{"id":5391,"date":"2012-10-24T22:08:45","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T14:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=5391"},"modified":"2012-10-24T22:08:45","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T14:08:45","slug":"the-island-where-people-forget-to-die-nytimes-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/24\/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die-nytimes-com\/","title":{"rendered":"The Island Where People Forget to Die – NYTimes.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Island Where People Forget to Die – NYTimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ask the very old\u00a0<\/strong>on Ikaria how they managed to live past 90, and they\u2019ll usually talk about the clean air and the wine. Or, as one 101-year-old woman put it to me with a shrug, \u201cWe just forget to die.\u201d The reality is they have no idea how they got to be so old. And neither do we. To answer that question would require carefully tracking the lifestyles of a study group and a control group for an entire human lifetime (and then some). We do know from reliable data that people on Ikaria are outliving those on surrounding islands (a control group, of sorts). Samos, for instance, is just eight miles away. People there with the same genetic background eat yogurt, drink wine, breathe the same air, fish from the same sea as their neighbors on Ikaria. But people on Samos tend to live no longer than average Greeks. This is what makes the Ikarian formula so tantalizing.<\/p>\n

If you pay careful attention to the way Ikarians have lived their lives, it appears that a dozen subtly powerful, mutually enhancing and pervasive factors are at work. It\u2019s easy to get enough rest if no one else wakes up early and the village goes dead during afternoon naptime. It helps that the cheapest, most accessible foods are also the most healthful \u2014 and that your ancestors have spent centuries developing ways to make them taste good. It\u2019s hard to get through the day in Ikaria without walking up 20 hills. You\u2019re not likely to ever feel the existential pain of not belonging or even the simple stress of arriving late. Your community makes sure you\u2019ll always have something to eat, but peer pressure will get you to contribute something too. You\u2019re going to grow a garden, because that\u2019s what your parents did, and that\u2019s what your neighbors are doing. You\u2019re less likely to be a victim of crime because everyone at once is a busybody and feels as if he\u2019s being watched. At day\u2019s end, you\u2019ll share a cup of the seasonal herbal tea with your neighbor because that\u2019s what he\u2019s serving. Several glasses of wine may follow the tea, but you\u2019ll drink them in the company of good friends. On Sunday, you\u2019ll attend church, and you\u2019ll fast on Orthodox feast days. Even if you\u2019re antisocial, you\u2019ll never be entirely alone. Your neighbors will cajole you out of your house for the village festival to eat your portion of goat meat.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Island Where People Forget to Die – NYTimes.com. Ask the very old\u00a0on Ikaria how they managed to live past 90, and they\u2019ll usually talk about the clean air and the wine. Or, as one 101-year-old woman put it to me with a shrug, \u201cWe just forget to die.\u201d The reality is they have no … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Island Where People Forget to Die – NYTimes.com”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-angol","category-reposts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}