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Ikigai

🔗Connect

🔼Topic:: Wellbeing (MOC)

✒️ Note-Making

💡Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas Ten rules of ikigai:

  1. Stay active (don't retire)
  2. Take it slow (relax)
  3. Don't fill your stomach (less is more)
  4. Surround yourself with good friends
  5. Get in shape
  6. Smile (be optimistic)
  7. Reconnect with nature
  8. Give thanks (express gratitude)
  9. Live in the moment (mindfulness)
  10. Follow your life's mission

🗒️Relate

Life lessons, action items

🔍Critique

by following this method, what will happen? Longer and better life - by finding the meaning in our lives we can be much happier and live longer

the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are...

🗨️Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style... This book is a mess, it tries to talk about various contributors to longevity, sometimes jumping between points without connection to each other and to ikigai, the main message of the book. Since it's such a short book, it fails it's mission and becomes only a collection of arguments with no depth or explanation. It's somewhere between a rough draft and a research suggestion rather than something polished.

📒 Notes

Prologue

ikigai is the key for prolonged healthy living

Ikigai

The art of staying young while growing old

ikigai is the "raison d'être", it's why we get up in the morning, it's the enjoyment of being busy.

It can be perceived as the combination of:

  1. Passion - what you love doing
  2. Profession - what you are good at
  3. Vocation - what you can be paid to do
  4. Mission - what the world needs

Japanese don't have a word for retirement, their ikigai remains relevant until the end. Usually a sense of ikigai is connected with a "moai", a community of close friends.

When we explore the blue zones where people are likely to reach very old ages, we see that it's a combination of good nutrition, ikigai and moai that supports their health.

IKIGAI
  • the keys to longevity are diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life (an ikigai), and forming strong social ties—that is, having a broad circle of friends and good family relations. (Location 163)

Anti-aging Secrets

Little things that can add up to a long and happy life

To keep both body and mind healthy, we should maintain:

  1. Intellectually challenging life - to keep training our brain, dealing with new information, learning something new, and playing games lifelong learning
  2. Social life - to be in contact with others relationships
  3. Positivity - to maintain an optimistic look on life
  4. Movement - to keep our body active, walking more and sitting less
  5. sleep - at least 8 hours a day
  6. Reduce stress - while it could be beneficial in small short doses, having a prolonged exposure to stress can harm the body
ANTIAGING SECRETS
  • Presented with new information, the brain creates new connections and is revitalized. This is why it is so important to expose yourself to change, even if stepping outside your comfort zone means feeling a bit of anxiety. (Location 228)
  • Dealing with new situations, learning something new every day, playing games, and interacting with other people seem to be essential antiaging strategies for the mind. Furthermore, a more positive outlook in this regard will yield greater mental benefits. (Location 238)

From Logotherapy to Ikigai

How to live longer by finding your purpose

Both logotherapy and Moria therapy work by focusing on the future, on finding your meaning in life was the main way to overcome crisis, to accept the emotions and pain you are experiencing without trying to get rid of those.

Find Flow in Everything You Do

How to turn work and free time into spaces for growth

Ikigai is when we combine our personal mission with the action that brings it to life. These two together form the sensation of flow, of becoming one with the task, forgetting ourselves and entering an harmonious state of self fulfillment.

Flow requires:

  1. Right amount of challenge
  2. No distractions
  3. Something you enjoy doing
  4. Focusing just on one thing
FIND FLOW IN EVERYTHING
  • The happiest people are not the ones who achieve the most. They are the ones who spend more time than others in a state of flow. (Location 897)

Masters of Longevity

Words of wisdom from the longest living people in the world

Don't be afraid of dieing, find something you are passionate about, be surrounded by family and eat and rest well.

Lessons from Japan's Centenarian

Traditions and proverbs for happiness and longevity

The Ikigai Diet

What the world's longest living people eat and drink

  1. 5 types of vegetables
  2. Low sugar if any
  3. Eat until you're 80% full
  4. Drink green tea
LESSONS FROM JAPAN’S CENTENARIANS
  • “The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” (Location 1118)

Gentle Movements Longer Life

Exercises from the east that promote healthy and longevity

Movement is essential for our health, and throughout the ages each culture has found it's way to keep movement as part of our daily lives, from yoga, to tai-chi, radio taiso, gigong.

Resilience and Wabi Sabi

How to face life's challenges without letting stress and worry age you

To live well we need to overcome challenges, to develop emotional resilience. This can be either through beliefs such as Buddhism and stoicism that teach us to prepare mentally to the worse possible outcome while detaching ourselves from what happens to us. We can remember the importance of Wabi Sabi, the beauty in imperfection, and the concept of anti fragility, the ability to use randomness and risk to our benefit by making sure we only expose ourselves to positive randomness.

Conclusion

Ten rules of ikigai:

  1. Stay active (don't retire)
  2. Take it slow (relax)
  3. Don't fill your stomach (less is more)
  4. Surround yourself with good friends
  5. Get in shape
  6. Smile (be optimistic)
  7. Reconnect with nature
  8. Give thanks (express gratitude)
  9. Live in the moment (mindfulness)
  10. Follow your life's mission

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