Ikigai

The road to a longer life by finding a purpose, eating healthy & not retiring.

The book introduces a variety of topics, including the Blue Zones, logotherapy, longevity, flow, tai chi, yoga, resilience, and more. The author through the book covers a lot of critical areas of a person's life and shows how the simplest of ways can give us the results we are looking for. Through this blog, I have listed down a few pointers on the 3 aspects that contribute to us living a longer life.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit"

Diet:

• The 80% rule: Stop eating when you reach 80% of your capacity. There is no objective way to realize this, so to start with we must stop eating when we start feeling full.

• The Japanese serve their food on many small plates which eventually leads to them taking smaller portions and eating less.

• Eat a variety of foods; every meat, fruit, vegetable, spice, grain has a set of nutrients that can keep you healthy.

• Introduce green tea to your daily diet. (Image Gallery)

Work: The power of flow.

• Understand the 7 conditions for achieving flow. (Image Gallery)

• Communicating your team's mission clearly helps them understand their objectives.

• A good compass (the leader) will always take you in the right direction. But that does not mean you should head out to sea with a map but no destination.

• "Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow". In our everyday lives, we spend soo much energy alternating between tasks instead of doing one task well.

• The Pomodoro Technique: Concentrate on a single task for 25minutes followed by a 5-minute break.

• Read and respond to emails only twice a day, define those times clearly.

• Bundle Routine tasks to get them done all at once.

"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute"

Exercise:

• As easy as getting out of your chair. (Image Gallery)

• The 5-minute exercise. (Image Gallery)

• Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation). (Image Gallery)

• The five elements of Qigong

"Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years"

To end with the author shines a light on, the importance of friendship; good friends are the best medicine, for a stable mind and a stable life & the magic of a smile; a cheerful attitude is not only relaxing but can change the perception and tone of any conversation.

"Never Stop Learning, You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”