What's the secret to living a long, healthy and fulfilling life? Probably not shovelling pizza into your mouth and guzzling beer, unfortunately. Still, one person who claims to have the real answers is Dr Shigeaki Hinohara.
He's 104 years old and, by all accounts, still lives a healthy, happy and active life in Japan. In his century-plus of existence, he's written more than 150 books about doing so. Which is an incredible work rate, so we think he might just be onto something.
The crux of it all, though, seems to be living life to the fullest and just not worrying. And while it's not quite the case that the more you worry the shorter you'll live, there does seem to be some kind of correlation between the two.
Dr Hinohara, for example, still works 18 hours a days. While that doesn't sound like much fun, the key is to do something you actually enjoy doing, rather than slaving away in the rat race forever trying to accumulate wealth.
After all, as he points out, you can't take it with you when you go, so it's something of a false economy. Obviously, it's nice to have money and it makes things a lot easier, but you don't need to waste your life earning millions and millions. It's much better to do something you absolutely love and, if you can, try to serve your community at the same time.
Hand in hand with that comes this crucial piece of advice: stop worrying so much. Sure, it's easier said than done, but according to Dr Hinohara, life is an unpredictable chain of events, and worrying about what is or isn't going to happen will only lead to stress that could trigger depression and other problems. It's much better to stay positive about things.
In addition to staying fit - taking stairs instead of the lift, for example, and leading as active a life as you possibly can - Dr Hinhara says that it's also important to keep your brain's health in check by planning things ahead of time. As such, Dr Hinohara - who's 104, remember - has already booked himself a spot at the 2020 Olympics in Japan.
It's also important to stay motivated, and you should always seek inspiration in order to do so. That will help you live a more successful life. Which sounds great to us, to be honest. So in other words: don't worry, be happy.
Featured Image Credit: Karsten Thormaehlen (Creative Commons)Topics: World News, Inspirational, Interesting, Community, Health