Scientific studies have shown that the risk for cancer goes up the less plant-based foods people have in their <a href="https://parade.com/986848/nancy_henderson/types-of-diets/">diets</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26148912/">specifically fruit and vegetables</a>.All vegetables contain <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249911/">antioxidants</a>, which help protect cells from free radicals, which play a role in disease and chronic illness. That means no matter what you end up buying from the produce section or farmers’ market, you’re eating with longevity in mind.

1. Vegetables

Like vegetables, fruit is also high in antioxidants. When you eat fruit, keep the skin on because it contains pectin, which is a soluble fiber that’s good for the gut. In fact, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3513325/">fiber is another nutrient that’s majorly linked to longevity</a>, and you’ll see it pop up not just in vegetables and fruit, but in other foods on this list too. In terms of specific fruits to add to your diet, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1413581/">blueberries</a> have been shown to be an especially good one because they are high in polyphenols, a type of antioxidant linked to longevity.

2. Fruits

When it comes to protein sources, experts say to prioritize plant-based proteins and they especially recommend legumes. Legumes are full of protein, and fiber, and don’t contain saturated fat or cholesterol. They are a staple in regions of the world where people regularly live to be over 100 and in good health, such as Nicoya, Costa Rica; Sardinia, Italy; and Ikaria, Greece.

3. Legumes

Experts recommend a diet that includes whole grains such as oats, quinoa, and brown rice because they’re full of fiber and help keep blood sugar levels steady. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32641435/">This helps protect against type two diabetes</a>, and is important because people with two diabetes have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568010/">a decreased life expectancy up to eight years</a> compared to people who don’t have diabetes.

4. Whole Grains

Remember that link between fiber and longevity? It’s why incorporating flax seeds or chia seeds into your meals because they are especially great sources of soluble fiber, which helps aid digestion and may help reduce cholesterol.

5. Chia seeds or flax seeds

Both experts recommend incorporating nuts into your meals because they have several nutrients linked to longevity including fiber, plant-based protein, antioxidants, and unsaturated fats—which are beneficial for heart health. One easy way to incorporate them into meals is to sprinkle them in your salad.

6. Nuts

There’s a reason why <a href="https://parade.com/1005514/marijkevroomendurning/gut-health-diet/">gut health</a> is a hot topic in the world of health and wellness;  If you want to live a long, healthy life that it’s imperative for your gut to be full of good bacteria. One way to do this is by eating fermented foods, like kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, and tempeh. These foods provide our guts with good bacteria that are linked to helping our overall health.

7. Fermented Foods

Vegetables as a category may already be on the list, but this is one that’s worth calling out specifically because it’s so beneficial.In Okinawa, Japan (a “Blue Zone” where many people regularly live to be over 100 in good health), <a href="https://www.bluezones.com/2016/10/japans-longest-lived-women-hold-key-better-health/">sweet potatoes make up a full 60 percent of their total calories</a>. Like many foods on this list, sweet potatoes are full of fiber and antioxidants, and they also have 400 percent of the <a href="https://parade.com/1169058/kaitlin-vogel/vitamin-a-foods/">vitamin A</a> needed each day—an important nutrient that benefits the body’s immune system.

8. Sweet Potato

The health hype surrounding <a href="https://parade.com/1115442/parade/avocado-recipes/">avocado</a> is real. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31616932/">Avocados</a> are a good source of monounsaturated fatty acids, which help lower inflammation and support cardiovascular health. They’re also full of fiber and antioxidants.

9. Avocado

While adding all these foods are linked to living a longer life, Polizzi says it’s important to remember that diet is just one piece of the longevity puzzle. Exercising regularly, getting good sleep, and stress management are all important too. But on the food front, it’s important to find ways to eat the foods on this list that you actually like, making good use of the endless cookbooks and online recipe sites. After all, you’ll likely be eating them for a long, long time.

The Bottom Line

<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4696435/">Dark chocolate</a> makes the longevity list for the same reason that blueberries do: it’s high in polyphenols, which are especially good for heart health. To really reap the benefits, go for chocolate that’s 70 percent of cacao or more.

