Ikigai
Embrace your Ikigai; you will undoubtedly experience a long and fulfilling life
Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means finding happiness in being busy. It explains how diet and Okinawa’s climate contribute to record-setting old age.
“Ikigai derives its name from two Japanese words: iki, meaning life or alive, and kai, meaning an effect, a fruit, or a result.”—Héctor García, Francesc Miralles.
The authors’ study of the Ogimi village residents in Okinawa, Japan, revealed unique aspects of their lifestyle. These individuals, who generally live longer than most, prioritize teamwork and are centered around the concept of ikigai. By learning and practicing the same principles, you can extend your life and live it to the fullest. This summary will dissect the ikigai concept into actionable steps you can quickly understand and implement.
Let’s begin with a good definition. Your ikigai refers to a union of what you love, what the world needs in your generation, what you get paid to do, and what you’re good at.
The goal is to find a sweet spot between all four components because ikigai is about helping you live a balanced life. This brings us to why no word in Japanese means “retire:” When you find your ikigai, you’ll want to work until you die or your body gets too weak to work. Why? Because you love the work, and your motivation is not something external.
The “Blue Zones” are the five zones where people live the longest. Okinawa ranks top, followed by Italy’s Sardinia, California’s Loma Linda, Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, and Ikaria in Greece.
The Blue Zones, where people live the longest, offer practical examples of a fulfilling lifestyle. These include healthy eating, regular exercise, meditation, and pursuing a life purpose. As we progress, we will delve deeper into these practices.
Nearly 25 in every 100,000 people in Okinawa, Japan, are centenarians.
An active mind and mindfulness are essential for a truly fulfilling life
Some scientists believe that technology makes it possible to reach biological immortality. Another group of scientists assumes there is an age limit we can’t exceed. Some have concluded that this age limit is 120 years since cell regeneration stops at that age. All these theories are still under research, so there’s yet to be a viable conclusion. However, Blue Zone residents have proven that you can preserve your body by tending to your mind and, thus, live more decades. An active and adaptable mind generally helps people live longer.
According to Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, your best bet for a healthy and long life is regular mental and physical exercise. These activities are crucial for maintaining a sharp mind and strong body; we will explore them further in this summary.
Your mind will decay if you allow it to remain inactive. Scientifically, some vital neural connections will deteriorate if you don’t engage them through mental exercises. This effect reflects reduced reactions to the environment, which is common in older people who allow their minds to deteriorate after retiring. Many people are unaware of this, so they unknowingly will enable it to happen. Some mental exercises to avoid being idle include:
• Learning a skill
• Playing board games
• Taking a dance class
• Teaching
Another thing that ages people too quickly is excessive stress. Having conducted several studies, the American Institute of Stress has attributed most health problems to stress and how it inhibits the activity of certain vital hormones that fight heart disease, depression, and anxiety.
Regular mindfulness practice will reduce stress, helping you become healthier and more productive. Some popular mindfulness activities include breathing exercises, meditation, and yoga. Most centenarians have worked well into old age. A sedentary lifestyle causes various diseases, affecting the heart and immune system. It also stimulates the appetite and makes the body age quickly.
Some simple activities to incorporate into your daily life will help boost your immune system and make you healthier:
• Walk to work or take a twenty-minute walk each day.
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
• Spend your time socializing or taking part in leisure activities.
• Embrace healthy eating habits.
• Make sure you get enough sleep.
• Be intentional about your daily routines. Replace negative patterns with positive ones.
Understanding your purpose empowers you to master the way you do it
The meaning of life is to embrace finding your purpose and taking steps toward it. Anything else you do will lead to frustration.
Gladly, there are many strategies for finding and living your purpose. One of them is logotherapy, developed by psychiatrist Viktor Frankl.
Many people are in work situations that do not suit them. Consequently, they get plunged into an existential crisis — feeling hopeless and drowning in guilt, fear, and anxiety from believing their lives have no meaning. If this is you, here are some tips from logotherapy to overcome it:
• Observe and discover what you’re meant to do in life.
• Be flexible about your reason for being.
• Eliminate worry — it is counterproductive.
• Learn to laugh and make people laugh.
• Never forget that you have control over your actions.
