Live Long 101........by Dr. Hinohara

Dear friends, Please forgive me 

for stealing the following article. 

I was very touched by it and 

wanted you to see it too. 

I come from a long line of 

long livers. One aunt had a 

liver so long....but I digress. 

This article speaks to quality 

of life and I don't mean lazy 

over-indulgence. 

Dr. Hinohara is living a happy 

life helping others. I hope you 

too will be inspired by this amazing man. 

Advice From a 101Year Old Doctor!

Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, Japan, turned 101 last year. As a 97 year old Doctor, he was interviewed, and gave his  advice for a long and healthy life. Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world's longest-serving  physicians and educators. Hinohara's magic touch is  legendary: Since 1941 he has been healing patients   at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching  at St. Luke's College of Nursing. He has published around 15 books since his 75th birthday,  including one "Living Long, Living Good" that has sold  more than 1.2 million copies. As the founder of the New  Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to live a  long and happy life, a quest in which no role model is better  than the doctor himself. Doctor Shigeaki Hinohara's main points for a long  and happy life:  * Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating  well or sleeping a lot. We all remember how as children,  when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep.  I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too.  It's best not to tire the body with too many rules such  as lunchtime and bedtime. * All people who live long regardless of nationality,  race or gender share one thing in common: None are  overweight. For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk  and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it.  Olive oil is great for the arteries and keeps my skin healthy.  Lunch is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too   busy to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work.  Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week,  100 grams of lean meat. * Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full  until 2014, with lectures and my usual hospital work.  In 2016 I'll have some fun, though: I plan to attend the  Tokyo Olympics! * There is no need to ever retire, but if one must,  it should be a lot later than 65. The current retirement  age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average   life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125  Japanese were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese  women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we have   36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will  have about 50,000 people over the age of 100... * Share what you know. I give 150 lectures a year,  some for 100 elementary-school children, others for   4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90  minutes, standing, to stay strong. * When a doctor recommends you take a test or  have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would  suggest that his or her spouse or children go  through such a procedure. Contrary to popular belief,  doctors can't cure everyone. So why cause unnecessary  pain with surgery I think music and animal therapy can  help more than most doctors imagine. * To stay healthy, always take the  stairs and carry your own stuff.  I take two stairs at a time, to get my  muscles moving. My inspiration is Robert Browning's My inspiration is Robert Browning's  poem "Abt Vogler."  My father used to read it to me.  It encourages us to make big art,  not small  scribbles. It says to try to draw a  circle so huge that there is no way  we can finish it while we are alive.  All we see is an arch;  the rest is beyond our vision but it is  there in the distance. * Pain is mysterious,  and having fun  is the best way to forget it.  If a child has a toothache,  and you start playing a game together,  he or she immediately   forgets the pain.  Hospitals must cater to the  basic need of patients:  We all want to have fun. At St. Luke's we have music  and animal therapies, and art classes. * Don't be crazy about amassing material things.  Remember: You don't know when your number is up,  and you can't take it with you to the next place. * Hospitals must be  designed and  prepared for major  disasters, and they must   accept every patient who  appears at their doors.  We designed St. Luke's  so we can operate  anywhere: in the basement,  in the corridors, in the chapel.  Most people thought I was  crazy to prepare for a  catastrophe, but on  March 20, 1995, I was  unfortunately proven right  when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist  attack in the Tokyo subway. We accepted 740 victims and in two hours  figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly we lost one  person, but we saved 739 lives. * Science alone can't  cure or help people.  Science lumps us all together,  but illness is individual.  Each person is unique,  and diseases are connected   to their hearts. To know  the illness and help people,  we need liberal and visual  arts, not just medical ones. Life is filled with incidents.  On March 31, 1970, when  I was 59 years old, I boarded  the Yodogo, a flight from  Tokyo to Fukuoka. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and as Mount  Fuji came into sight, the plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist  League-Red Army Faction. I spent the next four days handcuffed to my  seat in 40-degree heat. As a doctor, I looked at it all as an experiment  and was amazed at how the body slowed down in a crisis. * Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than  they could ever do. My father went to the United States in  1900 to study at Duke University in North Carolina. He was a  pioneer and one of my heroes. Later I found a few more life  guides, and when I am stuck, I ask myself how they would  deal with the problem. * It's wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old,  it is easy to work for one's family and to achieve one's  goals. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute  to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a volunteer.  I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love  every minute of it.