10. Dark Chocolate

10 best foods for longevity including vegetables, fruits, legumes, sweet potato, avocado, and more, plus why these foods are so good for you. 

food

Food

health

Health

longevity

Longevity

Want to Live to 100? Here Are the 10 Most Important Foods To Add to Your Diet

As human beings, we're very good at keeping going. We live up to our demands and carry out demands others place on us. We keep on showing up and can do this for decades at a time.
Then, one day, much to everyone's surprise, and our own, we break. We can no longer get out of bed. We fall into depression. We don't feel like eating. We refuse to play by the normal rules we've lived by.
But breakdowns are very inconvenient to others, so there's a rush to medicalise the problem so that it can be business as usual. To do this is to misunderstand what's going on.

Breaking down

A breakdown is an attempt of one part of our minds to force the other part into growth, self-understanding and self-development that we refuse to undertake. In essence, it's an attempt to jumpstart a process of getting well. 
There is then a danger to merely medicalising the breakdown and attempting to push it out the way. 
We break down because, over the years, there were messages we needed to hear but didn't pay attention to; emotional learning and communicating we didn't do until the emotional self became desperate to make itself heard.

A breakdown is a bid for health

A breakdown lets us know that things have to change. 
But we find it difficult to simply listen to the emotional need in good time because the conscious mind is inherently reluctant to engage with what the breakdown eventually has to tell it. For years it refuses to listen to sadness or to the dysfunction in a relationship.

A breakdown is telling us that it must not be business as usual

After a breakdown, many people will say that they don't know how they'd ever have gotten well if they didn't fall ill.
During a breakdown, we have not gone mad. We behave oddly, but deep inside, there is a search for health. If we can get through our crisis, it can dislodge us from a toxic status quo and call us to rebuild our lives more authentically.

Rebuilding our lives

Having a nervous breakdown could seem like the ultimate calamity. Far from it. Handled correctly, it can be a unique opportunity to learn - and to get properly well. For books and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://goo.gl/xQbjf7 Join our mailing list: http://bit.ly/2e0TQNJ Our website has classes, articles and products to help you think and grow: https://goo.gl/UKp6aa Z3L41X FURTHER READING “One of the great problems of human beings is that we’re far too good at keeping going. We’re experts at surrendering to the demands of the external world, living up to what is expected of us and getting on with the priorities as others around us define them. We keep showing up and being an excellent boy or girl – and we can pull this magical feat off for up to decades at a time, without so much as an outward twitch or crack...” You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://goo.gl/we9Rvx MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Visit us in person at our London HQ: https://goo.gl/P3jM5H Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself You can submit translations and transcripts on all of our videos here: https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UC7IcJI8PUf5Z3zKxnZvTBog&tab=2 Find out how more here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6054623?hl=en-GB SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Z3L41X Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Gemma Green-Hope http://www.gemmagreenhope.com #TheSchoolOfLife

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

videos

Videos

Having a nervous breakdown could seem like the ultimate calamity. Far from it. Handled correctly, it can be a unique opportunity to learn - and to get properly well.
For books and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://goo.gl/xQbjf7
Join our mailing list: http://bit.ly/2e0TQNJ 
Our website has classes, articles and products to help you think and grow: https://goo.gl/UKp6aa
Z3L41X

FURTHER READING

“One of the great problems of human beings is that we’re far too good at keeping going. We’re experts at surrendering to the demands of the external world, living up to what is expected of us and getting on with the priorities as others around us define them. We keep showing up and being an excellent boy or girl – and we can pull this magical feat off for up to decades at a time, without so much as an outward twitch or crack...”

You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://goo.gl/we9Rvx

MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE

Visit us in person at our London HQ: https://goo.gl/P3jM5H

Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: 
http://bit.ly/TSOLself

You can submit translations and transcripts on all of our videos here: https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UC7IcJI8PUf5Z3zKxnZvTBog&tab=2 
Find out how more here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6054623?hl=en-GB 


SOCIAL MEDIA

Feel free to follow us at the links below:

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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:
Gemma Green-Hope
http://www.gemmagreenhope.com #TheSchoolOfLife

We're interested in self-understanding, calm and emotional maturity.

We have thousands of articles about emotional life for you on our website: www.theschooloflife.com

We offer online psychotherapy: www.theschooloflife.com/therapy

We publish one film a week, on Wednesdays at 14.00hrs GMT.

The School of Life

The Importance of a Breakdown

Remind each person of their shared purpose when the conversation gets hard.When an office conflict happens, remind your co-workers upfront of where they align and the best-case scenario that could result from a difficult conversation.

