I Interviewed the World's Longest Living People

it doesn't matter how rich you are what you look like or where you live one thing that all of us are fighting from the day that we're born is time the thing is each of us has the same 24 hours to make the most of each day but some of us may end up having more days than others now a few months ago a stranger that I met on the street gave me one of the most powerful pieces of Life advice I've ever heard keep in mind the [Music] long but the years are short that set me down a rabbit hole to find out how to live the longest happiest and healthiest life and I eventually stumbled upon a concept called the Blue Zone now a blue zone is a region of the world where people live longer than anyone else and there are only five of them in the world I come from a family who prioritized working over anything else and paid the consequences for it and that's always made living and understanding how to live longer and happier and better a priority in my life are there people who really hold secrets to living a long life and if so can we unlock those secrets this is supposedly an island with the highest life expectancy in the world I didn't expect somewhere where people are supposedly healthy and happy and living for a long time to feel dirty in Japan all of these all of these crosswalks like all of this paint would be filled in perfectly like to the teeth it's a little bit dirty like that there's just a lack of Maintenance out of the 47 prefectures in Japan Okinawa is actually the poorest one and citizens here basically rely on tourism just to survive oddly enough though it's Monday morning and as we're walking through the main City's biggest street we see that most places aren't even open well most places except for this one shop foreign this is such a kind serving question happiness [Music] wow wow now even though neither will or I speak Japanese our goal is to find out about the secrets to longevity mainly by interacting and befriending locals making new friends so we came here because we know that Okinawa has one of the highest life expectancies in the world in the world do you know why yeah and they work a lot people are so friendly with Communications are people not like that in Mainland Japan so they're not as friendly and welcoming with all this talk about the impacts of diet on longevity we're heading to okinawa's largest Food Market to see what and how the locals eat okay so right now we're in a fish market where the downstairs level is literally just like pure Fish Market raw ingredients and everything and up top is a food Hall and apparently you can pick your raw ingredients from the bottom and have them cooked upstairs I don't know what's good and what's not good it's just let's go purely based on what it looks like upstairs yeah okay what is uh yabai which one yabai yeah yeah bye [Music] so there's 47 prefectures in Japan Okinawa is one of the poorer of those 47 supposedly the reason for that is because they focus on living more than they focus on making money and if you know a lot about Japanese culture people specifically those in Tokyo work themselves to the Grave every single day of the week and it's a very unhealthy relationship that they have between Career and life but apparently here it's the opposite oh sizzling [Music] wow so where are we going I'm shooting Joe we didn't even get your name what was your name did we exchange names so will and I were just at this market and we sat down next to two awesome ladies who were very interested in having a conversation minako is one of them and she's uh she's our new tour guide minako is solo traveling through Okinawa and asked us if we wanted to explore this city with her and as we make our way towards our first stop we actually stumble across a group of older men who are just sitting around and chatting in the middle of the day how old are you I'm 74 years old did you grow up in Okinawa yeah Okinawa what is life like here if you can describe it to someone who's never been friendly is this a moai or no this group of friends or no I'm a y is a group of five friends who basically meet for a common purpose to gossip experience life and share advice it's a part of Okinawan culture that Blue Zone researchers claim is a key source for their longevity and in fact these people are usually paired together at younger ages just like these guys how long have you known each other for 50 years 50 years wow and what do you guys do to you just hang out nothing nothing you just sit here and talk every week every day well once a man's people live a long time here do you know why they don't you don't know you just live long you're just happy are you happy you're happy very happy as we Explore More of Okinawa the thought of this place being where people live the longest worldwide is a bit shocking yes the weather is gorgeous year round and yes there's not much going on here but I've traveled to lots of places around the world that I could say the same thing for it's clear that naha the main city here is not going to help us unlock the secrets to longevity we need to go deeper and luckily we've only just scratched okinawa's surface so this is the entrance to the American village I don't know what's in there but I assume it's going to be extremely unjapanese the American village was built by Americans for Americans to bring a sense of home back to troop station overseas and it serves thousands of Americans whose bases are located just on the outskirts of this village now Americans presence in Okinawa is a fiery Global topic so naturally I have to know more where are you guys from I'm originally from Arkansas born and raised in Venezuela Inglewood California you live here uh yes I'm in the military I'll be here for two more years you guys live here I'm stationed near yes I live here yes what is life like here for you it is what you make it for me I love it you know there's some people that stay in the barracks all day and they just stay inside don't get any sunshine and they say that they hate it here you know with me I go scuba diving I'm scuba certified if you're an outdoors type of person okinawa's for you it's a great place to raise your kids as a single person it's a different story yeah I don't want to be here do you