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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
informative
Ever finished a book feeling super inspired? Because YUP THAT'S ME! Disclaimer... I work for Blue Zones Project and have met Dan Buettner a few times so I may be a little biased. I also will say that I have a hard time separating my previous knowledge of Blue Zones from the contents of the book so my thoughts and feelings truly are towards Blue Zones as a whole.
Dan Buettner does an awesome job explaining how happiness isn't just something individuals create for themselves. Happiness also derives from optimizing your environment, ensuring policies putting well-being first are in place, and shifting into a positive and purposeful mentality. Before you know it, you'll be nudged into living a happier, healthier life.
My favorite part of this book are the stories collected from around the world. All individuals that speak with Buettner come from very different communities/backgrounds and have unique life experiences; however, all seem to weave together the three strands Buettner focuses on: pleasure, purpose, and pride.
I strongly believe in the Blue Zones mission and I am so grateful for Dan Buettner, his research, and the current work done in our communities. Since joining the project and reading Blue Zones of Happiness, I can honestly say that I've become a much happier and healthier person.
Dan Buettner does an awesome job explaining how happiness isn't just something individuals create for themselves. Happiness also derives from optimizing your environment, ensuring policies putting well-being first are in place, and shifting into a positive and purposeful mentality. Before you know it, you'll be nudged into living a happier, healthier life.
My favorite part of this book are the stories collected from around the world. All individuals that speak with Buettner come from very different communities/backgrounds and have unique life experiences; however, all seem to weave together the three strands Buettner focuses on: pleasure, purpose, and pride.
I strongly believe in the Blue Zones mission and I am so grateful for Dan Buettner, his research, and the current work done in our communities. Since joining the project and reading Blue Zones of Happiness, I can honestly say that I've become a much happier and healthier person.
Much of the research discussed in this book I already was aware of.
I didn't relate to the Pride stream of happiness at all - especially not the example from Signapore.
And the other two streams of happieness pleasure and purpose - with their examples being Costa Rica and Denmark just made me want to move to those countries. Especially Costa Rica!
There are some good insights here but nothing hugely original.
I didn't relate to the Pride stream of happiness at all - especially not the example from Signapore.
And the other two streams of happieness pleasure and purpose - with their examples being Costa Rica and Denmark just made me want to move to those countries. Especially Costa Rica!
There are some good insights here but nothing hugely original.
Well-researched and well-presented common sense advice.
There is a lot of information in this book on how to make yourself and your community happier. It boils down to moving more, eating better, having healthy habits and not doing things that don't make you happy. And drink a glass of wine a day....done and done! It was helpful but not earth shattering.
Alright alright alright it’s REVIEW time…
Blue Zones of Happiness here we come. As mentioned in my other review of non-fiction this will be more a review of things that I want to remember rather than a typical this is why I liked this book…
For those that don’t know the “Blue Zones” project originally started looking for places in the world were people lived the longest live, in order to find the causes for that. Since then the “Blue Zones” has been expanded to Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living like the World’s Healthiest People and many more. It’s quite the franchise.
The Blue Zones of Happiness as the title might suggest is what the Blue Zones can teach us about living a happier life. The unique contribution of this book it to look at the issue not just from an individual level but also a social and community level. This is done through the concept of life radius which starts with Communities, then workplaces, social networks, home, wellbeing and finally inner life. A useful concept when working with someone to identify possible individual intervention strategies, as well as informing societal social work strategies.
So what does it say? Well the book can be summed in words 3:
PURPOSE
PLEASURE
PRIDE
Mix these 3 ingredient together in an individual and enable their pursuit in a society and vola! Happiness. The book summaries further though into the POWER of 9!
1. Love Someone – Commit to someone compatible with you, your interests, values and company you enjoy.
2. Inner Circle – Create a circle of a least 3 friends with whom you can have meaningful conversation, can call after a bad day for help and are generally happy (for every new happy friend that enters your social network, your own happiness increases by about 15 per cent).
3. Engage - Get out of the house! Engage with a group of people around your interests
4. Learn Likeability – Learn to be likeable to others, give genuine compliments, be a good friend, be happy yourself.
5. Move Naturally – get at least 30 min exercise per day
6. Look Forward – Focus on meaningful things, set goals, monitor progress. This will help you get more of what you want out of life.
