scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/8me909.md

## Curiosity: Anyone else modify their real life to hopefully maximize their lifespan?

* Author: u/None *
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/8me909/curiosity_anyone_else_modify_their_real_life_to/
* Score: 29

* Created: 2018-05-27T00:15:06

### Post:

I'm talking diet (Mediterranean, plant based, Okinawan, etc) exercise (running, bwf) and sleep hygene? I treated myself like crap for a long time and changed recently to try and survive longer & better. Wondering if anyone else is practicing what they can as far as rational health practices irl. 

### Comments:

> **u/callmesalticidae** [+33]  *writes worldbuilding books* (4 hours later)
> 
> I...sort of try to not think about that. I'm mostly just killing time till time kills me, and to the extent that I'm trying to live healthily, it's so that my body functions and feels well *now*. 
> 
> I guess I'm still a little suicidal. I'm not at the point anymore where I'm actively wanting to die *immediately*, but, like, I got rather sick recently, and it was possible that what I had was going to be very bad, and my main concern was just that I not die in a way that inconvenienced other people, rather than that I, you know, not die at all. 
> 
> Part of me wants to live long enough to accomplish everything on my to-do list, but another part of me wonders why I should care that much about leaving anything unfinished on that list, because when I'm dead I won't be around to feel bad about it, so...

>> **u/Sarkavonsy** [+27]  (4 hours later)
>> 
>> Man, this whole comment is a huge mood. Hang in there, though! No advantage to dying now rather than later, that's what i remind myself in the darker moments.

>>> **u/callmesalticidae** [+1]  *writes worldbuilding books* (a day later)
>>> 
>>> Yup. And if I’m capable of killing myself now, then I’m capable of killing myself later. It isn’t as though not committing suicide is a choice that I can’t later undo, so if I can wait, why not wait? 
>>> 
>>> (Though, if I had access to some painless, sure-fire suicide method that would only be accessible to me once, I might kill myself even if I wasn’t in a suicidal mood. I’d be tempted, at least.)

> **u/zian** [+9]  (5 hours later)
> 
> Taking my doctors' advice seriously, jumping on small health concerns quickly, and exercising almost daily.

> **u/vakusdrake** [+19]  (2 hours later)
> 
> I can't rule out that I retroactively arranged so that I was born later. There's no _proof_ for it, but that is exactly what I'd expect if I succeeded ¯\\\(ツ)/¯

>> **u/xamueljones** [+2]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (a day later)
>> 
>> /Pedantic Mode Activate!/
>> 
>> But if you could arrange yourself to be born later in history, then why would you be born *now*? Shouldn't you have made yourself be born into a post\-Singularity, utopian society?
>> 
>> Choosing to be born now when we are in the middle of accelerating scientific discovery seems to imply to me that we are about to encounter an apocalyptic disaster that ends civilization or severely damages it.
>> 
>> /Pedantic Mode Deactivate!/

>>> **u/vakusdrake** [+2]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> One might speculate that counterfactual me wanted to ensure I had a similar enough personality to their own, thus they had to pick a time period pre-singularity since culture changes so dramatically after it.

>>>> **u/xamueljones** [+2]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> There's also the hopeful answer that you wanted to experience the societal change from near\-Singularity to post\-Singularity. If that's correct, then you should expect to live to see the Singularity.

> **u/xamueljones** [+18]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (8 minutes later)
> 
> Running 2\-3 miles 3\-4 times a week, eating red meat very rarely, focus on cooking meals at home rather than eating out, drinking fat\-free milk, avoid overly processed food \(sweet pastry rather than candy or whole wheat bread over white bread\), and regularly sleeping 8 hours each night at the same time. Basically eat well and fresh, regular exercise that involve cardio, and stable sleeping habits.

>> **u/Nimelennar** [+16]  (49 minutes later)
>> 
>> Also, limit or eliminate consumption of alcohol (one serving a day *might* be healthy, but more than that definitively negates any positive effects), keep away from inhaling anything superheated (especially tobacco smoke), eat lots of vegetables, and prioritize calories from proteins/fats over those from starches.
>> For sleep hygiene, try to avoid blue or white light in the evenings, and use your bed for only one thing: sleeping (two things if you have a significant other).
>> I would underline sleep as quite possibly the most important thing on the list.  If you're not sleeping well, you won't have the energy to do any of the rest of it.

>>> **u/xamueljones** [+4]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (5 hours later)
>>> 
>>> >limit or eliminate consumption of alcohol
>>> 
>>> Oh yeah, that's another thing I forgot to add. I usually only drink hard apple cider because it has a lower alcohol content than beer or wines \(plus it's delicious!\).
>>> 
>>> There's also only drinking caffeine when I actually need a boost to my energy rather than having it every single morning.

