LifeSpan versus HealthSpan versus JoySpan: Great Concepts for Life Longevity

So I previously wrote about Blue zones and living longer. In other words, increasing your lifespan. 

But we need to be thinking about health span. It doesn’t matter how long you live if you can’t walk around, immobile or in pain. Life would suck pretty bad. 

That’s why I put so much stress on health being wealth. Healthspan=being healthy and being functional with any medication or disabilities. Can you be independent and mobile without the help of others? Do you have energy and mental capacity to still thrive? Which leads to the next concept tied into longevity: Joyspan. What is the amount of joy and happiness in your life? 

Buettner said: “For me, where that most comes alive is for the panegyris, these great all night parties where people from 14 to 94 are coming together and connecting socially and having fun. They are dancing all night long. But actually, an hour of running or an hour of dancing are about equal when it comes to caloric burn. 

But an hour of dancing is a blast. We’ve tended to associate exercise with suffering. If there is no pain there is no gain. But in Ikaria (blue zone), we’re learning that, actually can be joyful. They are laughing the whole time. Laughter is good for our arteries. It’s good for heart disease. The happiness is palpable. I think what Blue zones teach us is that longevity can be joyous. It doesn’t have to be a chore. And community, connection is the prescriptive to longevity.”

It totally makes sense to me. If you are happy you want to continue to have this feeling. Mix this with a good diet, active lifestyle, purpose/mission, curiosity and community no wonder you will have a higher likelihood for a longer life. 
We don’t think about joyspan enough. We should be doing things we find interesting and fun, being with those we care about and enjoy being with, having wonderful experiences. Sometimes even take time off your career and slow down to focus on what matters. So it’s really worth considering what Joyspan means to you personally and how to increase more of this in your life. 

I’ll let Dan Buettner finish this: “But at the end of the day, the big epiphany is that the same things that help us live a long, healthy life are the things that make life worth living.”