How to Live A Longer, Better Life with JJ Virgin

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Check in if I've got some stuff swirling around about someone. I know that I need to go through the process of forgiveness because that swirling around anger isn't hurting them. That swirling around anger is hurting me.

Here's jj, Virgin triple board certified nutrition and fitness expert and four time New York Times best selling author. It's time to reignite wellness.

Hey, it's JJ and today we are going to be talking about living longer and living longer the right way. You know, I remember this saying that you want to be like a light bulb. You are full on, bright as everything and then boom, one day you're gone. And so when we look at living longer, it's living longer better, right? It's living longer. Awesome. And I recently grabbed I travel all the time, as you know, and I was at the airport looking at magazines and I saw a special time edition, the science of living longer. I mean, how could I not pull that one out? So as I was reading through it, I realized, you know, we focus so much on some of the basics and that is things like intermittent fasting and fasting that we now know are so key critical and exercise and sleep. But this article had some different ones in there. So I said all right, time to time to get back on and talk on the anti aging longevity spectrum because I know I this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. Being 56 and I will tell you, 56, I am healthier, leaner, fitter than I was in my 20s when I was a personal trainer and I was in grad school studying all this stuff. So it wasn't like I was, you know, a couch potato eating a bunch of garbage. I was eating healthy, I was exercising and I had youth on my side. So that is very encouraging. And I remember way back when I was at usc, I was in my doctoral studies on exercise fizz with an emphasis in nutrition and anti aging. And we had people in their 90s that were crushing it. They were fit, they were healthy, they were vibrant and they were, they were better athletes than me. So just want to open your mind to the possibility. Now before I dive in, I want to do a shout out to Ellie 17:30 and Ellie says she is amazing. Oh, I just said that and of course I heard hit a button and it went away. Boom. There it is. She is amazing. I've been a fan of JJ's for a long time. Her advice really works for both me and my husband. Looking forward to listening and learning more. Five Star Review I love and appreciate those reviews so much. If you've not done one yet, I just have a big ask that you leave a review. It helps a ton. There's a lot of podcasts out there and this is a true labor of love between me and my team. This does take a village to produce, so we love to know that we are serving you well and that we're making a dent in the universe. And I'd also love to know if there's something you'd like to hear more about. So leave a review, leave comments, leave questions. We look at all of them and take them all into account as we are designing and developing the show. All right, cool. Well then, without further ado, actually, with further ado, I'm going to share one of my favorites with you and then I'll be back back to talk about the things that you can do that you may never have been thinking about that can help you live longer, better.

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Alrighty. Welcome back. Okay, you might hear papers rustling. I've got notes all over the place here. I am super excited to share this information with you. And I will have cool show notes@jjvirgin.com forward/livelonger. And the first show note I'm going to put in there is a reference over to sunlight and saunas, the sauna I have in my house. And that I was really excited to hear. Now I know that saunas are great for detoxifying and they're great for inflammation and recovery and stress reduction, all these things. In fact there's programs on my sunlight and sauna for each of these different things. What I didn't know is that I mean there's an anti aging setting on the sauna. But I was like, eh, I didn't really pay much attention to that. I generally hit the detox setting. But it turns out that sauna can help you with longevity. They did a study, it was reported in jama, which is, you know, the Journal of American Medical Association International Medicine looked at 2000 middle aged Finnish men who frequented saunas and found that over 20 years those who went to the sauna more regularly had a lower risk of heart failure, coronary artery disease and death. So get in your saunas. And I gotta tell you, you might think I can't, you know, I can't get a sauna in my house. You'd be amazed how many options there are right now out there for saunas and they are not expensive. It's definitely one of those things you want to amortize over time. But it boy then you will actually do it because most expensive therapy is the one you don't do, right? The most expensive gym membership is the one you don't go to. So the cool thing about having a sauna is in your house besides just being awesome. Having a sauna in the house is that you can actually go in there. We