious. The other 200 or so have been orchestrated by marketing and by proximity and convenience and, and really mindless decisions. And to your point, some of those bad mindless decisions are because of stress, but most of it is because of our unhealthy environment.
19. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. I've always said that being plant-based has saved me from those gauntlets because I can't eat any of it because-
20. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah, that's right [laughs]
21. JSJay Shetty
  ... all of it, yeah, all of it has some sort of dairy or some sort of animal in it, and it's like, that's the only reason. Me and my wife talk about that all the time. Whenever we walk past donuts-
22. DBDan Buettner
  It's a gift
23. JSJay Shetty
  ... we walk past donuts and pastries and we're just like-
24. DBDan Buettner
  [laughs]
25. JSJay Shetty
  ... "Gosh, if I wasn't plant-based, I would be..." Because I, I lo- I have a massive sweet tooth.
26. DBDan Buettner
  I do too.
27. JSJay Shetty
  I grew up eating a ton of sugar. I was, it was ex- I was exposed to it since I was a kid, and so it's taken me years to curb that. But the thing that saves me the most from exactly what you're talking about right now, the donut shop, the, the pizza shop, the whatever, is I'm plant-based, and that's the only thing that saves me.
28. DBDan Buettner
  I hate to tell you, there are plant-based donuts.
29. JSJay Shetty
  Oh, no, there are. Yeah, I know. And luckily I live, so- [laughs]
30. DBDan Buettner
  [laughs] I call it a well-rounded meal.
42:00 – 46:26
The power of creating a social circle around health
1. DBDan Buettner
  I actually have one of my little social groups from Los Angeles here. Well, I used to live here. Um, I still have four people, and I hardly know them. I've, I've seen them once in my life, but every day we email each other our weight, and it kinda keeps us, uh, doing it. We, we, we're accountable to somebody, and every one of us, our weight has gone down a little bit over the last decade or so. And for the average American male, in 10 years, you're, you can expect to gain an extra 10 years.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
3. DBDan Buettner
  So even among my little focus group, we've been-- It's worked really quite well.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Competition and collaboration together are really fascinating.
5. DBDan Buettner
  Really, yeah.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
7. DBDan Buettner
  Powerful.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. It's why pickleball works for me. It's, it's also why I think I have so many People I know do 10,000-step challenges within their family, and most of those people are walking way over 10,000 steps simply because they're trying to beat someone in their family, and then everyone's average is growing up. And so I think that making something competitive and collaborative is, is the genius of the social network, the fitness, the fun in life. Like, so much of it comes from that, and I think we've lost that.
9. DBDan Buettner
  One of the strategies we deploy in our cities, it, it's an idea we took from Okinawa, uh, the notion of a moai, a committed social circle. And we'll get 4- or 500 people to show up to a gym. Uh, we'll have them circle up according to what neighborhood they live in. We ask them a bunch of questions about, um, you know, are they religious, what their favorite food is, what they listen for music, and have them look at each other as these questions are being answered. And then we have them self-select in groups of five people. And a lot of these people are completely lonely. And once they self-select in these clusters, we call them moais, we have them give themselves a name, and then we organize them around walking together. This-- Everybody can walk together. And then we offer a little prize at the end of 10 weeks. What happens during that 10 weeks is not only are these people walking a lot more than they normally would, they're creating a social network or a social circle-
10. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
11. DBDan Buettner
  ... around walking that, that, uh, in many cases, we know about 60% are still around four years later.
12. JSJay Shetty
  Hmm.
13. DBDan Buettner
  So as you were starting to, to latch onto, it's the power of, uh, collaboration, but creating a social circle around a healthy behavior, that's what's gonna last and that's what's gonna matter over time.