Remind squabbling colleagues of their shared goals

Every person plays a role in an argument – and to stop repetitive loops, you need to find out what your role is.Once you can see your pattern, you can learn to observe when it’s happening and try to understand what your colleague is actually trying to say behind their hurt feelings.

Figure out your own conflict style

If you want to decline something your boss asks of you, you should offer a solution for where your talents are better used.

If you push back against your boss, they need to hear more than just a “no"

The language of how you talk about your exit matters. Before you can share the news with anyone else, you have to learn how to talk about it to yourself. You cannot have a fresh start if you see your new job as a fallback plan.

If you ultimately quit, don’t allow it to be a negative story of failure

They’re tied to historic injustices.  So put individual relationship dynamics in their larger social context, because those are the stories that are always present in decision-making rooms.

Some co-worker conflicts are not just about individual misunderstandings

communication

Communication

teamwork

Teamwork

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Esther Perel's Best Tips For Dealing With Difficult Work Relationships

Forgoing grooming and commuting gives at-home workers in the US an extra six hours compared to when they went into the office, according to a monthly survey of nearly 4,000 respondents put <a href="https://wfhresearch.com/">together</a> by a group of economists. Half of that extra time goes to more recreational activities, but they spend the other half working.

Giving More Work, From Home

Despite the extra work hours, many workers are reluctant to go back to the office full-time. On average, the 42,000 <a href="https://qz.com/work/1991968/how-covid-19-has-changed-how-we-work/">remote workers</a> polled since July 2020 have said they plan to work from home two days a week even after the pandemic subsidies. Employers are also warming up to a hybrid model in a post-pandemic world. While in 2020 they preferred employees work one day a week from home, they now feel comfortable with up to one and half days.

Don't Wanna Go Back To The Grind

While many employees are no longer wasting time trying to impress colleagues with clean clothes or makeup, they are also worried about losing the natural in-office interactions and social connections that would help them advance. Younger workers in particular said they are concerned working from home might affect whether or not they get a promotion.

Missing The Gossip

Half of time previously spent commuting and getting ready for the office now goes to more work; the other half goes to more free time.

productivity

Productivity

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

timemanagement

Time Management

WFH in your PJs adds three hours to your work week

Many tech companies have embraced home and hybrid work, such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Spotify etc. Something similar is happening in the financial sector. Trade unions are working on templates for home working agreements to minimise the risk of isolation and health and safety risks from working in an unsuitable environment. The least focus is on the inequality, what work involves, and how companies try to offload responsibility on individuals.

Home and hybrid working

<ul><li>Studies show that only a minority are able to work from home.</li><li>WFH may take away human interaction from some people.</li><li>Not being in an office may cut one from the collective workplace experiences.</li><li>Gender roles. American research showed that 79% of men experienced "positive work effectiveness" compared with 37% of women.</li><li>WFH also increase the average working day by 8.2%,</li><li>Computer surveillance.</li></ul> However, the real problem is that employers have built a model of home working on workplace cultures.

Work from home drawbacks

Instead of being fixated on home working, we should begin with flexibility, where people start and finish at times of their choosing, set free time and ensure that they make space for holidays. Companies should pair new recruits with dedicated mentors. Employees should have collective representation and the right to disconnect.

Improving people's lives

More flexibility could bring long-term benefits, says Guardian columnist John Harris

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

Working from home has entrenched inequality – how can we use it to improve lives instead? | John Harris

Before many office workers transitioned to remote arrangements, the thought of working from home sounded like a dream. Who doesn’t love the idea of ditching the commute and staying in your sweats? But those of us who have been working from home for years know the reality, and it isn’t always as stress-free as it sounds.
Loneliness, isolation, distractions, and Zoom fatigue are real, and they are challenges to overcome.
Effectively working from home involves five habits as below.

The Challenges Of WFH

If you must utilize more than one workspace in your home, establish the same environment, such as a pad of paper, photo, or inspirational quote, in each location every day. 
Repeating the set-up tells your brain that work is “on,” and the visual cue of returning to the same orchestrated workspace over and over will give you a sense of power.

Set The Stage

Address the “garbage work” that fills our day, like emails, meetings, protocols, and paperwork that drain the critical capacity of work-from-home teams. 
These low-value activities can become a barrier to getting to the important and meaningful aspects of your work, and reducing the burden requires a shift in mindset and language.

