Improve Your Life Quality Using Longevity Guide Variable Factors

This longevity guide for variable factors is offered as a preventative advisory to help you better manage your healthcare and wellness affairs. The cornerstone of our consumer directed healthcare and wellness culture is that no one will mind your business better than you will, if you know how. Our purpose is to show you how.

It would be terrific if we could invoke Woody Allen's longevity rule that says “I don’t want to know when I’ll die. Just tell me where, so I can avoid the place.”

It’s not that simple, so this idea requires four things that we hope are true for most of us most of the time.

1. That you can achieve a quality, fulfilling life that you enjoy so that you want to continue it and to improve it. The basis is a positive attitude. Not always present, but always available if we seek it.

2. That you are sufficiently motivated to maintain your quality of life so that you will expend the effort to achieve it and exercise the discipline to maintain it.

3. Avoid conduct that detracts from long life. Rejecting the attractive but harmful often requires more discipline than doing the tedious.

4. If you wander from your intended regimen, exercise self-control to get back on the right track. Return to good habits as soon as you can.

The Longevity Game

A creative and fun way to help you take charge of your wellness issues can be found in “longevity games” that predict human lifespan. They seek to make individual lifespan projections based on heredity, environment and personal conduct factors that affect us. They point the way to the things we should do, the things we should avoid and the things which we can not control that affect our health and our life spans.

Because it incorporates vital “fixed factors” that we can not control, we favor “The Longevity Game”, as published by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. We do not represent or have any association with Northwestern Mutual. To see and play Northwestern Mutual’s game, go to Longevity Game.

Northwestern’s game uses an average life expectancy of 76 years as its baseline. Lifestyle factors allow you to add to or subtract from that baseline to estimate your own life-expectancy. We cite this game primarily as a reference point to discuss the lifestyle factors that you should or should not use in seeking to improve the quality and length of your life.

The “Variable Factors”: Those which you can help change through your Personal Wellness Plan. These areas, in which you can more than make up for many genetic, gender or age deficiencies, may constitute 70 percent of the weighted factor importance in your overall personal longevity equation.

Alcohol: Drinking a small amount of alcohol daily may be better for you than not drinking at all. Several studies have shown that, absent any family history of alcoholism or strong breast cancer indicators, moderate alcohol consumption is good for most adults.

The best option for women is an average of one to seven drinks per week. Second best is none. Third is seven to 14 drinks per week. Studies show that women who consume about one drink a day may have a 40 percent lower risk for heart attack and a 70 percent lower risk for stroke.

Another study indicated that women with diabetes who drink at least a half serving of alcohol a day have a 52 percent lower risk for heart attack than non-drinking diabetics. A separate study indicated that women who drink six to seven servings of alcohol per week typically have higher bone density than non-drinkers. Alcohol may offer benefits against osteoporosis.

The potential risk, even for small amounts of alcohol, is significant for women with a family history of breast cancer. Data shows that the risk increases about 9 percent for every 10 grams of daily alcohol consumption. This means a woman who consumes a drink a day might have a 12.5 percent higher risk of getting breast cancer than one who abstains.

Women who drink alcohol should take a multivitamin that contains folic acid. Studies indicate that folic acid, also known as folate, offsets the harmful effects of alcohol on the breasts and may significantly negate the increased risk of breast cancer from alcohol. Folic acid is a vitamin B complex that promotes red blood cells.

To put the alcohol-related breast cancer risk in perspective, the overall five year breast cancer risk for a typical 50 year old woman is reported to be about 2.1 percent. A drink a day could magnify that risk to about 2.36 percent. However, that increase may be somewhat offset by the indicated benefits in regards to heart attack, stroke, diabetes and osteoporosis. And, the cancer risk may be essentially neutralized by the folic acid factor.

For men, the recommended average consumption is 10 to 14 drinks per week. Second best is none, and third best is 15 or more drinks per week. Studies have shown that alcohol intake by men exceeding two drinks per day could double the risk of colon cancer. However, the consumption of at least 650 mcg of folic acid / folate per day could offset that increased cancer risk.

For women who drink zero to seven drinks per week, there is no longevity addition or subtraction. Women who drink more than seven drinks per week should subtract one year. For each additional average daily drink over two, subtract two more years.

