It seems like longevity and anti-aging have become the talk of the town, and I have to admit, I’m all for it. I’ve looked into the work of Dr. David Sinclair and Dr. Andrew Huberman, among others, and I’ve also followed along with Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint Protocol. It’s all fascinating stuff, but incredibly complex at times. From what I understand, 80% of results can be achieved through 20% of the actions, which is perfect for me as a minimalist. So this is my list of minimalist habits for longevity and anti-aging.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve had wonderful results from implementing the habit-building system detailed in the book Atomic Habits.
If you can make a repetitive action appear easy, attractive, and obvious, you’ll build a habit. Conversely, you can break bad habits by making them difficult, unattractive, and invisible.
My goal is to achieve good health and longevity with a handful of easy, attractive, and obvious habits that do not require a big investment of money or time.
Related article: 7 Essential minimalist habits for a balanced lifestyle
Healthy Minimalist Habits
Habit 1: Walk 5000–8000 steps per day
According to this study, it has been reported that walking for an average of 8000 steps per day has been correlated with a reduction of up to 60% in all-cause mortality. I looked further into the study and found that these benefits begin with 2600 steps!
Then I looked into a few videos on the Blue Zone areas with the highest number of centenarians, and all of them reported high amounts of daily movement.
They weren’t dedicating hours to being in the gym. Instead, they were gardening and walking to different locations every single day.
As someone who spends most of his day at his desk, I used to get about 1000 steps of movement per day. It was atrocious, and my health suffered for it. Over the years, I started to develop issues with my lower back and sciatica.
Now I prioritize movement every hour. I get up and walk for about 5 to 10 minutes around my house or outdoors.
Doing this throughout the day has made it incredibly easy to accumulate 8000 steps without exhausting myself. In fact, anecdotally speaking, I feel more energetic by moving around so often.
Habit 2: Don’t take your smartphone to bed
Blue light exposure can have detrimental effects on the health of our eyes and our circadian rhythm.
The circadian rhythm refers to our sleep/wake cycle and the processes the body has to undergo to hormonally achieve this cycle.
Exposure to blue lights at night has the propensity to disrupt our circadian rhythm and interfere with the release of certain chemicals and hormones that affect sleep and recovery.
Sleep is an instrumental part of recovery and rejuvenation. If you want to feel healthy and extend your life, sleep should be a top priority. And guess what? My sleep has been bad for years.
The main cause of my poor sleep is the use of devices like my tablet, smartphone, smart watch, computer, and gaming consoles.
I’ve had to get rid of the unessential tech items and leave my phone far away from my bed to maintain a good bedtime. It’s hard when you’re addicted to your smartphone, but it’s a worthwhile habit to build.
I do my skincare, check my phone, leave it at the desk, and then get into bed.
Habit 3: Smoothies for breakfast
If I start my day with a good habit, momentum pushes me to have a productive day. If I don’t, I struggle to find the motivation to achieve my daily goals.
With a ferocious sweet tooth, I can struggle with cravings for chocolate and ice cream every single day. In fact, there was a time in my life when I was almost 200 pounds and I lacked energy despite all the sugar I consumed.
The only way I could make long-lasting changes to my diet was to start each day with a win. Here’s what I figured out:
- Avoid temptation by restricting access to junk food at home.
- Make it easy to eat good food by stocking my fridge and pantry with fruits and vegetables.
- Stick to enjoyable recipes.
Smoothies are delicious to me, and I wanted to up my daily intake of antioxidant-rich berries. So, I started to make a smoothie every morning as my go-to breakfast option. It takes me less than 5 minutes to prepare breakfast compared to before!
Since then, my palette has changed, and I make healthier food choices.
I experiment with all sorts of smoothies using different ingredients like kale, baby spinach, mint, mango, banana, berries, and so on and so forth.
Ironically, I now eat more fruits and vegetables in a week than I would in an entire year when I was 20, just because I start my day with a smoothie.
Here’s my favorite smoothie recipe:
- ½ Cup of berries
- 1 Banana
- 100ml of milk of choice (I prefer almond or coconut)
- Chia seeds
- 1 Probiotic capsule
- A pinch of turmeric and black pepper
- 200ml Spring water
Habit 4: Use rosehip seed oil as an all-in-one skincare product
Aging skin is a part of life, but there are things we can do to protect our skin from damage caused by oxidative stress, inflammation, and a lack of moisture.
Individually, you can use skincare products like vitamin C serums, hyaluronic acid, vitamin E moisturizers, and sunscreen.
But I’m lazy, and I want something that is all-inclusive in the amounts that my skin can tolerate. I did some research and found that rosehip seed oil contains most of the properties I need to maintain good skin.
Rosehip seed oil has the following:
- Omega 3’s
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin A
- Antioxidants
- Vitamin E
What it doesn’t have is much SPF. So I use an SPF cream infused with a moisturizer after applying rosehip seed oil to my skin.
For optimal results, it is recommended to use a few drops of rosehip seed oil twice per day.
It’s so much easier to be consistent when skincare only takes 5 minutes per day!
This is why I love minimalism.
Click here to grab a bottle of rosehip seed oil from Amazon.
Habit 5: Read every day to maintain mental alertness
Dementia is a condition that scares me. I’ve been around older folks with degenerative brain diseases, and it’s heartbreaking to see what they have to go through.
There are things one could do to help slow down or possibly prevent the development of these conditions.
Nutrition and physical exercise are shown to be helpful, as is the use of one’s brain. By challenging ourselves mentally, we maintain our alertness, clarity, and ability to think.
As we get older, it’s easy to fall into routines that don’t challenge us mentally. This can be attributed to how stressful and demanding life can be. We don’t want to add more to our plates, but it can be helpful for longevity if we challenge ourselves in some way on a regular basis.
Reading helps me with this.
Both fiction and non-fiction books of varying age groups challenge me mentally. If it feels like a struggle to read a book because it’s hard to understand, then I know that I’m reading something worthwhile.
Just 15 minutes of reading at night can be a great habit to build, plus it can be quite relaxing or boring depending on how you look at it, which is perfect if you want to fall asleep at night.
Habit 6: Pray and relax
As I’ve gotten older, my connection with God has grown because I realize the value of spirituality in life.
Stress is a killer, and I have never understood how to process stress in a healthy way.
I’d internalize it until my body would breakdown.
That’s partly the reason why I have an autoimmune illness. Excessive stress can wreak havoc on the human body. It’s also one of the major contributors to premature aging.
For me, prayer has been life-changing because I get to submit to the will of God. Prayer has taught me to let go and allow life to happen for me. I push hard towards my goals, but I’m willing to let things come to me.
The more I pray, the stronger I feel, because I know that nothing is more powerful than the one I’m praying to.
It’s also just relaxing and meditative to slow down and not focus on problems or stressors in life.
That’s a wrap on my minimalist habits for longevity and anti-aging. Like anything good in life, patience and consistency are required for the best results. Try not to overwhelm yourself with too many changes all at once. Try these habits, stack them on top of each other, and let time work; it’s magic.