The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson

and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

Five unconventional ways to extend your life.

I've written about extending your life by slowing

down the apparent passage of time. I've written about some interesting predictors, but not necessarily

causes of longevity and the common characteristics of centenarians. Today I'm going to describe

several unconventional causal means of extending your life.

I'm talking about cold, hard, days, weeks, and months, ticks on a clock, objective measurements of time,

not just the perception of time, although that matters too. How to do it? Number one, live somewhere green or grow a bunch of

plants and trees in your yard. We're built to live in nature amongst trees, rivers, meadows,

wildflowers, beaches, and other trappings of wilderness. It's where we come from. On a fundamental

genetic level, nature is home. That's why spending

brief interludes in forests can reduce stress, improve glucose tolerance, and boost anti-cancer

activity. That's why spending time in green space can make us more creative and less anxious.

It's why even seeing pictures of nature

scenes or smelling the organic compounds that trees give off can have effects similar to the real

thing. It's a reset. What if you were to live in a place like that? Maybe living in a forest

isn't feasible for most people, but having a garden, living near a

park, getting a ton of houseplants, or choosing a tree-lined street rather than a desolate one,

isn't so unreasonable. Turns out that women who live near greenness, parks, forests, gardens,

live longer than those who don't.

The longer they live near the green, the lower their mortality risk.

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