We’ve written before about the remarkable power of art to fuel our
brains. Not only does it nourish our imagination, but looking at art has
been found to activate critical parts of our brain, helping fend off
cognitive decline and dementia. Actually making art brings
additional benefits, reducing stress (and the inflammation kindled by
stress) and amplifying our sense of wellbeing. But perhaps we can also
learn from the lives of artists, many of whom live for above-average
life spans with beyond-average health. How do they do this?
For my latest book, Windswept, (thank you to the 413 of you
who tuned in to watch our webinar on walking!), I spent months
researching one of my artistic and longevity heroines: Georgia O’Keeffe.
O’Keeffe died quietly, a few months short of her 99th
birthday. And although she’d previously had breast cancer, she was
disease-free other than failing eyesight. Her long and healthy life was
nothing to do with her genes – both her parents died in middle age. So
what can O’Keeffe teach us about a life lived both well and long?
While investigating O’Keeffe’s walking routes I also spent time in
her library, where I discovered a large number of health and longevity
books. It appears that, from her 60s onwards, O’Keeffe was fascinated
by good health and determined to improve her own. Her library included
numerous cookery books but also books on vitamins, wholegrains,
exercise, organic gardening as well as books with titles like ‘How to Live to 180’ and ‘Cook Right – Live Longer.’
O’Keeffe knew a mere fraction of what we know today. For most of her
life she had no access to exotic superfoods, supplements, sunscreen,
personal trainers/gyms or HRT. And yet she had an instinctive
understanding of what the body and soul need to survive and thrive. And –
in my view – she looked utterly fantastic until the very end.
These are a few of the less-known things I learned about Georgia O’Keeffe, which may have helped:
She lived at altitude, spending most of her time in a ranch
7000 feet up. We’ve not written about altitude before but living at a
reasonably high altitude (between 4,900 and 8000 feet) has been found to
enhance health and longevity in men and – particularly – in women. A study
of 10 million Americans found those living at altitude lived for 1-3
years longer than those living at sea level. And the higher the altitude
the greater the longevity benefit. Risk of heart attacks fell
dramatically at high altitude – particularly for women.
At altitude the air is thinner and contains less oxygen, encouraging
our hearts to work harder. Researchers think this protects our hearts by
making them work more efficiently. Funnily enough, doctors worked this
out two centuries ago, sending the sick and exhausted to rest in Alpine
sanatoriums.
She grew her own organic fruit and vegetables. Having spent
several years living in New York, O’Keeffe moved to a remote and
isolated spot in New Mexico when she was in her mid-50s. Here she
gardened, growing all her own organic fruit and vegetables, well away
from the scourge of pollution and noise – both of which we’ve written
about before. More and more research is linking pollution to poor
health, while gardening is increasingly recognised as therapeutic in
numerous ways. I talked on our webinar about the importance of getting our hands physically on nature – in soil, on tree trunks, among grass.
She rose at dawn every day, had a cup of herbal tea, then ran through a series of stretching exercises based on a practise called Mensendieck, proven in studies
to improve motor function and reduce lower back pain. Starting each day
with stretching exercises was something two of the nonagenarians in The Age-Well Project swore by.
We’re huge fans of setting our circadian clocks by waking at the same
time every day, as O’Keeffe did. A long term study of 32,000 nurses
found that “early risers” were up to 27% less likely to develop
depression. A study
published last month found that night owls who shifted their sleep/wake
clocks to rise at 6am (O’Keeffe’s time) cut their risk of depression by
a whopping 40%. We talked on our webinar about the relationship
between light and the feel-good hormone, serotonin. Research suggests
that an abundance of daylight improves our mood.
She ate three home-cooked meals a day, starting with a large
breakfast that often included meat, nuts and yogurt. As we get older our
bodies benefit from extra protein and B12. Her daily portion of meat
would have ensured she got both sufficient protein and sufficient B12.
Her daily yogurt provided a good dose of probiotics, and an intriguing study
from 2020 links daily yogurt consumption to a reduced risk of breast
cancer – scientists speculate that one of the causes of breast cancer
may be inflammation triggered by harmful bacteria. The bacteria in
yogurt could dampen this inflammation, apparently. Another reason to
have a spoonful of yogurt every day.