Another thing that can help you discover and advance your purpose is Morita therapy, created by Japanese psychiatrist and philosopher Dr. Shoma Morita. It teaches letting out and embracing emotions instead of trying to control them.
Dr. Shoma Morita recommends changing your feelings through actions. The concept is that instead of bottling them up, you increase the range of your emotions until you can change how you feel. The fundamentals of Morita therapy are:
• Accept your feelings.
• Do what you should.
• Find your life’s purpose.
Morita therapy lasts for about 21 days and comprises four phases:
• Phase 1: Isolating yourself and taking a rest (five to seven days)
• Phase 2: Light occupational therapy (five to seven days)
• Phase 3: Occupational therapy (five to seven days)
• Phase 4: Going back to social interactions and “reality
“Don’t store your emotions; allow them to course through your body and be transformed into other forms of energy.”—Héctor García, Francesc Miralles.
Logotherapy and Morita therapy can help you discover your uniqueness, learn how to navigate your future and live your life to the fullest.
When you do what you love, fatigue doesn’t exist; time stands still in those moments
Discovering your ikigai begins with identifying when you are happiest and what makes you forget your worries.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this state “flow.” Flow is a state of 100% concentration when you’re doing something you love and are good at, your mind is ordered, and you’re having fun. Irrespective of what you do, everyone attains flow through the same process.
“When you focus intensely on a task long enough, you will get into a state of flow where you feel fully immersed.”—Héctor García, Francesc Miralles.
DePaul University and Chicago scientist Owen Schaffer has come up with seven steps for achieving flow:
• Stay objective in what you do.
• Possess skillfulness.
• Measure your level of skill.
• Have a destination in mind.
• Identify obstacles to surmount.
• Identify skills needed.
• Block out distractions.
Several strategies can help you achieve flow more easily.
Strategy 1: Choose a task with a considerable level of complexity.
Strategy 2: Be clear about the goal you want to achieve.
Strategy 3: Focus on the task at hand.
Don’t try to multitask. Choose one activity and pour your all into doing it well.
“We often think combining tasks will save us time, but scientific evidence shows that it has the opposite effect.”—Héctor García and Francesc Miralles.
The brain is not limitless. Your energy is a valuable fuel you would want to spend wisely. The more tasks you do simultaneously — the less appealing results await you. Scientists say multitasking decreases productivity by 60% and IQ by ten points. Also, it is essential to feel good while performing a task. Concentrating on a single thing eliminates anxiety and creates a feeling of control.
Supercentenarians provide invaluable insights into achieving long and healthy lives
A supercentenarian is anyone who has lived for at least 110 years. There are about 450 supercentenarians, though only 75 have confirmed their ages. Listening to supercentenarians provides insight into what we need to do to join their ranks.
Misao Okawa is one such person. She lived 117 years and 27 days and cared for herself for 110 of those years. When asked about her secrets, she said they involved healthy eating and quality sleep.
Jeanne Calment is another supercentenarian. She passed away at 122, making her the oldest person in history. Calment smoked until she could no longer see to bring a cigarette to her lips. Even in old age, she had a good sense of humor.
Walter Breuning, the second oldest man of verified age in the United States, died in 2011 at 114. In one interview with The Associated Press, he shared that people should never be afraid of death because we were all born to die someday.
We should face life confidently if we learn anything from these supercentenarians.
“Be too busy living a healthy and productive life to worry about when you’ll die.”—Héctor García, Francesc Miralles
Try to avoid things that negatively affect your health. Detach yourself from some modern-day practices and embrace ancient wisdom, such as the ikigai concept.
“The secret to a long life is not to worry. And to keep your heart young — don’t let it grow old.”—Member of the Village of Longevity.
The Okinawa diet is packed with antioxidants, and its residents prioritize regular physical activity
Okinawa was one of the regions most affected by the Second World War. Yet, its citizens have recovered, surpassing the world’s longest-living people. As mentioned in previous chapters, the residents of Okinawa boast a track record of healthy eating. In addition, there were no trains in the province when the authors wrote the book, so when residents are not driving, they walk or cycle.
People rarely die of cardiovascular diseases in Okinawa, and diet and regular exercise certainly have a lot to do with it. Makoto Suzuki, a heart specialist at the University of the Ryukyus, studied Okinawa’s diet and published a body of work on it some years ago. The following are vital conclusions from the book:
• They eat lots of vegetables.