Ignore Low-Value Activities

Have a reductive mindset, where it becomes second nature to get rid of unnecessary things. Developing a reductive mindset means you adopt a habit—a reflex, tendency, effortless first inclination—to eliminate, or cut the unnecessary.
We must dismantle the additive instincts most companies and professionals have developed.

The Reductive Mindset

Taking breaks during the day is popular advice, but knowing when and for how long can be confusing. For example, the Energy Project tells you to follow the circadian rhythm of your body and take a break every 90 minutes, while the Pomodoro Technique suggests taking a break every 21 minutes.
Timed breaks don’t always fit well with your work. A more intuitive model suggests paying attention to your individual internal cues.

White Space: The Breaks In Between

Your inbox can derail your productivity if you let it. Instead of keeping the gateway to your email open all day long, productive people decide when they indulge and when they abstain from email.You can check at the top of every hour, for instance, or at the top and bottom of every hour. Some people check at mealtimes. Such a purposeful, periodic schedule creates vacuums between email checks into which your truly deep work can flow.

Set Aside Time For Email In Intervals

Productivity can hinge on compartmentalization, which is a vital habit of work-from-home professionals. Anytime you can put something in a box, literally or figuratively, it helps you focus.Email checking is compartmentalization. The paper anchor is compartmentalization.Use this concept to end your day visually by opening a literal compartment, such as a drawer or a cabinet, and placing all of your work-related items inside. Tuck them in and clock out.

A Clocking Out Ritual

Effective remote work involves these five habits, which prevent feelings of burnout and isolation.


habits

Habits

5 habits of people who are especially productive working from home

Keeping your nutrition in check can be tough when your home is your office. You feel comfortable and there’s plenty of food available. 
And unlike in the office, you’re free to graze all day and the fridge is all yours. But this habit can wreak havoc on your waistline, sabotage weight loss and halt your productivity.

Work From Home And Nutrition

Try to set up your desk in an area that’s not near the kitchen. You might be tempted to wander over and check the fridge if it’s constantly in your line of vision. 
Decide that the only time you’ll be in your kitchen during the workday is when you’re getting ready to have a planned snack or meal. If this is hard to follow, hang a sign on your fridge and pantry to remind you that the kitchen is closed until the next scheduled meal or snack.

Don't Work Near The Kitchen

Just as you schedule and plan out the rest of your day (get up, workout, shower), establish when throughout the day you’re going to eat. If you know you like to eat lunch around noon, plan for that. 
And if you like to have a snack in the late afternoon, plan for that as well. Treat food like you would in the office. You can’t be grazing all day long when you’re there – so act the same way at home.

Plan Your Snack and Meal Times

Once you hit the ground running, err, working, it can be hard to take a break to actually eat. But it’s important to know your hunger signs and realize that not eating can affect your alertness and productivity. 
Plus, eating throughout the day can save you from being a big hangry mess once 5 o’clock rolls around. If needed, set an alarm on your phone to remind you to get up and eat something.

Make Sure You Eat

There’s something freeing about being able to whip up whatever you want to eat for lunch (and not having to stand in line for the work microwave is a huge bonus). 
But for some people, the freedom is too much, especially when it comes to weekday lunches. If you can, try to meal prep your lunches ahead of time, just like you would on days you physically go to work.

Make Your Meals

Balanced, nutritious food makes us more productive. It keeps us fuller longer and helps us focus. Understand that what you eat will impact your mood and energy level. 
Think about this the next time you’re feeling hungry and just want to grab a handful of chocolate from the pantry. Focus on protein, fiber, healthy fats, fruits and veggies.

Eat Real Food

Dehydration can lead to headaches and fatigue, which are both not good for your productivity. 
Just as you’d fill up a water bottle at the office to keep at your desk, keep water next to your work station at home too. If you have water readily available, chances are you’re more likely to drink it, helping you reach your goal of at least 64 ounces per day.

Drink Water

Having access to endless cups of coffee might seem like a great idea, but tread carefully when it comes to caffeine. Too much is known to cause headaches, anxiety, digestive issues and even fatigue – none of which are ever good, but particularly not good when you’re trying to work. 
Aim for no more than two cups of coffee per day to avoid the jittery feeling and avoid flavored creamers and other high calorie add-ins!

Limit Your Caffeine Intake

Don’t stock your fridge or pantry like a vending machine. This can lead to eating just because you can! 
Try you best to keep junk food out of your house, especially foods you know can trigger a binge for you. Out of sight, out of mind.

