Humans have searched for the secret to immortality for thousands of years. For some people today, that quest includes things like sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber, experimenting with cryotherapy or blasting oneself with infrared light.
几千年来，人类一直在寻找长生不老的秘密。对于今天的一些人来说，这种探索包括睡高压氧舱，实验冷冻疗法，或者用红外线照射自己。
Most aging experts are skeptical that these actions will meaningfully extend the upper limits of the human life span. What they do believe is that by practicing a few simple behaviors, many people can live healthier for longer, reaching 80, 90 and even 100 in good physical and mental shape. The interventions just aren’t as exotic as transfusing yourself with a young person’s blood.
大多数老龄化专家怀疑这些方法是否真正能够延长人类寿命的上限。但他们相信，通过一些简单的行为，许多人可以活得更健康、更长寿，在80岁、90岁甚至100岁的时候保持良好的身心状态。这些干预措施并不像输入年轻人的血液那么奇特。
“People are looking for the magic pill,” said Dr. Luigi Ferrucci, the scientific director of the National Institute on Aging, “and the magic pill is already here.”
“人们在寻找神奇药丸，”美国国家衰老研究所的科学主任路易吉·费鲁奇博士说，“然而神奇药丸就在这里。”
Below are seven tips from geriatricians on how to add more good years to your life.
下面是老年病专家给出的7条建议，告诉你如何延长你的寿命。
1. Move more.
1. 多运动。
The number one thing experts recommended was to keep your body active. That’s because study after study has shown that exercise reduces the risk of premature death.
专家建议的第一件事就是保持身体活跃。因为一项又一项研究表明，运动可以降低过早死亡的风险。
Physical activity keeps the heart and circulatory system healthy and provides protection against numerous chronic diseases that affect the body and mind. It also strengthens muscles, which can reduce older people’s risk of falls.
体育活动可以保持心脏和循环系统的健康，并提供保护，防止许多影响身心的慢性疾病。它还能增强肌肉，从而降低老年人跌倒的风险。
“If we spend some of our adult years building up our muscle mass, our strength, our balance, our cardiovascular endurance, then as the body ages, you’re starting from a stronger place for whatever is to come,” said Dr. Anna Chang, a professor of medicine specializing in geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.
加州大学旧金山分校专攻老年病学的医学教授安娜·张（音）博士说：“如果我们在成年后花一些时间锻炼肌肉、增强力量、增强平衡力、增强心血管耐力，那么随着身体年龄的增长，你就有了一个更强壮的基础，迎接未来的一切。”
The best exercise is any activity you enjoy doing and will stick with. You don’t have to do a lot, either — the American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, meaning just walking a little more than 20 minutes a day is beneficial.
最好的锻炼是任何你喜欢做并能坚持下去的活动。你也不需要做太多的运动——美国心脏协会建议每周进行150分钟的中等强度运动，这意味着每天步行20分钟以上就很有益了。
2. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
2. 多吃水果蔬菜。
The experts didn’t recommend one specific diet over another, but they generally advised eating in moderation and aiming for more fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods. The Mediterranean diet — which prioritizes fresh produce in addition to whole grains, legumes, nuts, fish and olive oil — is a good model for healthy eating, and it’s been shown to lower the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and dementia.
专家们并没有推荐一种特定的饮食方式，但他们普遍建议适度饮食，多吃水果蔬菜，少吃加工食品。地中海饮食——除了全谷物、豆类、坚果、鱼类和橄榄油外，还优先考虑新鲜农产品——是健康饮食的良好典范，而且已被证明可以降低患心脏病、癌症、糖尿病和失智的风险。
Some experts say that maintaining a healthy weight is important for longevity, but to Dr. John Rowe, a professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University, that’s less of a concern, especially as people enter old age. “I was always more worried about my patients who lost weight than my patients who gained weight,” Dr. Rowe said.
一些专家说，保持健康体重对长寿很重要，但在哥伦比亚大学卫生政策和老龄化问题教授约翰·罗看来，这不是什么大问题，尤其是当人们步入老年时。“我总是更担心那些体重减轻的病人，而不是体重增加的病人，”罗说。
3. Get enough sleep.
3. 保证充足睡眠。
Sleep is sometimes overlooked, but it plays a major role in healthy aging. Research has found that the amount of sleep a person averages each night is correlated with their risk of death from any cause, and that consistently getting good quality sleep can add several years to a person’s life. Sleep appears to be especially important for brain health: A 2021 study found that people who slept less than five hours a night had double the risk of developing dementia.
