- Eight daily habits could help you live a longer and healthier life, according to one study.
- The researchers say that incorporating just one or two into your daily routines may have a positive impact on your lifespan.
- Experts explain how many of the habits support heart health and lower your risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S.
Some days, it feels like we are being bombarded with too much health advice to process it all, let alone decide what to incorporate into our own lifestyles. So when we came across a study that identified the key habits to add years to lifespan, we knew it was an excellent place to start.
Meet the experts: Sean Heffron, M.D., a preventive cardiologist at NYU Langone Health; Xuan-Mai T. Nguyen, M.D., Ph.D., an internal medicine resident at UCLA Health and the lead author of the study.
In the study, which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers examined data on 700,000 U.S. veterans’ habits and their life expectancies. They found that adopting these habits by middle age resulted in a much longer lifespan compared to those who only followed a few or none of them. While the average age of veterans in the study was not listed, researchers did find that 40-year-old men and women who practiced all eight habits were expected to live an average of 24 and 21 years longer, respectively, than those who followed none.
The eight habits analyzed in the study were:
- Never smoking
- Engaging in physical activity
- Not consuming alcohol in excess
- Getting restorative sleep
- Eating a nutritious diet
- Managing stress levels
- Maintaining strong social connections
- Not abusing opioids
Sean Heffron, M.D., a preventive cardiologist at NYU Langone Health who was not associated with the study, said he is not surprised by the list. “A lot of [these] are the factors that have come up repeatedly as being protective of heart disease, which is the number one killer of all Americans, and so many of them are obviously associated as risk factors with cardiovascular disease,” he noted.
According to the study, low physical activity, smoking, and using opioids increase your risk of death by 30–45%, which means staying active and drug-free can help you live much longer. “Sleep, diet, exercise, not smoking, managing stress—those are the predominant ones,” Dr. Heffron said.
While eight may feel like a lot, researchers noted that participants only needed to apply one of the habits to see benefits. “We were really surprised by just how much could be gained with the adoption of one, two, three, or all eight lifestyle factors,” Xuan-Mai T. Nguyen, M.D., Ph.D., an internal medicine resident at UCLA Health and the lead author of the study, said in a news release.
If you’re looking for a place to start, consider focusing on eating better, quitting smoking, getting more physical activity, and improving your sleep. Since this study was published in 2024, newer research has linked working out to a longer life (more specifically, engaging in a variety of exercise formats), identified the best diet for healthy aging, and found that not getting enough sleep is linked to a lower life expectancy.
What’s more, these four lifestyle habits are all also found on the American Heart Association’s list of Life’s Essential Eight, which are the key behaviors and health factors they consider key to improving and maintaining heart health (the other four are to manage weight, control cholesterol, manage blood sugar, and manage blood pressure). While some of these things are not habits, per se, Dr. Heffron said it’s all interlinked as diet and exercise have a role in blood pressure and cholesterol.
The bottom line
“These are honestly things that I talk about with my patients,” said Dr. Heffron. As a cardiologist, he said he emphasizes physical activity and eating a healthy diet, both professionally and personally. “They are certainly the ones with the most robust data behind them,” he added. However, Dr. Heffron noted that managing stress, having good social relationships, and sleeping well are all important too.
If you’re trying to live to 100 and love it, it’s never too late to start. Begin with making one lifestyle change and creating a new habit, then add in the eight factors over time.
“I often point out to patients that there are studies that look at patients with very strong genetic predisposition to heart disease specifically, that show that even in that setting, healthy lifestyle behaviors can have a marked effect on their risk of heart disease,” Dr. Heffron said. “So lifestyle is important for everybody, and you can really influence the prognosis of anybody.”
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