7 Free Ways To Die…Later

It’s better to live longer, right? If you’re happy and healthy.
Better to die later, much later if possible?

Seems everywhere you look there’s a new product
being offered for sale that will improve our
life, our body, our mind.

We can be healthier, have more energy, be less fat,
build muscles, be smarter, be more focused, more popular,
more rich, they promise.

“For a price we’ll tell you or sell you the secret!”

Many of these products or services actually work when used as directed.

Three problems though:

1. You trade away your money for a promise
2. You have to actually use it once you get it
3. And use it as directed.

Everyone understands the first one. Your hard earned money goes
out the door for something that might work for you.

As for the second, let’s take how-to books. Its a fact that only
60% of the population ever reads a book once they get out of school. And of those 60% who buy a book, only 28% ever finish the book they start.

Let’s break that down…A small number of people see the information they believe will help them, they buy it, then less than a third actually read what they bought!

What?

They couldn’t even be bothered to read what they bought
let alone DO what they needed to do to get the result they desired
when they bought the book.

Our attention spans suck! And they are getting shorter all the time.

Number three, last but not least, they failed to do what they needed to do as described
to get effective results. (how could they, they never finished reading!)

Sometimes we sabotage ourselves so badly!

We’re waiting for the White Knight to swoop in, wave his mighty sword, and scare all our demons away!

When should we stop constantly scanning the horizon for the arrival of a new quick fix?

There are real, simple, actionable solutions to our problems
setting right at our feet, unopened, still wrapped in plastic.

Let’s open the package now and see 7 FREE WAYS we can help ourselves live better,
longer, healthier lives!

(1) 34.3 million people in this country still smoke. Stop it. Every cigarette you smoke shortens your life by 13 minutes. You’ll save an enormous amount of money and add years to your life. Years you can spend doing fun stuff with all the money you saved by quitting. There are many ways to quit. All that’s missing is the will. Your will.

(2) Eat Healthier. We all have a choice at the supermarket. We know what the healthy foods are. Hint: They don’t come in a box. More fruit and vegetables. Less soda. Less salt. Less sugar. Less eating out at restaurants where they serve us WAY TOO MUCH food, with way too much salt and sugar inside.

(3) Eat Less. This will be huge in helping you be less huge. Scientific studies show we modern humans eat too much and move too little. The average American consumes 3300 calories per day. We only need 2500 and women only 1900. Is it any surprise we’re a fat nation? Eat less. Simple, yet so hard to do. Studies have shown that reducing calories is far more effective at reducing weight than exercise. Exercise IS great for the body in general, but not so great for losing weight. Eat less, save money, live a longer healthier life. One easy way to do this is to reduce the size of your plate…a lot! No seconds. Easy-peazy!

(4) Exercise more. Walking is good exercise. You can do that right? Park farther away when you go to the store. We always fight to get the closest spot. (Elderbob hates when I park far away…I tell him “Shut Up! It’s good for you.” Walking in nature has been proven to add a calming effect. Less weight + less stress + exercise = longer life. Ancient Chinese secret…Tai Chi. Go to any big Chinese park and you’ll see people of all ages doing Tai Chi, very low body stress movements that increase strength, coordination, balance, and promote circulation and relaxation. You can do it in your own home too! Everyone can invest 15 to 30 minutes a day in their health. Move it or lose it. Why not add healthier years to your life? Invest 30 minutes a day in moving. You can sit on the couch and watch “Days Of Our Life” or get up and move your body to create more days of YOUR life.

(5) Calm the F#!k down. Stress kills. Why you gotta be getting so upset about things, small things. Listen, you can’t control everything so stop trying. Elderbob wants me to “honk my horn at those idiots”. “Relax,” I say. He gets mad when lettuce is $2.50 for a head or oranges are $3.00 each. You can’t control what the supermarkets charge. Elderbob gets upset at the pumps too. You can’t control the price of gasoline. You can’t. You can’t control what the idiot Washington bureaucrats do. You can’t control the news on TV or why they bumped your favorite show to a different night. Calm the F#!k down. Stress kills. You can’t control all kinds of things in your life but you CAN CONTROL how you react to them. Step back. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and say, “Hmmm…how about that?” Or, “Oh well, I guess I’ll just go do this other thing.” Do some art, or reading, or meditation each day. Add some quiet time to your life. Take a hot bath, relax. We need our down time too. We’re so always connected these days, jumping at every email ping, or Facebook ding. We gotta watch just one more YouTube video. Put the phone down. Step away. Relax. We’re all just too stressed out.

(6) Have more fun. I tell Elder this all the time. Have more fun. Do something just for fun each day. 15 minutes at least. What would you do just for fun? You don’t have to be good at it either. Would you draw? Doodle? Crosswords? Watch funny cat videos? Play the guitar, piano, banjo? Play for 15 minutes every day. Wrestle the dog. Play with the cat, play with your children for God’s sake! 15 minutes of pure, unadulterated fun. Dance as if no one’s watching. Sing. Sculpt. Paint. Many religions believe we were made in the image of our Creator, so…create! Bake a cake, knit a scarf, build a birdhouse. Fire up the train set. S-E-X anyone? Put some play into your life. There’s a kid still in you that wants to play. Let him/her play. Laugh more. Smile more. Get excited! Have something to look forward to each day. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Jill too. Not only will this help you live longer, but you’ll also want to!

(7) Sleep more. Study after study has shown that we need more sleep than we’re getting. Its preventive medicine so we slack. “I’ll do it tomorrow”. Sleep is when our body rejuvenates, repairs and recharges. When we skimp on sleep, the body runs down. We shorten our life. We think we’re getting more done now by cutting into our sleep time, but what we fail to recognize is that we’re simply borrowing that time from the time we have left here on Earth. We live more now, but we die sooner. This is my Kryptonite too, so we can work on this one together. I love to stay up late. Doing Stuff. Mostly stupid stuff on the internet. I’ll see something interesting then be dragged down the Rabbit Hole of “Oh, and this looks interesting too!” Elderbob hates this. He punishes me the next day by nodding off at all crazy times when I’m trying to do something. We ALL need more sleep. Kids and adults. This is totally our bad. We are in control of this, so lets.

Put this all under the heading of Personal Responsibility. Oooooo…that’s a nasty phrase! We don’t like that. We don’t like to take personal responsibility. We don’t want to be told, “That’s Your Fault”. We’d rather someone else come fix the mess we’re in, and right now too! Sorry. Doesn’t work that way. We got ourselves into the mess we’re in by our own behavior. We knew we were doing something wrong, but then got surprised when things went bad.

We didn’t get where we are suddenly. It took time. Time spent doing unhealthy things to our bodies. It’s going to take time too, to fix it. If yesterday is the best time to start fixing things, extending our life and making it happier and healthier, would today be the second best time? Not tomorrow certainly. Forget it. It never comes. Annie sang, “Its always a day away”.

Let’s do it now. You want to live a longer, happier, healthier life too right?

Put down that food your eating. Stop drinking. Get up.

And do something fun!

(That’s 7 Free Ways to Die Later… Help yourself!)

‘Bene Vivere!”

Bob Schwarztrauber