• At least five meals a day contain fruit and other greens.
• Their diet fundamentally has grain.
• The only sugar they consume is cane sugar.
• Their salt intake is very low, half of what those in other Japanese areas consume.
• Their calorie consumption is low.
Here are some foods that Okinawans eat to stay healthy and live long: tofu, carrots, goya (bitter melon), cabbage, nori (seaweed), onion, soy sprouts, soybeans (boiled or raw), sweet potato, peppers, jasmine tea.
“A diet rich in antioxidants contributes to the longevity of life.”—Héctor García, Francesc Miralles.
The Blue Zones show that moving naturally and healthily does more for the body than exercise. So, you may live in a city and visit the gym regularly but have yet to attain the level of fitness of Blue Zone people.
Yoga’s origins come from India but is also viral in Japan. Like yoga, China’s qigong and tai chi bring harmony between the body and mind. They fill people with power, clarity, calm, and happiness. Tai chi increases blood flow, slows the progression of some diseases, and helps make muscles flexible. It helps relieve stress and makes you feel less depressed. It is suitable for people of all ages, especially older people who cannot lift weights anymore.
Other simple but effective body movements include Radio Taiso and Shiatsu. Shiatsu helps treat arthritis and enhances the body’s energy flow. Learning to move your body correctly can bring you harmony and health.
Master the art of resilience and turn adversity into an advantage to conquer the aging effects of stress and worry
You may have discovered and passionately pursued your life’s purpose, but you still hit hard rocks; those challenging moments are inevitable. They come to, among other things, develop in you the strengths you need for your next level. Therefore, resilience is a necessity. Have a never-giving-up spirit.
“Train your mind, emotions, and body to confront life’s hurdles.”—Héctor García, Francesc Miralles
Resilience is about bouncing back after a fall to do what makes your life meaningful. Never give in to challenges that seek to discourage you by staying flexible and focused on why you do the things you do. Change the things you can, but do not allow the things you can’t change to change you.
Here’s a simple exercise to cultivate resilience: ask yourself what the worst-case scenario is in any given situation. Then, train yourself to react to this extreme circumstance if it happens.
Meditation is another practice that can help you build resilience. It enables you to live in the present and acknowledge the impermanence of things.
Lebanese American essayist and risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb believes that antifragility is better than resilience.
“An antifragile person benefits from disorder instead of simply bouncing back to a former state.”—Héctor García, Francesc Miralles
To become more antifragile, do the following:
• Be proactive by having multiple income streams, making new friends, picking up new interests, and not letting life take you by surprise.
• Go all in with certain things and spread your investment to others.
• Do away with things that make you fragile.
Conclusion
Powerful forces are seeking to distract us from leading meaningful lives. Money, fame, attention, and success are some examples. Life is imperfect, but we can learn to do what we love, what we are good at, what the world needs, and what is rewarding as we work through the imperfection. Doing what is meaningful to us can be a great antidote to despair.
No one-size-fits-all strategy exists to connect with our ikigai because our situations differ. However, the Okinawans have shown us some clues that can guide our search for meaning. The long-living people of Ogimi share their wisdom in these ten principles:
Curiosity and intuition are strong internal guides that help you find your ikigai. Please don’t lose your grip on them. In addition, be busy doing what makes you happy and fills your life with meaning.
• Keep doing things of value that shape the world until you die.
• Stop living in the fast lane to enjoy a better quality of life.
• Eat a little less than your hunger demands.
• Keep friends with whom you can share your worries and good stories.
• Exercise to release hormones that make you happy.
• Smile often. It wins you more friends and helps you see a world of possibilities.
• Connect with nature to recharge your batteries.
• Maintain an attitude of gratitude.
• Make every day count and leave the past in the past.
• Discover the passion inside you that gives meaning to your days.
Take a moment to reflect and give this a try!
Investing time in discovering and establishing a connection with your passions is essential. Delve into what truly ignites your enthusiasm, recognize your unique talents, identify the world’s needs, and consider the aspects of your work that provide financial stability. By aligning these elements—your passions, skills, societal contributions, and monetary rewards—you can create a fulfilling and purpose-driven life that resonates with who you are at your core.
