h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... and don't plan to follow. One man who lived 100+ years old said that his secret was always being active ('the sun never caught me in bed!').

There are also simple habits that can help you live longer, like not smoking and keeping away from secondhand smoke, not getting drunk, not eating too much cholesterol.

Everything in moderation... including moderation.

Another piece of advice I've heard is to take slightly less than your daily reccomended dosage of food.

You've read the labels on the packages, right? All that jibber-jabber about how much of this mineral or that vitamin you're supposed to consume per day. Actually, that's for the -average- person. You need to figure out how much -you- need (several websites probably have some sort of calculator, but I'm not sure -- health care professional could probably help you out).

At any rate, the idea is to hover in the area between malnutrition and complete satisfaction. Eat a measured amount of food (and exercise, of course), and you'll find yourself being a little bit hungry at the end of the day, but also have more energy. This is supposed to be a fallback to ancient caveman days: if the neotholic man was a bit hungry, the body would compensate by giving extra energy to do slightly better on the next hunt. In today's modern world, however, we can keep the body giving us this extra energy -- and extra life -- while merely sitting in the office.

It's not a completly accepted practice -- of couse -- and scientists are still looking into it, but there are some people around the globe trying it out. We won't really know the full results until they keel over, obviously...

To quote Heinlein,
"Moderation is for monks, do everything to excess".

There is also the theory that if you don't drink, don't smoke, exercise and eat a healthy diet, you don't really live longer, it just feels like it.

Several in my family have lived long lives, with 2 of my great aunties living to over 100. When one of my uncles died, my Dad's comment was that he wasn't well enough pickled - he was tea-total. Dad believed in the occasional drink, he smoked from the time he was 15 - up to 3 packs a day before he quit at around age 60. He worked hard, all his working life. When he retired at 65 he took up golf, and golfed every possible day - in fact, the day he died, he'd bought his membership for the coming season. While my Mom was alive, she saw to it that he ate a well-balanced diet, with most of the vegies coming from their own garden, very little processed food, unless it was her own preserves of home-frozen food. They lived in the country, so he had good fresh air around him. Dad was 86 when he died, and he'd lived a good, and sometimes exciting life. He'd watched his three grandsons grow up, and had played soccer and baseball with them in the yard. He had an avid interest in life, the Kids, and all around him. That has to be a big part of the secret.