Longevity Lessons from Leslie

My parents lived healthily into their 80s. Dad (Leslie) lived longest – to 89, Mum (Elaine) lived to 82. 

Talking healthspan – they were both healthy up to their last 6months. It allowed them to enjoy their lives, right up to the end. While others spent years or even a decade sick with various ailments, they had short stints of health issues and were quickly back on deck. 

So what was their secret? Or more so, what were Leslie’s Lessons in Longevity as he lived longest? 

1. Don’t drink alcohol: Les and Elaine never drank, not a drop. Well a drop – church communion didn’t count. Dad made a decision early in life after seeing drunks getting about his suburb, which was an extremely poor neighborhood, never to drink. He believed in the health benefits of this long before it was a hip trend. Most of his best friends died 5-10 years earlier than him due to drink related health concerns (eg corectal cancer).
2. Have simple needs: Dad used to say “Do you want that, or need it?” While frustrating for me as a kid, it gave me enough pause to consider whether I really truly needed something. Normally this would be a conversation around material things, but it works for one’s diet as well. A simple diet, as my parents had, kept them very healthy. These days their diet could be improved, but at the time they set their habits (in the 1960s) it was pretty healthy. They didn’t eat out more than a handful of times per year (and when they did it was one small lemonade for the whole meal). Take out food was no more than once per week.
3. Be a creature of habit: Dad ate oats for breakfast. Every. Single. Day. He prepared the oats the night before and had the same morning routine every day. He took his lunch to work – always a sandwich, which meant he avoided the fatty chips (fries) that most other blokes were eating. 
4. Run – Walk – Exercise: Dad ran several times a week, right up till he was 88. He ran right up to his last 6months. As he got older he had to run/walk, usually block for block. While he was fit as a youth (playing lacrosse and Aussie Rules footy into his late 20s) he stopped running during his professional career but started up again in retirement. When he worked, he maintained a lunchtime walk in place of the run. And in the evenings he would do a handful of exercises before bed; just a few sit ups and the like. 
5. Believe: We was a firm believer in belief. He was Anglican all his life and went to church every Sunday. He was also a Freemason and staunchly believed in the principles of Freemasonry (Truth, Relief, and Brotherly Love). For him, as long as you believed in something, that was OK. These days we’d probably call that a “commitment to values”. The important thing is that his belief kept him going in even the toughest of times. 
6. Community: He was a member of so many community groups, most notably church and freemasonry but also Scouts, Probus and various other groups. When he was 85 he told me he was a member of 13 community groups, but thought he should cut it down to 11 so he wasn’t over doing it. His community kept him social and always very happy. 
7. Mental stimulus: Not to harp on Freemasonry (I’m not a Freemason myself), but it kept him very mentally active. Freemasons are required to memorize long passages of ritual, which is both spoken and action based (you may have heard of the “degrees” they work; it’s where we get the phrase “putting him through the third degree”). 
8. Live to 100: He was a determined old bugger – he maintained that he would live to 100 and collect his letter from the Queen. He didn’t quite make it, but it gave him a firm commitment to being healthy. Really, he was the healthiest retiree I ever knew. He also said “reach for the stars, you might only get to the ceiling, but that’s better than the floor”. In the end, he really embodied that ethos. 

In summary, my parents, and particularly my Dad, used some basic principles for living a long and healthy life. It really boils down to mental and physical health: looking after one’s diet and exercise, being mentally stimulated, spiritually active and socially engaged. I hope Ive inherited enough of these good habits!