>>>> **u/zdk** [+3]  (13 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Apple cider and beer are typically within the same ABV range, but it depends on the specific drink, and of course there are plenty of low abv beers (3-5%) and high abv ciders (7-8%) out there.

>>>>> **u/xamueljones** [+2]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (15 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Huh, didn't know that. It's probably just the specific drink I have then. I assumed that all hard ciders were the same.

>>>>>> **u/zdk** [+2]  (16 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Here's a list of the top 50 ciders on ratebeer.com
>>>>>> https://www.ratebeer.com/top/cider

>>> **u/slurp_derp2** [+1]  (14 hours later)
>>> 
>>> > keep away from inhaling anything superheated (especially tobacco smoke),
>>> 
>>> What about vaping ?

>>>> **u/Nimelennar** [+5]  (18 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Personally, I wouldn't want to risk it: tissues don't generally like being superheated.
>>>> 
>>>> But if the choice is between smoking and vaping, I'd have to think that vaping would be the healthier option.

>>>> **u/1337_w0n** [+5]  (15 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> It's still superheated.

>> **u/None** [+5]  (2 hours later)
>> 
>> [deleted]

>>> **u/xamueljones** [+6]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (2 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Both. Cooking at home tends to be cheaper, and if you are willing to put the time into cooking, it can be better nutrition\-wise. But if you are just buying frozen meals or similar low effort meals, then it would be worse nutrition\-wise. I minimize the amount of time spent on cooking by making a huge pot of food on the weekends and eat the leftovers for dinner throughout the week. [Delish.com](https://Delish.com) has a lot of great easy recipes, and I would advise buying a slow\-cooker. Most slow\-cooker recipes take less then 15 minutes to chop the ingredients, throw them in the pot, and then all you need to do is wait a few hours for everything to cook.
>>> 
>>> My parents rarely gave me and my siblings red meat to eat growing up \(mostly chicken instead\), so we ended up continuing the trend since red meat now tastes a little too rich for our tastes.

>>> **u/RandomDamage** [+3]  (3 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Learning to cook from scratch in a versatile and healthy way is one of the most enjoyable and useful things I have done.  
>>> 
>>> It's worthwhile for it's own sake, and the health benefits are a bonus on that.

>> **u/infomaton** [+5]  (4 hours later)
>> 
>> Do stable sleeping habits impact long term health?

>>> **u/xamueljones** [+8]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (5 hours later)
>>> 
>>> More like sleeping at least 8 hours a night with consistent bedtimes results in simply having more energy for the day. It won't ruin your health, but your quality of life improves if you are well\-rested and it's easier to be healthy if you have the energy to exercise. Don't exercise when you are tired by the way. It sucks.

>>>> **u/Dezoufinous** [+1]  (15 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> At least 8 hours, really? I tought that 6 is the optimum, and anything longer is bad...

>>>>> **u/xamueljones** [+1]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (15 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Here's the [article](https://medium.com/thrive-global/the-optimal-hours-of-sleep-to-maximize-health-and-longevity-9cc980df503b) that explains the questions you need to ask yourself about your own personal sleeping habits. For myself, I find that I need 8 hours of sleep to feel well\-rested. Maybe 6 hours is what happens to work for you.

> **u/Cariyaga** [+4]  *Kyubey did nothing wrong* (4 hours later)
> 
> Yep, it's why I started exercising relatively recently. Sleep schedule is still hell, though. I should get rollerskates and start skating during the day.

> **u/ianyboo** [+3]  (6 hours later)
> 
> Already eat fairly healthy and exercise regularly so when I made life changes I didn't have much low hanging fruit. I vowed to never skydive again and to never get a motorcycle, no texting and driving, and to generally be more careful in all things. Obviously that could easily go off the deep end with me ending up in a padded room afraid of my own shadow lol... So I try to find a good balance of living life while also treating it like I'm only 30 years into 1,000 or more.

> **u/cyberwarrior101** [+4]  (22 hours later)
> 
> Instead of shooting for longevity, I shoot for quality. Satisfaction with my life, enjoying what I do, etcetera. Life does not have meaning unless you give it meaning, thus I seek to live a meaningful life. I seek to maximize both near and long term happiness, as well as satisfaction and contentment. Having a healthy body is useful in that regard, but a long life is just a byproduct of that.

> **u/GaBeRockKing** [+3]  *Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857* (23 hours later)
> 
> I think I need to make it to 2060 to have a better-than-break-even shot at immortality being developed, so I've cut down on eating, exercised more, and tried to reduce the unnecessary risks I take. (I still need to work on wearing my helmet while bicycling though.) With the life expectancy in my country, I have quite a bit of leeway regardless, but since immortality is extremely unlikely to be cheap, especially at first, I'm going to need to as much leeway as possible.

> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+3]  *Mouse Army* (a day later)
> 
> Poverty and zero social life have been shown to severerly reduce life expectancy. Those are my two main points, since I'm already moderately fit, eat alright, drink little etc etc Depression makes it hard though.