14. JSJay Shetty
  Absolutely. I wanted to quickly jump back to diet and food because there's this great technique that you have and you meth- mentioned, and this was popular in parts of India that were teaching it from this perspective as well, that the method you spoke about was being eight out of 10 full when you're eating. And when we were trained about that, when we'd hear about it from a, from an Eastern or Vedic perspective, the idea of how breath is part of feeling full, and so food is not the only thing that your stomach is full on, was how I was introduced to that idea of being seven-tenths full or eight-tenths full, and the rest would be covered by breath. Of course, there's water as well. Walk us through that idea of how we can all stop eating at eight-tenths full, because I think most of us wait till 10-
15. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah
16. JSJay Shetty
  ... 10 or 12-10-
17. DBDan Buettner
  10 eighths. Yeah [laughs]
18. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, 10 eighths. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
19. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah. So, so it, it has its roots in, uh, Confucius. The Okinawans have this saying, "Hara hachi bu", which is a reminder to stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full, and they'll say that like a prayer b-before a meal. So instead of saying a grace or whatever, that it's a reminder. I believe, though, much of it is, is actually done, uh, at the table. They, they tend to pre-plate their foods and put the leftovers away at the, uh, beginning of the meal instead of the end when you-
20. JSJay Shetty
  Hmm
21. DBDan Buettner
  ... you might be mindlessly eating. They don't have a TV, so they're not mindlessly eating to their favorite television show. They're, they're sitting around with friends, slowing the meal down. It takes about 20 minutes from the full feeling to travel from your belly to your brain, and if you're wolfing your food down, if you're not breathing like you say, not drinking water, uh, there's a pretty good chance you're gonna overeat before you know it.
22. JSJay Shetty
  It's so fascinating how, how have they been able to, in these places, hold onto these traditions? Like, even you saying they-- I, I won't say it like you said it, so the, the repetition, even the reminder of, "Hey, let's stay eight-tenths full at this meal," how have they managed to hold on to these very old traditions and ideas and concepts in places that I'm sure are being, you know, commercialized, gentrified, and all the rest of it? Like, how have they managed to hold onto it?
23. DBDan Buettner
  Well, it
46:26 – 48:41
What the last blue zone 1.0 will be
1. DBDan Buettner
  worked until about the year 2000 or 2005 because there hadn't been outside influences. But in all these Blue Zones, the American food culture and the onslaught of ubiquitous media is starting to hit. It's lagged by 10 or 20 years 'cause these are remote areas. But, you know, as soon as the American food culture walks in the front door, longevity walks out the back. And, uh, all of these Blue Zones, sadly, are disappearing.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Hmm.
3. DBDan Buettner
  Uh, they'll be gone, I, I, I figure, in about a half a generation. Okinawa's already no longer a Blue Zone. Um, so yeah, sadly, they're making the same mistakes that we're making.
4. JSJay Shetty
  You think in our lifetime that-
5. DBDan Buettner
  Blue Zones will probably be gone in, in about a decade and a half. The, the Nicoya Blue Zone has shrunk to about one-fifth its size. The Okinawan Blue Zone is gone except for people 90 and over. You still have a b- Blue Zone in that demographic. Uh, Sardinia, you're starting to see fast food restaurants, uh, show up. Uh, Greece, Ikaria is doing a good job, and I'll tell you why. Because the recognition they're, they're getting as a Blue Zone has created an awareness of the incredible treasures that the older people are.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Hmm.
7. DBDan Buettner
  And younger people, like, in their 20s and 30s, are bringing back these traditions, and they're celebrating this diet, uh, that is producing longevity, and I have real hope for the Ikarian Blue Zone.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Hmm. Do you think that might be the last standing one?
9. DBDan Buettner
  I think it'll be the last of the, of the blue zone 1.0.
10. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
11. DBDan Buettner
  Uh, the Singapores, I think there are more, and, uh, my current project is to track down more of these areas where, um, governments have been successful at manufacturing Blue Zones.
12. JSJay Shetty
  Hmm.