watch Netflix in there. I can read books in there. I can even do some phone calls in there. Although I try not to do that. It's like EMF craziness but what a great easy thing to do. So that's the first one doing asana. Who knew? Next one. And I am proud to say that after going to Calvi, which is an amazing spa that I went to for the week to speak. I went with one of my girlfriends, and I was the speaker there. And I just decided since I was there, I was going to go all in. And so I did Pilates and I did yoga, and I did piyo. Hey, Charlene, I had to do this for you. And I did restorative yoga, and I did meditation. I did all the things that I typically do not do, even though I know I should be doing them. And after. After the first day of yoga, the teacher was kind of smirking at me, and I went, I know, I know I need to do this. But by the end of the week, I was like, all in. The next week, I was at another event in Cabo, and they had yoga every day. And I just got up and went to yoga every single day. And it was like, yoga, meditative yoga. It was amazing. And after that, I went, all right, this is clearly something I need in my life. And my hubby came with me. So we are incorpor, incorporating yoga and meditation and some mindfulness into our life. I already do that. Every morning I wake up and I read a little bit of a positive book. And then right now, I'm doing some Wayne Dyer reading, and then I write in my journal. And so, you know, figure out your Zen, right? Even when I go on a paddle board, which we're talking about doing in the mornings here, because it's now with the time zone. Change can be amazing, can help. But let me give you this little study that they cited here, that people who meditated for 25 minutes a day for three days reported less stress than the control group, as we know. And then also there was another group that did meditative martial art, Tai chi, same thing. Reductions in depressive symptoms, better quality of life. And so it's really find that thing that can work for you and add it on in. Now, in Warrior Mom, I talk about forgiveness. And one of the things that's super critical for living longer better is forgiving is not being mad. And I always check in if I've got some stuff swirling around about someone. I know that I need to go through the process of forgiveness, because that swirling around anger isn't hurting them. That swirling around anger is hurting me. So in the Warrior mom book, I go through how to forgive. It's a very specific process that I learned when I went to 40 years of Zen with my buddy Dave Asprey. And so we will put resources in. We'll put a link to the book, we'll put resources in on 40 years of Zen. But this is something that can make a massive difference in your quality of life. And I always just again check in and say, do I have a charge around this? Do I need to do something around this? And if so, I go through that process and sometimes it takes a couple times. Sometimes I just want to go like, you know, hold on to it for a bit. I'm just not quite ready. And that's okay. I just notice what I'm noticing in the words of Mary Morrissey, and move on from there and then come back and work on it. Okay, the next one. And you might think when I say this one, that I'm just justifying my habits. Maybe I am. But I'm always happy to see these ones. And the studies show it that what you drink matters here, of course, and that drinking a little bit, not, you know, loads. It's a drink for per day for women. Two drinks for men is associated with living longer. I know there's also some great research around red wine, specifically those higher resveratrol because it can actually mimic caloric restriction with optimal nutrition. It can help the what's called the sir twin genes. So a little bit of alcohol, not a lot. And I will tell you that I will be doing a podcast with the gal who does all the events for Casamigos, because to me, there's two alcohols that I think are the best choices. Tequila, which can be very good for your gut microbiome, and also clean red wine. So we'll link in the show notes to dry farm wines, which is what I drink at home and I have at all of my parties, all of my events. We ship out dry farm wines because it's clean wine, no sugar added, fermented all the way through to get the sugar super, super low, if not out altogether, and doesn't have all those additives that you can get in there. So that's the first part. Super important. Next up, coffee and tea. Okay, so. And I'm doing a shout out. This is, this is also, I guess this is living longer and JJ's favorite things, because in the coffee world, of course I do mycotoxin free coffee from my buddy Dave at Bulletproof. Couple cups a day. And I do that before I work out, too. I always drink a little coffee before I work out because it can help you burn more fat. But I love this one. A study of thousands of Americans ages 50 through 71 who drank about three cups of coffee each day had a 10% lower risk of dying through the study period. Now here it is. They said like upper limit should be about four cups, which you also want to know if you're a fast or slow caffeine metabolizer. I'm pretty fast at it, so I