O’Keeffe – who loved cooking and often went to bed with a cookery
book – then ate a light lunch. Soufflé and salad with foraged herbs was a
favourite. She ate her last meal at 5pm – fruit and cheese. An early
supper ensured she fasted for 15 hours each night. And yes, we’ve
written about the importance of a long overnight fast too. And we all
know the importance of eating plentiful vegetables every day. She
avoided sugar and, being a farmer’s daughter, canned and froze her own
garden produce for the long, cold New Mexican winters.
O’Keeffe ate cheese every day. She never broke a bone – and
her daily piece of calcium-rich cheese bought from the next door farm,
where she also bought her (organic) milk and butter, may have helped.
She was out in the sun every day – New Mexico has 300 days of
sunshine a year (yes, I know… sigh). Without any Factor 50, her body
lapped up plenty of Vitamin D. Research from Sweden has found that women
who get more sun live longer – we wrote about the astonishing power of
sunlight here.
She walked her dogs every day, lengthy walks and climbs that
had her much-younger visitors puffing and panting. She walked long
distances all her life, much of it up and down hills – which, as I
explained on our webinar, works every muscle in the lower half of our
body. We’ve also extolled the age-well benefits of dogs on several
occasions: good for your gut, your serenity, and so much more. Let’s not
forget cats – a recent study published in Current Biology
found that cats form deep social bonds with their owners, possibly
deeper than those formed by dogs. They just express themselves in a
different way. As cat owners will already know….
O’Keeffe was an avid reader. When her sight went, she got
someone to read to her for an hour every night. We’ve written about why
readers live longer in our book and recently at Noon.
She also loved travelling, which is to say she regularly
exposed herself to novelty. Aged 72, O’Keeffe embarked on a world tour,
spending weeks in India, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan,
the Middle East and Rome. Two years later she rafted for seven days down
the Colorado River. At the age of 87 she toured Morocco on a donkey,
impelled by her intense curiosity and sense of wonder. She took her last
Big Trip aged 96, to Costa Rica. Studies of superagers show many of
them to be keen travellers: neuroscientists think travel could enhance
our cognitive health because of the way in which new environments force
our brains to work harder. After months of map-reading, talking to
strangers and grappling with alien local customs as I followed in the
footsteps of my Windswept Women, I can vouch for this.
O’Keeffe exposed herself to heat and to cold. Her pueblo
bungalow had no central heating, and she recounts being hot in the
summer and cold in the winter– but she loved the elements. She loved the
wind, she adored storms, she had no truck with a bit of cold, often
camping high in the desert where nightly temperatures plunged below
zero. We say: keep taking those inflammation-busting cold showers!
O’Keeffe possessed grit – something else we wrote about in The Age-Well Project and a trait possessed by all the women I researched for Windswept.
Grit (or resilience) enables us to learn and move on from set-backs. It
doesn’t mean we bounce back. It means we learn, recover, accommodate
our pain/grief/loss and then move forwards as older, wiser, and changed
human beings. O’Keeffe had to recover from numerous set-backs,
including the early deaths of both parents, nervous breakdowns in which
she was hospitalised, an unfaithful husband, wounding reviews, cancer
and a mastectomy. And much more besides.
Incidentally, psychologists often attribute ‘grit’ to cognitive
flexibility – a capacity to be open-minded and adaptive. Cognitive
flexibility has been linked to both creativity and longevity as well as
resilience. Read more about cognitive flexibility here.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, O’Keeffe had a profound sense of purpose.
She knew she wanted to be a painter from the age of 12. She made huge
sacrifices to become a painter, ultimately dedicating her life to her
work. As she said ‘I’ve always known what I wanted – most people don’t’.
She didn’t rate happiness, saying it comes and goes. It was work that
made her pulse race. Every day she lugged canvases and paints outside,
often painting for 14 hours a day. When her sight went, she turned to
ceramics, working to the very end.
We can’t all be successful artists. But we can cultivate a
sense of purpose and meaning. We can all seek out interests that give us
joy and spark our curiosity. And we can all walk, stretch, fast
over-night, eat a balanced diet and develop our grit. Some can even
handle the odd cold shower.
And doesn’t O’Keeffe look splendid? With her single breast, without
hair dye, make-up, botox or fillers, she reminds us all how to live
comfortably in our own skin.
Do you have a longevity hero or heroine? Please do share with us in the comment box or on social media. We’d love to hear.
And if you missed the webinar, you can watch it here.
Alternatively if you’d rather listen while you walk, you can hear me discussing Windswept with the wonderful Catie Friend here.
Annabel