13. DBDan Buettner
  And so I think those are the-- gonna be the most relevant lessons because, hey, let's face it, we live, you know, in 2023 and, and there are modern forces that we have to contend with, and the lifestyle that evolved beginning in 1500, uh, isn't as useful. It provides lessons and, and we can use it to, I think, model new environments and new policies, but, uh, it's not exactly an apples to apple.
14. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. At a, at a government level,
48:41 – 53:10
What most cities should consider in order to become a blue zone
1. JSJay Shetty
  at a decision-making level, what is making people care or not care? Because- I think that's something people always think about, right? Like all of this makes so much sense. If I was in charge, I'd say this is how we should be wanting to help people and support people, and let's make it easier. Because my job on a day-to-day basis is so much about empowering the individual to make better choices, to find healthier options, to build discipline, to almost deal with the onslaught and the gauntlet of-
2. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah
3. JSJay Shetty
  ... everything. That's kind of my day job, right? That's, that's what I'm focused on here. But if I was in charge at state levels, I would want to see the changes you're making. What is incentivizing and enthusing people at that level to say, "Let's build Singapore 2.0 and more Blue Zones 2.0," versus what's people going, "Nah, it's all right. Like GDP is great." Like what, what is that?
4. DBDan Buettner
  Yeah. Singapore realized a long time ago that its most important resource is its people. It's not some industry or not some commodity like a lot of places. And it has gone about a very disciplined way of looking at each policy through the lens of does this increase the wellbeing of people or not? And they don't have the, the, uh, voice of a lobbyist speaking loudly in their ear or some sort of, uh, fundraising incentive to, to, to favor some, you know, some big business. I, I think it, it really starts with electing leaders who care about, who put wellbeing first. Thomas Jefferson, in fact, I believe was the worst, first American to say that the charge of any leader is the health and happiness of, of the people. And, uh, I think if, if we are able to, I, you know, I don't know, we can't do much about Washington, but we can do a lot in our own communities about the type of mayor and city councils that we elect. Uh, a lot of the best government in America right now is being done at the municipal level, not the federal level. And you can get a lot done in a hurry in, in a, in a city or even at the county level.
5. JSJay Shetty
  If someone wants to be involved or help or support and help their community and town become more of a blue zone, where would you suggest they start?
6. DBDan Buettner
  Well, if you go to the Blue Zones website, there is a, bluezones.com, there's a button about my community, and you can see how other cities have done it, and there's lots of good ideas. But honestly, Jay, it requires a, an orchestrated effort comprehensively. So many have been sort of half-baked ideas or they're not comprehensive enough, and they get people really excited about it, and, and sponsorship is, m- money is spent, and then not much happens. So inconveniently, unless it's comprehensive, a four or five-year effort staffed by people who know what they're doing with enough intensity, it's probably not gonna work.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Got it. Yeah. It's good, it's good to have that clarity. I think a lot of people would wanna see this change. I c- I can imagine, you know, wanting to back this change, and I'm sure a lot of those people are already doing it in their own lives, but they'd love to see it extended out to, to others in their, their-
8. DBDan Buettner
  I, I do have one-
9. JSJay Shetty
  Please
10. DBDan Buettner
  ... one suggestion that most cities can consider. There's something called a Complete Streets policy bundle. Every street is redone on average, uh, every seven years, and that provides an opportunity to make that street constructed not just for cars, as most streets and roadways in America are, but for humans too. So in other words, they have to be considered for narrower lanes which calms traffic, t- for bike lanes, for wider sidewalks, for trees, for safe crosswalks. And, uh, if a city council that adopts Complete Streets, it, it creates an onus for them to make a more walkable, livable community, and any city in America can do that. And there's, by the way, there's great examples. Santa Barbara, California, has done a fantastic job. Uh, Boulder, Colorado, a fantastic job. Madison, Wisconsin. These are places that are not only walkable, but they're economically thriving, and people report the highest levels of wellbeing. They have some of the lowest, uh, rates of obesity in America, so that's a great place, uh, to start for, for most American cities.