feel like you're at home here no it's totally different from where I'm from yeah yeah how is life different in Japan versus in the US so definitely cultures values being respected even for going in an establishment and them saying like thank you for your service of you just like coming here and like choosing our store to buy from you know in America a lot of people they don't want to be at their job you know they have no kind of ethic like work ethic and out here there's just very hard workers that are very happy to do what they're doing every day I definitely say like it's super safe you know where I'm from in Los Angeles you don't just leave your car doors unlocked but out here you'll be all right if you leave your car doors unlocked people really just have a different trust here I know that Okinawa is one of the areas in the world with the highest life expectancy do you know why that is just like an island life they just go and you fish you eat that and there's not a lot of stress okinawans are late for Japanese standards if you try to meet there you have to wait a couple of minutes in Mainland Japan they're there when they said they're gonna be there so I think it's just less stressed I think it's because people are still active people walk to go to the market rather than just driving all the time you'll see it a lot of times older people they'll be walking to the markets and they're outside more and they're eating better you know out here you have access to all kind of green vegetables I think it's just being being humble and seeing how they act and you know interacting with them and you know seeing the calmness and everything else and it's just kind of like it's like a stress relief I think now up until this point a lot of this has been super Americanized this has supposedly been coined one of the places with the highest life expectancy in the world but who coined it an American I don't like the fact that I'm here because I read it online that I read that some American guy wrote a book made a lot of money off of these five areas in the world and now they all predominantly rely on tourism and this tourism has made this island look super basic we really only have one chance left a truly unlocking the secrets that Okinawa holds to longevity we're taking the bus all the way to the official Blue Zone of Okinawa which is the small village of okimi and we're joined by Takashi our Japanese friend have you been here before nah never been here have you ever heard of a blue Zone not with it [Music] the point that's where our goal in ogimi is simple find someone who has lived to over 90 years and unlock the secrets of living a long life from them our only problem is that these long-living Legends are not just frolicking down the streets like 20 year old California girls so we have to start our search in the town's only open restaurant now if you order this in America chances are your Foods would be highly processed and you'd feel terribly afterwards but that just isn't the case in Okinawa actually swimming and fishing every single day to stop these you know things oh wow wow she said like you know preview this box yeah this fish it takes six hours so when she wake up 6 a.m to a beach the custom fishes and after this Innovation I mean maybe like you know five six pm and until midnight sugar and she said it's really really fun every single day with her husband yeah yeah like maybe that's why they live okay nouns don't treat Health as a number on a scale they treat it as a lifestyle you might devour some fried pork in spam but you won't feel lethargic after because they've been paired with cabbage and miso to Aid digestion and while you may go eat and then get back into your car to sit in traffic okinawans are always on their two feet this woman right here is 72 years old and she runs an entire restaurant on her own while her husband who's 74 swims all day to catch fresh ingredients for her to cook but what's even better than all of that is that she may just end up helping us find our 90 year old so apparently the woman who runs this restaurant her neighbor is close to 100 years old and we're going to visit her right now yeah okay I'm just gonna walk into our house yeah she mentioned I I think around this neighbor and we got a name so it's easy to recognize because there's a sound name on the wall usually right so oh she gave us her name and the name is written on the wall outside your house in Japan is it this is not what I expected this to look like [Music] [Music] I know interviews [Music] what is the key to having lived 95 years what is your daily routine what does that look like this is what advice could you give to people who live in different parts of the world who want to live longer devices we come from Canada and in the lifestyle we live is very different than the one that you're living here we're taught to focus on work work work make money make money what advice would you give to someone in our position someone young like us um [Music] I came to Okinawa to discover why people here live longer than anyone else on the planet what I've learned is that there are no tricks no tips no gimmicks and no hacks on living the longest and happiest and healthiest life you can live as it turns out what we're doing wrong is we're not doing enough of what we already know we should be doing in order to live forever you need just a simple few things you need to eat well you need to regularly exercise you need to surround yourself with people who make you happy and make you laugh and you need to be loved it's not that Okinawan people have this secret that they're not sharing with anyone it's that we are avoiding doing the things that they prioritize thank you so much for watching if you like this video then you're definitely gonna like this video right here I'm will if you haven't already subscribed please make sure to do so and as always it's a mindset see you next time

Channel: Sprouht

Views: 90,290

Keywords: sprouht, okinawa, japan, age, aging, life lessons, getting older, long life, living long, longevity, blue zones, blue zone, japanese island, okinawa blue zone, health, food, nutrition, 90 year olds

Id: wFcLxrBO55s

Length: 14min 22sec (862 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 12 2023