have a couple cups in the morning. If I'm working out in the afternoon, I may have one cup before I go work out. It does not keep me up, thankfully. I'm super happy about that. It also can help prevent some types of cancers as well as type 2 diabetes and Parkinson's disease. It's got super good antioxidants. So there you go. Good antioxidants in the coffee. But you want to make sure that you're getting pesticide free, it's a heavily sprayed crop, and that it's mycotoxin free because it tends to accumulate mold. And then the other one is tea. And I'm sitting here with my iced green tea. I always have to say that carefully because people think I'm saying ice cream tea. I know you're just hoping I am. No, no, iced green tea. And I'm going to do a shout out to my buddies over at Peak Tea who have these really, really antioxidant rich teas and super cool for those of us who are lazy chefs. It's just a powder that you add into water and it's incredible. They also have been doing fasting teas, teas to help support you doing fasting and intermittent fasting. So really cool. They have an amazing match. But tea has done some, has some incredible things in it. Green tea, of course, can help lower LDL cholesterols, lower triglycerides. It helps with stress reduction because it's got theanine plus very high in antioxidants and feeds the good gut microbiome, another super key important one, and may also help lower blood pressure. So I mean, come on, how awesome is this? So green tea, of all the teas, seems to have the best effects. And even if you're having the caffe, it seems to work just as well. So you don't have to worry about that if you're one of those people who's a slower caffeine metabolizer. But there you go. Coffee, tea and little alcohol every day can really support longevity. Had to reach for my ice cream tea. It had moved away. Okay, the next one. And I really, really love this because what I found in when I was going through the, the accident with my son where he was in a coma and then the hospital for four and a half months and was the thing that I did that really helped me was reaching out to friends. And the fact that I had people who would come to the hospital and just sit with me, who would text and check in every day made all of the difference for me. And I talk a lot about that. I've created my family of choice. That being an adopted kid, it makes you look at family differently than, say, someone who is born into their family. To me, you can create your family so you can find those people that you want to go through life with. You know, they say reason, season, lifetime, and pull them on in. So shout out to people. Shout out to Dr. Joan Rosenberg, who would just come to the hospital, sit with me. Dr. Hila Kass, Dr. Suzanne Bennett, who just made that whole process manageable. Dr. Daniel Amen and his wife Tana, who came over. So all of the help I got there really made the difference. And the study showed that, I mean, it was apparently there was a review of 148 studies that showed that having a great social life, having those social connections was as healthy for you as quitting smoking. And that people had good social relationships were 50% likelier to survive across an eight year span than those who didn't. And I know that they've correlated social isolation with, like, being similar to your health is smoking a half pack of cigarettes a day. I mean, that is just crazy. So this is one that's super important to cultivate those relationships. And again, I really look at create your family of choice. You can do that. And right along with that is create that great, amazing partner, too. I found my soulmate love of my life late in life when I got super intentional about it. In my early 50s, I told a girlfriend, I said, I'm ready to get married again. And I got really intentional about who I was looking for someone who, you know, we would bring out the best of each other and support each other and have an amazing life together and had similar interests and values and dreams and goals. And turns out having that partner and, and, and hugging and social connection there, where you're boosting oxytocin, is so important for your health. In fact, one study showed that women who were hugged by their partner more often had lower blood pressure than those who didn't. And people who are hugging more have more physical connections, get sick less often. So there you go. Hug more. Find a great partner. Hug them. Hug them a bunch. All right, that's like something I'm sure that you're like, I'm in. I'll do that. I'm down. All right, here's another one. You Knew I had to put this in. I wasn't going to really talk much about diet in this one because I feel like we've talked a lot about that. But the one that you could put all of us, well, I was going to say you put all the nutritionists in the room, but we'd still have some people who argue over this. This one. But it is eating your vegetables and I've been telling people to eat five to ten servings a day. There was a study that said that eating, you know, it's great to do seven plus, but even eating three to five portions a day could reduce your risk of death by 29%. Oh my