Don't Buy Junk Food

You might be tempted to continue working through your lunch break now that your co-workers aren’t physically there. But don’t do it! Being distracted during a meal can lead to over-eating and decreased satiety (satisfaction and fullness) from the meal. 
Instead, take a break from work to sit down at a table to enjoy your lunch and relax for a few minutes. You’ll enjoy the meal more, and it may even help you feel more prepared for the rest of your work day.

Just Eat While Eating

Never eat out of the bag or original container, as it’s much harder to control portions that way. Check the serving size on the container if you need extra guidance. 
For meals, try the healthy plate method: Fill half a 9-inch plate with non-starchy vegetables, one-fourth the plate with a lean protein (poultry, seafood, beans, eggs, tofu, cottage cheese or Greek yogurt) and one-fourth the plate with a high fiber carbohydrate (fruit, whole grains or starchy vegetables).

The Right Portion

Keeping your nutrition in check can be tough when your home is your office. A dietitian discusses strategies for eating healthy while working from home.

10 Tips for Eating Healthy When You’re Working From Home

The one thing that has always made humans stand out from the rest is our ability to feel. In a world where someone’s career impacts their day-to-day life on such a large scale, the hiring process can be an emotional one. 
That’s why removing feelings from the process just isn’t an option. Machines don’t get people, and feelings can’t be automated. You have to be able to communicate and adapt in real time to be a great recruiter — not use more tools.

Hiring Is An Emotional Process

Machines are uniform, consistent and prefer one single outcome. Automation can only create one baseline. And the reality? There are so many more types of people in the world. Different kinds of people are applying for different kinds of jobs. Robots can’t adapt to real people with real wants and needs. A chatbot can recognize a word, sure, but the one thing it can’t recognize? Feelings.

Consistent Inconsistency

The hiring process is long, exhausting, and intimidating for both employers and candidates alike. And sometimes things don’t even work out after all of the effort to fill a position. If recruiters know how to communicate, positions will be filled quicker, and better candidates will be placed.

Value Of Better Talent Communication: Teaching Recruiters To Communicate Consistently

When the wrong candidate is brought in, it can set both a company and candidate’s life back by months as they scramble to reconfigure. But when a recruiter knows how to discuss a role effectively and communicate with a candidate, they can assess just who they’re hiring ahead of time — and if it’s going to work out for both parties.

Better Retention

Have you ever tried to maintain a conversation with someone who struggles to communicate? Imagine how that feels for a candidate who just wants to land the right position. When your recruiters are able to describe a role in a better job posting that sells, candidates will apply. Recruiters need to be the authority on the position they are working to fill. Communicating effectively and consistently will garner respect from candidates and ensure that they feel like they are entering into a reliable space.

Being Human

People Still Prefer People. Feelings Cannot Be Automated in Recruiting.

humanresources

Human Resources

Feelings Cannot Be Automated in Recruiting - ERE

I've been talking with a designer about joining our nascent Ios team. She'd be the first designer we've ever hired who was entirely focused on mobile design. It takes real confidence and self-awareness to talk to someone who's considering hiring you. I'm not sure if she likes what she did here or not, but that she said that.

Hiring A Designer

Before we make the final call on hiring a designer, we always give them a sample one-week project to do for us (we pay them $1500 for the one-week exercise).These quick one-week projects are the best way we’ve found to get inside their head — to know what they’re really capable of independently. The brief is broad and based on a real pain point that we haven’t solved yet.

A quick Project

We’re not looking for perfect — we know it’s only a week, and most people have day jobs so that week is typically only a few extra hours a night. What we’re looking for is clear thinking, solid design skills, and a mature, convincing presentation of their work. And, when we review their project with them, a calm, open-to-feedback demeanor that says “we’d love working with this person.”

Not Perfect

Before we make the final call on hiring a designer, we always give them a sample one-week project to do for us (we pay them $1500 for the one-week exercise). These quick one-week projects are the…

Want to Live to 100? Here Are the 10 Most Important Foods To Add to Your Diet

The Importance of a Breakdown

Esther Perel's Best Tips For Dealing With Difficult Work Relationships

WFH in your PJs adds three hours to your work week

Working from home has entrenched inequality – how can we use it to improve lives instead? | John Harris

Ryan Gutierrez