It’s perhaps one of the most existential issues of our time: While so many of us are living longer than those who came before us, of what value is that longer life if it’s not accompanied by good health? Do you really want to live a longer life if your last years are spent in disease, dependency, or perhaps even dementia? Is it worth trying to extend your life span if you can’t also extend your health span? Dr. Peter Attia, a physician who has dedicated his medical practice to helping patients extend their health span alongside their life span, calls these later years the “marginal decade,” when we have the medicine and technology to keep us alive but perhaps lose our ability to remain independent and autonomous. Dr. Attia is among several experts trying to extend our longevity and ensure it’s accompanied by good health. Others working on this goal include Dan Buettner, the expert behind The Blue Zones movement.

The Blue Zones concept was first developed by Buettner, with the support of National Geographic and a grant from the National Institute on Aging, to map out areas in the world where people were living the longest, and to discover lessons that could be learned by studying these populations. Five regions were identified where the populations had a higher percentage of people living healthy lives well into their 80s, 90s, and beyond. In places as diverse as Okinawa, Japan, and Loma Linda, California, it became apparent that certain lifestyles and behaviors were keeping people healthy into their very late years. (If you’d like to visit any of these five places, here’s a guide as to how you can do so). The lessons included basic lifestyle factors such as physical movement, a plant-based diet, social connections, and leading a purposeful life.

Buettner, now 63, tries to use the lessons learned to guide his daily activities (his own doctor tells him he’s in the top 1% of healthy people his age). Not a gym person or aerobics fanatic, he’s instead constantly walking or engaging in daily physical activity he enjoys, like biking, paddle surfing, or pickleball. He eats a mostly plant-based diet, including a large daily dose of beans, and he limits his eating to a 10-12 hour window each day. He also stops working at 5:00 each day and engages in nightly social activity as a way to keep stress low and social connection high. In a recent article in National Geographic, Buettner reveals tips you can use to create your own “Blue Zone.” Among his suggestions? Make meal time a social time, don’t completely deprive yourself of an occasional indulgence, and eat your biggest meal of the day earlier rather than later. For a more in-depth understanding of how you too can live like a Blue Zone resident, there is a brand new online course being offered by a collaboration between Arizona State University and the Blue Zones organization, intended as a self-paced class for lifelong learners to incorporate Blue Zone lessons into their own lives. To learn more about this course, find a notebook and click here.

Dr. Attia also makes available to the public the lessons he’s learned and incorporated into his own life and medical practice. Author of the widely regarded recent book, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, Dr. Attia has shared his knowledge through his podcast, newsletter, and now a new program, called Early, that will (for a hefty fee) allow you to shape a personal longevity journey with healthy aging, through online personalized guidance. You can find out more about Dr. Attia’s expertise and personal healthy longevity strategies in this recent New Yorker article, and, as a bonus, you can access without charge a longevity guide and resource, published by Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, which includes an interview with Dr. Attia, among other longevity experts.