gosh. And that eating seven or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day seems to reduce your risk of dying by 42% at any age. I mean that is just crazy. Reducing your risk of cancer, dying from cancer by 25%, dying from heart disease by 31%. So eat more veggies. Eat more non starchy veggies. So I what I tell people is 5 to 10 servings of non starchy vegetables a day depending on what's going on with your insulin resistance, blood sugar, triglycerides, one to two servings of fruits and then two to three servings of plant based starchy carbs per day. Actually two to four servings depends on where you're at. That's all part of the sugar impact diet. We will link to that here. But this stuff is so easy to sneak in. And I'll give you an example of what we're having for dinner tonight. So we are doing spaghetti squash pasta. So we're making spaghetti squash. When we're not making it, we are cooking spaghetti squash and then we are going to fork it to make the spaghetti squash come off as noodles. And then I will probably add a little bit of a lentil pasta to that for my hubby. I'm going to go just straight spaghetti squash pasta. You could also add in some shirataki or glucomannon noodles into that as well the konjac root noodles if you wanted to. Those are almost no calories, all fiber and help with balancing blood sugar. Miracle noodles are what they call we called. We can put a link to that in the show notes too. Again that will be@jjvirgin.com livelonger I did some videos with my buddy from Miracle Noodles on how to cook miracle noodles. So we will link to those too. I gotta just making a note to myself because I'm like where are those videos then we will be adding in, sauteing up some mushrooms and onions and red peppers and then we'll be putting a bunch of. So I'm going to saute those up and then I'm going to add in a little bit of grass fed beef. I love what Dr. Mark Hyman says about meat being a condom meat. And so we're being, going to add in some grass fed beef, a bunch of chunky tomatoes, some basil and put that over the spaghetti squash. That is going to be like, I don't know, like four to five servings of veggies. So it's really easy to sneak these in. The other thing that I do is cut up some veggies and put them in glass containers. So right now I've got radishes, I've got red onions, I've got cucumber and I've got mushrooms. Trying to think what else I have downstairs. So I have all of that in little, little containers so that when I'm making salad I can just throw all that in. Oh, I have some artichoke hearts. I have artichoke hearts too, which I always forget about the artichoke heart. Really rich in something called glutathione, which is a master antioxidant and super yummy. I bought some in a glass jar so that they don't haven't leached any of the metals and just yummy. Easy to do. All right, there you go. That's the artichoke heart. That's the simple one. Eat more vegetables and again, look for all the different places you can sneak them in, you can sneak them into your smoothies in the morning, you can have a salad, you can sneak them into soups and stews and sauces. So there's all sorts of places that you can put them in. We'll put some of our favorite veggie recipes in here and then next one. And I love this one. And you know, not only do you want to live longer, of course you want to live longer, better and you want to be able to think better. And I will tell you, I think that I'm, I think that I'm thinking better at 56 and, and I'm smarter than I was in my 20s and 30s and I just never stop learning. I go to workshops all the time, I study every day and I challenge myself. And that is what is shows in the study too is that higher education is linked to a higher age count. So again, let's keep working. That brain exercise of course is one thing that we know that helps Keep the brain young, but so does learning. And you can learn at any age. And, you know, I think we tend to shy away from things that are more difficult. I say lean into that. Lean into that. Challenge yourself. We are never better than when we're challenged. Okie dokie. And finally, the final behavior here is to give. So these are my nine. My nine things you wouldn't have thought about. So give. Now two things you're going to want to give. Number one is to look at what you can do with your time, how you can volunteer. I tell the story about how this year I volunteered to go to a maximum security correctional facility and in California to volunteer my entrepreneurial business coaching skills. And I have a girlfriend, Kat Hoke, who created this program that she takes into these maximum security correctional facilities. And I mean, these are, you know, the, the maximum ones. These are not like the, you know, these are the maximum ones. Right, Enough said there. Anyway, she has been coaching all of the inmates on entrepreneurial skills, life skills, mindset skills, so that when they come out, Instead of the 10% rate of success, they have a 90% rate of success, meaning they don't go back in, which is crazy and amazing. So I had the opportunity to go with her and do this. It was one of the greatest things, part pieces of