Adopting a healthy lifestyle is not a guarantee of a longer life, but it can significantly improve the quality of life and reduce the risk of many preventable diseases.
A new study has hypothesised that changing these eight habits in your life can add up to 24 years to your lifespan.
As per a study presented at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting on Monday, adopting some healthy habits by middle age can go a long way towards building a healthy future.
Researchers studied more than 700,000 US veterans to understand how their life expectancy shifted based on the number of healthy habits they adopted.
On average, it was found that embracing these lifestyle changes increased the males’ lifespans by 24 years and females’ by 21.
“We were surprised by just how much could be gained with the adoption of one, two, three, or all eight lifestyle factors,” Xuan-Mai T. Nguyen, health science specialist at the Department of Veterans Affairs and rising fourth-year medical student at Carle Illinois College of Medicine, said in a news release.
The habits include:
- Being physically active
- Being free from opioid addiction
- Not smoking
- Managing stress
- Having a good diet
- Not regularly binge drinking
- Having good sleep hygiene
- Having positive social relationships
Researchers found that the common factors which were contributing to a shorter lifespan were low exercise, usage of opioids, and smoking. It was noted that these factors were associated with an average of 30 per cent to 45 per cent hike in the risk of death, during the study period.
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