11. JSJay Shetty
  I wanna make sure everyone knows when you get the book, you're gonna hear about sleeps, naps, fasting, sunlight. I mean, there are so many other topics that I don't wanna go over here because I want you to go and read the book and, and dive into the depth of just, you know, how much research, how much thought, how much work has gone into this over the last, you know, couple of decades from Dan and his team. But Dan, I have to ask you about purpose. We're on On Purpose, and
53:10 – 57:06
Conclusion
1. JSJay Shetty
  you talk about purpose in the book. I remember speaking to you about it last time as being such a key attribute of a successful, uh, centenarian was purpose. How did they define or view purpose or contributing to the greater good? Like what does that look like for someone in a blue zone?
2. DBDan Buettner
  Well, I have a few things to say about purpose. So it begins in blue zones with vocabulary for purpose. In, in, um, Costa Rica, it's plan de vida. In, in Okinawa, it's ikigai. Um, so it's imbued in their, in their culture. Um, but it's manifested-- Purpose in, in blue zones is rarely an individual pursuit. It's like my, you know, my purpose is stamp collecting or something, or butterflies. It always has a, a social component or a philanthropic giving back to the community, supporting the family, supporting my, my group component to it, a service component to it. And, um, you know, I do a lot of thinking about it. W- In our, in our Blue Zone work, uh, we have this, uh, purpose workshop, and you'd be shocked at how many Americans wake up every morning tired. They pull f- uh, the breakfast together for their kids, get 'em off to school, rush to work, wait, work eight to nine hours, muscle through traffic back home, get dinner back together, and the stress just never goes away. And only about 30% of Americans, uh, have purpose in their work. That's according to a Gallup poll that, uh, surveyed about two million Americans. I think purpose is the intersection between having clarity on what your values are, knowing what you love to do Knowing what you're good at, and then studying those three lists for an outlet for them. That's true purpose, I think. That's available to all of us. But the, uh, founding director of the National Institutes on Aging, Dr. Robert Butler, uh, found that people who could articulate their sense of purpose over time were living about eight years longer than people who are rudderless. So there's a real health benefit, but more so than a health benefit, it's just an enjoyable, rich way to live your life. And anything you can do to get more purpose in your life, uh, including, I might add, listening to this podcast twice a week every week of your life-
3. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
4. DBDan Buettner
  ... uh, is time well spent.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Dan, thank you so much. Uh, the book is called The Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer: Lessons from the Healthiest Places on Earth. Dan Buettner, this is the book. Make sure you go grab a copy. Like I said, we didn't even scratch the surface. There are so many things I could talk to Dan about, but I want you to go grab the book. I want you to read it. I want you to study it. I want you to see these beautiful, uh, summary pages that are absolutely fantastic, that talk about the key learnings from each of the blue zones that Dan's been to and studied, because it makes it really easy to just pick it up, reflect, have a discussion about it. I hope that, I hope that you're gonna reach out to a group of people that should listen to this podcast, that are gonna be part of that tribe, part of that squad, part of that social circle for you all, whether it's a book club, whether it's a pickleball team, whatever it may be. Uh, I really hope that that social part is not underestimated and undervalued. And Dan, I thank you again for coming all the way. You just flew in an hour before this.
6. DBDan Buettner
  [laughs]
7. JSJay Shetty
  Literally landed, came from the airport, stepped in the seat, gave a beautiful interview with all your energy, passion, and, and, uh, it's, it's truly remarkable, and I'm really grateful for your work. So thank you so much. Always been a fan.
8. DBDan Buettner
  It's been an honor and a pleasure, Jay. Thank you.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Thank you. Always been a fan, and continue to be.
10. DBDan Buettner
  We'll see you when you're 100.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Yes. [laughs]
12. DBDan Buettner
  [laughs]
13. JSJay Shetty
  Thank you. If you loved this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabor Maté on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.
14. SPSpeaker
  Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a, a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft and green and vulnerable