Eat beans & greens, take walks, have a purpose; you can probably list off the top of your head some of the “advices from Blue Zones”, so what makes this book stand out?
This is perhaps one of the most thoughtful investigations; the author (a National Geographic researcher) toured and researched all the Blue Zones, took many many notes (we get details), and asked a lot of questions that others skipped.
For example, a lot of books about the Blue Zones mention the importance of community—but they don’t go into much detail of what that looks like… And they certainly don’t tend to explain what we should do about it.
And that’s because community is often viewed as environmental in a way that we can’t control. If we want to take supplements, eat a certain way, exercise, etc, we can do all those things alone if we want. But if we want community? We’re reliant on other people—and that’s a taboo in the US, and US-influenced places.
So, one way this book excels is in describing how exactly people foster community in the Blue Zones (hint: the big picture—the form of the community—is different in each place, but the individual actions taken are similar), with particular attention to the roles actively taken on by the community elders.
In a similar vein, “reduce stress” is good, but what mindsets and mechanisms do they use that are still reproducible if we are not, for example, Okinawan farmers? Again, Buettner delivers in spades.
Bottom line: this is the Blue Zones book that digs deeper than others, and makes the advices much more applicable no matter where we live.
Click here to check out The Blue Zones, and build these 9 things into your life!