7. Sleep Seven Plus – GET SOME SLEEP! Establish sleep routine (use sleep hygiene)
8. Shape Surroundings – Look at shaping your different life radiuses to favour happy decisions. Eg. don’t keep junk food in the fridge
9. Right Community – Live in a community which fosters wellbeing. Example: Immigrants moving from less happy countries to happier places such as Canada adopt the happiness levels of their new country within a year!
The rest of the book was good but to be honest lacked a lot of meat and seemed to be more interested in anecdotal evidence rather than real science. While I’m not a fan of just page after page of statistics I felt like this book erred on the side of not having enough weight behind some of it’s statements (Hence the low rating) it did however provide some useful stories and a good frame work when working with people.
Blue Zones of Happiness here we come. As mentioned in my other review of non-fiction this will be more a review of things that I want to remember rather than a typical this is why I liked this book…
For those that don’t know the “Blue Zones” project originally started looking for places in the world were people lived the longest live, in order to find the causes for that. Since then the “Blue Zones” has been expanded to Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living like the World’s Healthiest People and many more. It’s quite the franchise.
The Blue Zones of Happiness as the title might suggest is what the Blue Zones can teach us about living a happier life. The unique contribution of this book it to look at the issue not just from an individual level but also a social and community level. This is done through the concept of life radius which starts with Communities, then workplaces, social networks, home, wellbeing and finally inner life. A useful concept when working with someone to identify possible individual intervention strategies, as well as informing societal social work strategies.
So what does it say? Well the book can be summed in words 3:
PURPOSE
PLEASURE
PRIDE
Mix these 3 ingredient together in an individual and enable their pursuit in a society and vola! Happiness. The book summaries further though into the POWER of 9!
1. Love Someone – Commit to someone compatible with you, your interests, values and company you enjoy.
2. Inner Circle – Create a circle of a least 3 friends with whom you can have meaningful conversation, can call after a bad day for help and are generally happy (for every new happy friend that enters your social network, your own happiness increases by about 15 per cent).
3. Engage - Get out of the house! Engage with a group of people around your interests
4. Learn Likeability – Learn to be likeable to others, give genuine compliments, be a good friend, be happy yourself.
5. Move Naturally – get at least 30 min exercise per day
6. Look Forward – Focus on meaningful things, set goals, monitor progress. This will help you get more of what you want out of life.
7. Sleep Seven Plus – GET SOME SLEEP! Establish sleep routine (use sleep hygiene)
8. Shape Surroundings – Look at shaping your different life radiuses to favour happy decisions. Eg. don’t keep junk food in the fridge
9. Right Community – Live in a community which fosters wellbeing. Example: Immigrants moving from less happy countries to happier places such as Canada adopt the happiness levels of their new country within a year!
The rest of the book was good but to be honest lacked a lot of meat and seemed to be more interested in anecdotal evidence rather than real science. While I’m not a fan of just page after page of statistics I felt like this book erred on the side of not having enough weight behind some of it’s statements (Hence the low rating) it did however provide some useful stories and a good frame work when working with people.
I very much enjoyed Buettner's original [b:The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest|2213117|The Blue Zones Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest|Dan Buettner|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320442392s/2213117.jpg|2218905] so I thought this would be another slam dunk. Unfortunately, this really fell flat to me. By about half-way through, I got bored with the information as it got very repetitive and started to feel like filler just to make the book "long enough." I also really hated how so many of the recommendations definitely cannot apply to many people. One big example of this was all the shade Buettner threw at introverts: "Act extroverted, even if you are an introvert." I just don't believe that telling someone to act outside of what makes them feel happy (i.e., being recharged by having time alone) is good advice.
Nice! The happiest countries have different things going for them and similar things. Sense of community, educating the kids, preventative medical care, etc, and then there's the stuff that's unique to each country and totally doable in this country (meaning it's not limited to geographically). Like a productive career that can be accomplished in less than 40 hrs a week & includes a healthy, productivity-inducing amount of socializing. Sounds awesome to me, but I can see that's not going to be an overnight change in this part of the world. Dang it. ;-)
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
I have so many highlighted sections from this fascinating book. Just as Dan writes, "It won't give you instant fixes, but it will tell you how to stack the proverbial deck in favor of the most joyful, fulfilling, and appropriate life for you."