> **u/SimoneNonvelodico** [+3]  *Dai-Gurren Brigade* (4 days later)
> 
> I don't go to the extreme of being too paranoid about it also because I tend to be hypochondriac, so if I start focusing too much on my health I'll actually *lose* quality of life to panic attacks and the like. But Mediterranean diet comes pretty natural to me (due to being Italian and stuff), I'm a vegetarian both for health, environmental and ethical reasons, I don't smoke, I drink very little alcohol, I don't drive (again, multiple reasons: environmental but also I'm such a shitty driver I feared it would shorten my lifespan and those of people around me) so I walk quite a lot.
> 
> You will never actually get me to do regular boring old exercise, that's too much. If I had easy access to a competitive activity I can be at least decent at and to friends who are fun and easygoing about playing it I'd probably do much more of that. I did a bit of fencing, I did bouldering once and liked it a lot, I used to like volleyball when I was in school. But most of the time the surrounding stuff (reach some far off field, change, shower, deal with people taking the thing too fucking seriously) just turns me off from what otherwise would be a fun activity.

> **u/CouteauBleu** [+2]  *We are the Empire.* (8 hours later)
> 
> Ah! I'm not even wearing a helmet going into high-traffic areas on my bicycle.
> 
> (but yeah, I'm trying to progressively move into a healthy lifestyle)

> **u/00raiser01** [+2]  (19 hours later)
> 
> I don’t really see much point in consciously maximising   my lifespan.I will just take what I get and do what’s on my to do list,doesn’t matter if I complete it or not and wait for time to kill me.Even than my diet is already quite healthy with only having 1 or 2 meat dishes a day and don’t see much point in changing it.

> **u/Ev0nix** [+1]  (2 months later)
> 
> I think that anyone that actually tries to take it seriously wouldn't see this because they'd realise they have better things to do

>> **u/None** [+1]  (2 months later)
>> 
>> Not sure I follow?

>>> **u/Ev0nix** [+1]  (2 months later)
>>> 
>>> If you're going to optimize your life I think reddit is one of the first things to cut out

>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (2 months later)
>>>> 
>>>> Oddly enough, I disagree. I've learned a *lot* from Reddit. How else do people ever learn, than from communicating with other folks? And reddit can put you in a receptive frame of mind, sneak up and smack you with an empathy hammer. 
>>>> 
>>>> There's a lot of clever, witty, well-spoken folks on here hidden in with the lols. It's easy to underestimate, when you see endless resposts and arguments and stupidity, but depending on the sub, there's a lot of real humanity here too.

>>>>> **u/Ev0nix** [+1]  (2 months later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Quite true, perhaps I'm just Tumblring wrong? How would one optimimise tumblr usage?

>>>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (2 months later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Tumblr or Reddit? Both have good and bad. Tumblr is all about who you follow, as an individual. It's more individual, like a graphical twitter. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Reddit is focused on communities of shared interests. It's not focused on individual connections over time.

>>>>>>> **u/Ev0nix** [+2]  (2 months later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I was very tired, i meant reddit, don't really use tumbler because I dislike the interface generaly

>>>>>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (2 months later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> :) 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> On Reddit - you have to look past the popular communities to the things that interest you, or will improve your life. And to the communities you feel you can provide something useful in. The subreddit for keto taught me an enormous amount about how to learn about nutrition, even though I had to leave keto after a bit. The running subreddit taught me how to run and pointed me at resources that let me complete a marathon; when I started I hadn't run in two decades and couldn't finish more than a couple miles without walking. The ask historians subreddit has taught me tons both about history and about how historians look at the past; the subreddit for my local areas has been fun and informative on local events, and the subreddits for places I go on vacation help give you a feel for what's good and bad, what the locals are interested in. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> There's a lot to learn. :) You just have to get past the default subs!

> **u/civnu** [+1]  (14 hours later)
> 
> Yes!!
> 
> - I stay away from most isolated supplements, but I take collagen and krill oil daily + herbs in tablet form.
> 
> - I filter my water with activated charcoal when it's practical.
> 
> - For exercise I stretch and dance, it's super lovely. I just make sure to sweat regularly, it's one of the best detoxing methods. The best is healthy digestion.
> 
> - I'm aiming for a Mediterranean diet but it's not going its best in this area at the moment.
> 
> - I research every product I use and avoid most unhealthy chemicals when a better option is available. (I'm not a fanatic)
> 
> - I take well care of my environment. I air my home out often, and clean every week. I also make it pretty and take the psychological effects of my surroundings seriously. That we're capable of having our bodies altered for instance by experiencing emotions during social or private experiences is a giant clue for me that atmosphere affects health.
> 
> - I walk barefeet outdoors or go to the beach for grounding.

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