These 8 habits could add up to 24 years to your life, according to a study

Editor’s note: Get inspired with a weekly roundup of living well, simplified. Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Better newsletter for insights and tools designed to improve your well-being.

CNN
—

Want to live to another 24 years? Just add eight healthy lifestyle choices to your life at 40 and it could happen, according to a new unpublished study analyze data on US veterans.

From 50 years rather? No problem, you could extend your life to 21, according to the study. 60 years ? You’ll still gain almost 18 years if you adopt the eight healthy habits.

“There’s a 20-year window in which you can make these changes, whether you do it gradually or all at once,” said study lead author Xuan-Mai Nguyen, health scientist for the VA Boston Healthcare System’s Million Veteran Program.

“We also did an analysis to see if we were eliminating people with type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, stroke, cancer etc, does that change the outcome? And it really wasn’t,” she said. “So if you’re starting out with chronic conditions, making changes always helps.”

What are these magical healthy habits? Nothing you haven’t heard before: Exercise, eat healthy, reduce stress, sleep well and promote positive social relationships. On the other hand, don’t smoke, drink too much, or become addicted to opioids.

“The sooner the better, but even if you only make a small change in your 40s, 50s or 60 is always beneficial,” Nguyen said. “It’s not out of reach – it’s actually something achievable for the general population.”

The study, presented Monday to Food 2023, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, examined the lifestyle behaviors of nearly 720,000 veterans between the ages of 40 and 99. All were part of the One Million Veteran Programa longitudinal study designed to investigate the health and well-being of American veterans.

Adding just one healthy behavior to a man’s life at age 40 provided an additional 4.5 years of life, Nguyen said. Adding one second led to seven more years, while adopting three habits extended men’s lives by 8.6 years. As the number of additional lifestyle changes increased, the benefits for men increased, totaling almost a quarter century of additional life.

Women also saw huge gains in lifespan, Nguyen said, although the numbers add up differently than for men. Adopting one healthy behavior added 3.5 years to a woman’s life, while two added eight years, three added 12.6 years, and adopting all healthy habits extended a woman’s life by 22.6 years.

“Doing all eight had a synergistic effect, kind of an extra boost to extend your life, but any small change made a difference,” Nguyen said.

After adjusting for age, body mass index, gender, race and ethnicity, marital status, education level and family income level, the study found “an 87% relative reduction in all-cause mortality for those who adopted all eight lifestyle factors compared to those who adopted none,” Nguyen said.

“An important strength of this analysis was that the population was highly diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status,” said the study’s lead author and senior nutrition researcher, Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The study could only show an association, not a direct cause and effect, and because it focused on veterans, the results might not apply to all Americans. However, the veterans in the study “were retired and not in active duty or undergoing military training,” Nguyen said. “Still, the numbers don’t necessarily translate directly to a general head-to-head population.”

The study was able to rank the eight lifestyle behaviors to see which boosted longevity the most.

No. 1: First on the list was exercise, which many experts say is one of the most important behaviors you can adopt to improve your health. Adding that healthy behavior produced a 46% decreased risk of death from any cause compared to those who did not exercise, Nguyen said.

“We looked at whether they were doing light, moderate, or vigorous activity versus doing nothing and just sitting on the couch,” Nguyen said. “People who lived longer were doing 7.5 hours of metabolic equivalent exercise per week. Just to give you a baseline – if you can walk up a flight of stairs without losing your breath, that’s four minutes of the 7.5.

This finding echoes other studies that show you don’t need to do extreme sports to get the health benefits of exercisealthough more vigorous activities that require you to lose your breath are better.

Read: Sign up for CNN’s Fitness, But Better newsletter series. Our seven-part guide will help you get into a healthy routine, backed by experts.

No. 2: Not becoming addicted to opioids was the second most important contributor to a longer life, reducing the risk of premature death by 38%, according to the study. It’s a significant issue today, with the opioid crisis in the United States a national “public health emergency.” an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services reported.

No. 3: Never smoking reduces the risk of death by 29%, according to the study. If a person was a former smoker, it didn’t matter: “We did this to be as strict as possible,” Nguyen said. However, stop smoking at any time of life confers major health benefits, experts say.

Number 4: To manage stress was next, reducing premature deaths by 22%, according to the study. Stress is rampant in the United States today, with devastating health consequences, experts say. And there are ways to review your outlook and turn bad stress into good stress.

Read: Sign up for CNN’s Stress, But Less newsletter. Our six-part mindfulness guide will inform and inspire you to reduce stress while learning how to harness it.

No. 5: Eat a plant-based diet would increase your chances of living longer by 21%, according to the study. But that doesn’t mean you have to be vegetarian or vegan, Nguyen said. Following a healthy plant-based diet, such as the Mediterranean diet rich in whole grains and leafy green vegetables, was essential.

Read: Sign up for CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean style. Our eight-part guide shows you a delicious, expert-backed food lifestyle that will improve your health for life.

Number 6: Avoid drinking — consuming more than four alcoholic beverages a day — was another healthy lifestyle habit, reducing the risk of death by 19%, Nguyen said. Excessive alcohol consumption is on the rise in the United States, and it is not only students. Even moderate drinkers are at risk, studies say.

Moreover, other studies have shown that all amount of drink can be unhealthy, except perhaps, for heart attacks and strokes, and even this discovery was disputed. A study found that even one drink can trigger an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation.

No. 7: Obtain a good night’s sleep — defined as at least seven to nine hours a night without insomnia – reduced premature deaths from all causes by 18%, Nguyen said. Dozens of studies have linked bad sleep to all kinds of poor health outcomesincluding premature mortality.

Read: Sign up for CNN’s Sleep, But Better newsletter series. Our seven-part guide has helpful tips for better sleep.

No. 8: to be surrounded by positive social relationships helped longevity by 5%, according to the study. However, loneliness and isolation, especially in the elderlybecomes more and more widespread and disturbingexperts say.

“Five percent may not seem like a lot, but it’s still a decrease in terms of all-cause mortality,” Nguyen said. “Every little bit counts, whether you’re choosing physical activity or making sure you’re surrounded by positive social support.”

A recent study found that people who experienced social isolation had a 32% higher risk of dying prematurely whatever the cause compared to those who were not socially isolated. Participants who reported feeling lonely were 14% more likely to die prematurely than those who did not.