my life. And what's been awesome since then is I stayed in contact with one of the inmates and I've been sending him different types of books to help him along his journey, which has been helpful, too helpful for both of us. So it's been great. So first thing is, look where you can volunteer, especially in a place like that was not a comfortable thing for me as I said yes to it and then I'm going to it. I'm like, why did I say yes to this? I had no idea what I would learn and how I would grow from that opportunity. So look for opportunities that are outside your comfort zone too, because there is no growth inside your comfort zone, as we know. And the other part is giving money. And it's interesting. I have given. I've literally given away my last dime in situations where someone else needed it. And what the research shows is that those who have the opportunity, you know, this. This was a study where researchers gave women 100 bucks and the choice to give it, to keep it or donate to a food bank. That brain imaging revealed that those who chose charity had more brain activation in the pleasure regions of the brain than those who kept it. And I know when I am doing that, and I make a point of donating to a variety of different charities. One I'm near and dear to my heart is my girlfriend, Vivian Glicks. Just like my child Foundation, I will link to that in the show notes too. But when I make a point of doing that, I, it's just, it leaves such a mark. And I will tell you, I remember back when Grant was in hospital and then he got out and he was depressed and I thought, all right, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to bring you back to the hospital during the holidays. It was Christmas in Hanukkah and I brought him back and, and we brought toys and we gave them out and spent time with the kids as Children's Hospital la. And it made such a difference for him and helped him stand up. And then we had the opportunity for one of the girls who had leukemia to have her help her family fly her sisters in from Guam. And man, I still remember getting the picture of the sisters arriving and, and this was all this girl wanted was to see her sisters and you know.

She died shortly after.

And it was such a, such a gift to the family and. But it was a bigger gift to me. It's one of Those like top 10 experiences of my life to be able to support them on that. So giving you wouldn't think about this as something that can help you live longer and better, but yes, you can. All right, I will be back after the break to wrap it on up, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I tie it all up with a pretty little bow, give you some action steps to do. And I know I just gave you nine things, which is such a big rule violation for me because I'm the one thing gal. I'm addicted to Gary Keller's concept of the one thing and doing one thing, completing it, getting dialed and getting it to be a habit and then going on to the next because that's how you really change. So here's what I want you to do with these nine things. First of all, grab the show notes jjvirgin.com forward/live longer jjvirgin.com forward slash livelonger here's why these nine will be listed out and what I want you to do is probably I'm guessing that of the nine, you got some that you're already doing well, like maybe you're drinking coffee, great. But there's probably some in there. I'm betting that of the nine, you can probably say I got I got three or four of these dialed. So then grab one, pick one, and I'd love you to pick one. That's that you know you can have a win with fast. So pick. Pick the fast win and then after the fast one, pick the bigger challenge. But pick one and start journaling every day. Make that one your thing. Act as if, as Dr. Wayne Dyer talks about. So let's say that your one is to add in a mindful activity a couple times a week, ideally every day. But act as if. So it might be that for five minutes a day you just pause and do a little mindful meditation. Or pause and do a little tapping. By the way, we'll do a My buddy Nick Ortner has now had a million downloads on his free tapping app. That is so flipping cool. All these people is getting tapping, so we'll add that in too. But just pick one. Act as if Put it in your journal. Put it in every day. When it becomes your thing, that's just part of your life, then go to the next one. There you go. Simple, easy peasy again. Let's get a win first. I always like to get a quick win in and then we can go on to the next. Another quick win for me would be if you would leave a review, because there's a lot of podcasts out there and it helps a ton when you leave a review. If you haven't subscribed yet, it's so easy, just go subscribetoj.com There you are. Alrighty, I will see you next time. Bye. Foreign.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger, and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I tag all things books and Reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything. You'll learn something about yourself as a reader, and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and Visit our website, whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.