Japanese Secrets of a Long Life

The Japanese are the longest living people in the world. The Okinawans live even

longer but they are part of Japan. In the U.S. most people are interested in eating

food that tastes good, not health. For many decades the majority of Japanese were

interested in health. People in Japan have done a lot of research on finding the

healthiest foods.

Of course there are many factors that contribute to their health but the most

important one is that they make health a priority. Stress may be the worst thing for

health. In the Japanese society they try to be calm like Buddha. So they know that

they must do things to help them to be relaxed.

When I was 14 years old, I went to Japan for a Boy Scout World Jamboree. In the

hotel they have very large hot tubs. It is like a pool with a place to sit round the rim

of it. Also they are used to keeping it at a very hot temperature and so Americans

usually need to lower the temperature of it. They sit in it a while to get very

relaxed. The Japanese also have hot mud baths that are in the ground. They sit in

them to become very relaxed.

Many of them are Buddhists and so they do meditation. Studies show that meditaion is very

relaxing, fights stress and helps people to live longer. The most

popular supplement in Japan is whole food called chlorella. It is a green algae that

grows grows very quickly. It can double its mass in 2 or 3 days. They call this the

chlorella growth factor that they believe can benefit your health.

In Japan they eat a lot of soybeans. Now many websites say that soybeans are not

good for health but that may be because they are GMO. The U.S. government

websites all say that soybeans are good for health. It is a fact that they are

extremely nutritious. They also eat a lot of fermented soybeans that may be even

better for health.

There is one femented soybean product called natto. It is the only source of the MK7

form of vitamin K-2 that works much better than the other forms of vitamin K-2.

What it does is it helps calcium to leave the arteries where it can form plaque and

help calcium to enter the bones making them stronger.

They also drink a lot of green tea in Japan that has many health benefits. They even

have a special kind of green tea called matcha tea where they grind the tea leaves

into a powder and put the powder into hot water. If you drink green tea all day, it

will greatly benefit your health. Green tea is the most alkaline tea that there it.

They have done many studies on green tea. One study showed that the more that

people drank, the less chance of cancer one has. There is a rare amino acid in it

called theanine. It relaxes people and conteracts the effects of caffeine. It reduces

the chance of getting dementia or Alzheimer's disease. The EGCG in it helps people

to lose weight. The chlorophyll in it is very cleansing to the body.

I was talking to a woman from Japan that was going to school in America. She told

me that the Japanese eat a lot less food than Americans do. Even though they do

eat meat it is only a fraction of the meat that Americans eat. Eating less food has

many health benefits. The majority of Japanese people are not overweight whereas

most Americans are overweight.