Lengthen Your Life by Changing 5 Bad Habits

Two elderly cyclists astride their bicycles stop to give each other a high-five.
Getting in the habit of regular exercise will lengthen your life. (Image: Germana Marengo via Dreamstime)

How long you live is not only determined by genetic factors, nutrition, access to medical care, and physical environment, but also by your habits. If you stop bad habits and develop good habits, you can lengthen your life by up to 10 years longer.

Stop these 5 bad habits to lengthen your life

1. Staying up late

In ancient times, humans slept and woke with the sun. Nowadays, there are many reasons for staying up late. The appeal of electronic gadgets is only one part; the pressure of work has also become a significant reason for our irregular sleep schedule. Human organs need to detoxify and rest at night. Staying up late will disrupt our biological clock and lead to endocrine disorders and a weakened immunity. A series of problems will follow such as obesity, accelerated aging, impaired vision, and increased risk of cancer.

2. Overeating

We must pay attention to many aspects of our lives to improve our health. In daily life some people like to overeat as it provides an immediate sense of satisfaction. Overdoing it it will be harmful to their bodies and lead to a series of diseases such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and various cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. What we need to strive for is a healthy and balanced diet.

Diet and exercise are changes anyone can make to lengthen their life. 22249668 / Eating Junk Food © Bowie15 | Dreamstime.com
Improved diet and regular exercise are changes anyone can make to lengthen their life. (Image: Bowie15 via Dreamstime)

3. Lack of exercise

These days white-collar workers sit throughout the day to do their work. Then to relax, they play on their mobile phones and rarely exercise after work. If things go on like this, our body’s blood circulation will slow down, and this makes it easy to cause problems such as blood clots. For people who aren’t in the habit of exercising, walking is a great place to start. It is simple and relaxing. Walk with your stomach in, chest out, shoulders back, and head high. Doing this for 20 minutes a day is a simple way to improve your health.

4. Smoking and drinking

Smoking and drinking are habits to break tostud live a longer life. 98170533 © Mihail Ivanov | Dreamstime.com
Smoking and drinking are habits to break to live a longer life. (Image: Mihail Ivanov via Dreamstime)

People commonly use smoking and drinking as a way to relieve stress, but both are very harmful to the body. Let’s talk about smoking. The organ in the most danger is our lungs. Normally lung tissue is bright and pink, but the lungs of people who smoke for a long time turn black, Smoking leads to a series of lung diseases such as chronic pneumonia and lung cancer. Alcoholism is the most harmful to our liver. Ailments such as fatty liver disease and liver cirrhosis should not be underestimated.

5. A short temper

Research has found that angry people are at a higher risk of having a heart attack. A person’s frame of mind is closely related to his lifespan. A common quality among people who live long is a patient and optimistic attitude.

The writer of this story is not a medical professional, and the information that is in this story has been collected from reliable sources – and every precaution has been taken to ensure its accuracy. The information provided is for general information purposes only, and should not be substituted for professional health care.

Translated by Patty Zhang

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  • David Jirard

    David was born in the Midwestern section of the U.S. during the turbulent sixties. At an early age he took an interest in music and during high school and college played lead guitar for various local bands. After graduating with a B.A. in Psychology, he left the local music scene to work on a road crew installing fiber optic cable on telephone poles in various cities. After having to climb up a rotted pole surrounded by fencing, he turned to the world of I.T. where he now shares laughter with his wife and tends to his beehives in between writing articles on Chinese culture and social issues.

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