睡眠有时被忽视，但它在健康老龄化中起着重要作用。研究发现，一个人每晚的平均睡眠时间与任何死因的风险都相关，持续获得高质量睡眠可以使寿命延长数年。睡眠似乎对大脑健康尤其重要：2021年的一项研究发现，每晚睡眠不足5小时的人患失智症的风险增加了一倍。
“As people get older, they need more sleep rather than less,” said Dr. Alison Moore, a professor of medicine and the chief of geriatrics, gerontology and palliative care at the University of California, San Diego. Seven to nine hours is generally recommended, she added.
“随着年龄的增长，人们需要更多的睡眠，而不是更少，”加州大学圣地亚哥分校老年病学、老年学和姑息治疗主任、医学教授艾莉森·摩尔博士说。她还说，一般建议每天睡7到9个小时。
4. Don’t smoke, and don’t drink too much either.
4. 不要抽烟酗酒。
This goes without saying, but smoking cigarettes raises your risk for all kinds of deadly diseases. “There is no dose of cigarette smoke that is good for you,” Dr. Rowe said.
不用说，吸烟会增加罹患各种致命疾病的风险。“没有任何剂量的香烟对人体有益，”罗说。
We’re starting to understand how bad excessive alcohol use is, too. More than one drink per day for women and two for men — and possibly even less than that — raises the risk for heart disease and atrial fibrillation, liver disease, and seven types of cancer.
我们也开始了解过度饮酒的危害。女性每天喝一杯以上，男性每天喝两杯以上——甚至可能更少——会增加罹患心脏病、心房纤颤、肝病和七种癌症的风险。
5. Manage your chronic conditions.
5. 控制慢性疾病。
Nearly half of American adults have hypertension, 40 percent have high cholesterol and more than one-third have pre-diabetes. All the healthy behaviors mentioned above will help manage these conditions and prevent them from developing into even more serious diseases, but sometimes lifestyle interventions aren’t enough. That’s why experts say it’s critical to follow your doctor’s advice to keep things under control.
近一半美国成年人患有高血压，40%的人胆固醇高，超过三分之一的人处于糖尿病前期。以上提到的所有健康行为都有助于控制这些疾病，防止它们发展成更严重的疾病，但有时生活方式干预是不够的。因此，专家说，遵从医嘱，控制病情，这一点至关重要。
“It’s not fun to take the medications; it’s not fun to check your blood pressure and check your blood sugar,” Dr. Chang said. “But when we optimize all those things in a whole package, they also help us live longer, healthier, better lives.”
“吃药不好玩；查血压和查血糖也不好玩，”安娜·张说。“但是，如果我们把所有这一切优化为一个整体，它们会帮助我们活得更长、更健康、更好。”
6. Prioritize your relationships.
6. 重视人际关系。
Psychological health often takes a back seat to physical health, but Dr. Chang said it’s just as important. “Isolation and loneliness is as big a detriment to our health as smoking,” she said, adding that it puts us “at a higher risk of dementia, heart disease, stroke.”
与身体健康相比，心理健康往往处于次要地位，但安娜·张说，心理健康同样重要。“孤立和孤独对我们的健康的危害与吸烟一样大，”她说，她还说，这种情况使我们“罹患失智、心脏病和中风的风险更高”。
Relationships are key to not only living healthier, but also happier. According to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, strong relationships are the biggest predictor of well-being.
人际关系不仅是健康生活的关键，也是快乐生活的关键。根据哈佛成人发展研究，牢固的人际关系是幸福的最大可预测因素。
Dr. Rowe tells the medical students he teaches that one of the best indicators of how well an elderly patient will be faring in six months is to ask him “how many friends or family he’s seen in the last week.”
罗告诉他教的医科学生，判断一个老年病人在六个月内病情如何的最好指标之一是问他“上周见了多少朋友或家人”。
7. Cultivate a positive mind-set. 7. 培养积极心态。
Even thinking positively can help you live longer. Several studies have found that optimism is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, and people who score highly on tests of optimism live 5 to 15 percent longer than people who are more pessimistic. That may be because optimists tend to have healthier habits and lower rates of some chronic diseases, but even when accounting for those factors, the research shows that people who think positively still live longer.
就连积极的想法也能让你活得更久。几项研究发现，乐观与较低的心脏病风险有关，在乐观测试中得分高的人比悲观的人寿命长5%到15%。这可能是因为乐观主义者往往会有更健康的习惯，患某些慢性病的几率更低，但即使考虑到这些因素，研究表明，积极思考的人仍然活得更久。
If you had to pick one healthy practice for longevity, “do some version of physical activity,” Dr. Moore said. “If you can’t do that, then focus on being positive.”
摩尔说，如果只选择一种健康的长寿方式，那就“做一些体育活动”。“如果做不到这一点，那就专注于保持积极心态。”
Dana G. Smith Dana G.Smith是时报健康版面记者，她撰写从精神暴露疗法到新冠治疗趋势的方方面面。
翻译：晋其角
