10 Ways To Add 10 Years To Your Life

Follow these science-backed lifestyle musts and you could enjoy up to a decade more of healthy life

- Tanya Pearey

No matter how old you are, you have the power to change factors that influence how long you live – and make yourself healthier and happier. We can’t do much about our luck or genetics, but we can control how we live our lives.

Years of research prove what impact this can have on our life expectancy and general health. Here are 10 steps recommended by health experts – each of which could give you an extra year of healthy life…

1 Prioritise sleep

Aim for six to eight hours a night. Sleep for less and you raise your risk of heart disease and death, according to a worldwide study published in the European Heart Journal. Studies have also found that sleeping for longer than eight hours increases your risk of illness and dying earlier. If you regularly sleep less or more, contact your GP.

2 Get pedalling

Danish research discovered that those who cycled daily lived almost four years longer than those who did minimal exercise. They even lived five months longer than regular runners. Cycling is a great aerobic exercise that puts minimal strain on joints, but it doesn’t help keep bones strong, so make sure you get some bone-strengthening impact exercise too – such as star jumps!

3 Limit the booze