For men who consume zero to 14 drinks per week, there is no effect. An average of 15 to 21 drinks per week would subtract one year. For each additional average daily drink over three, subtract two more years.

Excessive Drinking: Consuming an average of two or more drinks per day for women or three or more for men, can lead to cancer, liver disease and other health issues. Excessive drinking is often also associated with auto accidents, which are a separate major longevity issue.

Drugs: Drug use is as extreme as excessive drinking, with negative consequences. Habitually taking hard drugs like cocaine, narcotics, meth or prescription pain-killers essentially takes you out of any longevity game. Your concern should not be as much wellness and longevity as near-term correction and survival.

Smoking: The detrimental effects of smoking on lung and heart health and on other healing factors are well known and need not be repeated here. More than 400,000 deaths per year are related to smoking. Many doctors refuse to perform elective surgery on smokers because of healing complications caused by smoking. If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you do smoke, the health benefits begin as soon as you stop and increase as long as you abstain.

For smokers, longevity factors charge a high penalty. If you smoke two or more packs of cigarettes per day, subtract eight years. If you smoke one to two packs per day, subtract six years. If you smoke less than one pack daily, subtract three years.

Driving: Motor vehicle accidents are a major cause of deaths in the US and the leading cause for young adults under age 27. As we get past 30 years of age, our judgment and maturity start to make some difference. We begin to realize that we are not invincible. Moving violation and accident records are good predictors for longevity. If you have a moving ticket or accident in the past year, subtract four years. If you always wear your seatbelt, add one year.

Retiring: Most people look forward to retiring, to kicking back, relaxing and doing only what they want to do, on their schedule. Sounds pretty good. Many hope to retire earlier than the traditional age 65.

From the standpoint of longevity, those who continue to work gain the greatest benefit. It may be due to better self image, to socialization, to the mental exercise, to better finances or to all those reasons. Those who stay engaged with work age best. Voluntary service may take up the slack, if it is continued. That requires a discipline absent from most retirement agendas.

Studies indicate that many retirees disengage and begin to withdraw after a few years of retirement. Longevity factors reflect this. There is no penalty for retiring, but if you are 65 or older and still working, you might add three years to your lifespan. Those seniors who are greeters at Wal-Mart get more benefit than just their paycheck.

Stress: Stress, aggression and anxiety can be hard taskmasters. Every one of us experiences those emotions. The key to longevity is how do you react to them? Can you control them? Knowing how to handle stress and how to relax makes life more enjoyable and increases longevity.

Successfully handling stress begins with your attitude. It is best to have a positive, can-do attitude. It’s difficult to find people who are positive, self-motivated and determined to get the job done in the face of adversity. These traits are those to which you should both aspire and want to have in the people around you.

How can you build confidence and control stress? First, think positive. Practice being positive. Like yourself, be comfortable in your own skin. Focus on the things you do well and on improving those you don’t. Make getting wiser and better your daily goal. When anyone asks how you are, your reply should always be “I’m gettin better!”

Next, look at your personal relationships. Build and strengthen those with positive people who are supportive. Avoid or minimize relationships with negative people. They pull you down. If any of your negative influences are family, you can’t fire them, but you can minimize them.

Finally, physical exertion and meditation can relieve stress. Commit to a regular program for both. For longevity, if you are stressed, aggressive or anxious, subtract three years. If you are unhappy, dissatisfied or continually negative, subtract another year. If you are positive, relaxed, mellow, like yourself and other people, add three years.

For ideas on Longevity Fixed Factors, go to Fixed Factors.

For ideas on Longevity Fitness Factors, go to Fitness Factors.

For ideas on Longevity Diet Factors, go to Diet Factors.

For ideas on Longevity Nutritional Factors, go to Nutritional Factors.

For ideas on Longevity Life Quality Factors, go to Life Quality Factors.

If you have questions or need additional information, go to our Contact Us Form.

WARNING: NEVER CANCEL YOUR CURRENT INSURANCE UNTIL REPLACEMENT COVERAGE IS APPROVED AND IN PLACE.

To get a Wellness Assistance Proposal and health plan quote, go to Health Plan Quotes.