The Joy of Laziness: Why Life Is Better Slower and How to Get There

By Peter Axt

This surprise bestseller in Germany will change work and play habits -- and lives. It contradicts much popular thinking about how to lead a long, healthy and happy life, and it does so based on scientifically grounded arguments and research which shows that the key to good health, success and longevity is the CONSERVATION of life energy.

On the basis of the scientifically recognized Metabolic Theory, this book develops a program that can work for everyone. It explains the scientific correlation between life energy and longevity in an easy-to-understand way. The authors have found through their research that older but hearty and active people often do not follow the regimen we have believed was the secret to a long life. They are calm in every situation; they enjoy life, play sports in moderation, eat little and do not waste their valuable life energy. They are not excessively ambitious. All this seems to be the secret to vitality and good health.

The book contains valuable tips and advice for everyone who wants to stay healthy and live longer, energy-saving suggestions about eating, working and exercising, and quizzes to test your stress level, life energy and physical well-being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Sep 19, 2003
• ISBN: 9781630265311

Book preview

[Introduction]

Good health is a present you must give yourself

Bodo Werner

Do you believe you need to keep up an intense fitness regimen in order to live longer?

Are you of the opinion that getting up early is a sign of dynamic living and vitality?

Do you advocate the view that professional success is impossible without a ten-hour workday?

Do you still think it’s healthy to sleep in a cold bedroom?

Do you believe it’s healthy to eat five small meals a day?

Forget it! Recent scientific research indicates that in the future we will need to rethink our attitudes completely if we want to become healthy, successful, and productive in the long term.

In researching our book Just Stay Young, we came across facts that call into question countless theories about success, productivity, and health. Excessive athletic ambition, cold morning showers, and getting up early actually seem to be detrimental to a long, healthy life. Again and again, we met older but hearty and active people who did not meet standard expectations for healthy behavior. At first we thought that good genes were responsible for their exemplary health and fitness. This was not the case. The parents of the subjects in this group were no more long-lived than the parents of their fitness- and health-conscious peers. But the long-lived subjects had definite advantages over other people: They were calm in every situation, and they enjoyed life, played sports—if at all—in moderation, ate little, and did not waste their valuable life energy. Excessive ambition was foreign to them. This approach to life seems to be the secret to vitality and good health.

In light of our research and current scientific findings, we have developed a program that will help you achieve health and well-being in an enjoyable way, while giving you a good chance of staying young longer.

The wonderful and amazing thing about this program is this: You can finally, with a clear conscience, do what you have never dared to do—relax and do nothing for a change! For the first time, you are being given scientifically grounded arguments telling you why it’s all right to be lazy every so often; why too much exercise will make you sick; why late sleepers live longer; how you can become smarter and healthier by being relaxed and even-tempered; and why going south for winter vacation can help you live longer.

Other Things We Would Like You to Know

about This Book

1. In our book you will find valuable tips for a long, active, and healthy life. The basis of our suggestions is the theory of metabolism (life energy), first introduced by Max Rubner, a German physiologist, in 1908. The life-lengthening suggestions made in our book are built upon this theory. A reading of the first chapter is, therefore, a prerequisite in order to understand our suggestions. The chapters thereafter are self-contained. You may read the book either in the order in which we have presented it or select chapters of particular interest to you.

2. You will probably not be able to, or even want to, put all of our recommendations into practice immediately. This is not necessary. We recommend that you choose a few of our suggestions that you can easily integrate into your daily routine. Every recommendation that you take conserves valuable life energy and is a stepping-stone to a longer and healthier life.

— Peter Axt & Michaela Axt-Gadermann

1

Chapter

one

A Mouse

Has as Much

Life Energy

as an Elephant

In this chapter you will learn

why we must do nothing in order to stay healthy and fit

why animals live longer in a zoo

how much energy each person has in his or her lifetime account

which markers of longevity you should watch

Not Everyone Looks Their Age

Recently, a patient came into my (Dr. Michaela Axt-Gadermann) dermatology office to get some advice regarding a skin problem before her trip to the Philippines. At first I thought my assistant had given me the wrong patient’s paperwork. I had estimated the woman’s age at about 65, but according to the information on her card she was already 84. Since I am always interested in finding out secret recipes for staying young, I naturally asked what her method was for looking so young, and for her apparent vitality and good health. I don’t know exactly, of course, she responded, but since my marriage at age 31, my husband and I have fasted one day every week. Also, I have always tried to maintain my calm and be relaxed in any situation. She’d never done any sports. On the contrary, I’m actually pretty lazy and I like to sleep late. This secret recipe was nothing spectacular, I thought at first. In the meantime, I’ve realized it’s sensational.

You yourself have probably, at more than one time in your life, realized that you have completely misjudged a person’s age. If you’re only a year or two off, others can usually accept it. Your mistake is within the bounds of tolerance. It is more embarrassing when you mistakenly judge a person to be 10 or more years older. In these cases, you often excuse yourself by saying that you are a bad judge of age, and that this is why you were mistaken. More likely, however, is that you have made no mistake at all, and you have correctly established the person’s age on the basis of his or her appearance and behavior. All of us have, in the course of our lives, saved the images of people and their accompanying ages in our brains. When we encounter another person, our brain—much like a computer—calculates the average of these saved images and compares this value to the appearance of the new person, all within a split second. Our ability to judge the age of another person depends heavily on these experiential data and can vary widely from the person’s actual age. A person’s appearance, however, often gives us important information about his or her biological (functional) age. Someone whose age is often underestimated is usually in better shape and is biologically younger than his contemporaries. Fortunately, the speed at which one ages is not inevitable. The tempo of the aging process can be influenced. With our program, you hold in your hands the potential to let your biological clock run a little slower, helping you stay young longer. If, however, you continue to live like most of your peers, you will age like them too.

How You May Age If You Don’t

Change Your Life

Around age 25:

Your muscles’ ability to react is decreasing imperceptibly.

Around age 30:

The first lines become visible around your eyes. Your bones have reached their maximum strength, and from now on bone density decreases. Men notice that their hair is getting thinner.

Around age 35:

Your hearing is a little worse, but in most cases you don’t notice it because the ability to hear high-pitched sounds goes first.

Around age 40:

Heart function decreases after age 40. For men, testosterone levels decrease by approximately 1 percent every year. It becomes harder to read the newspaper. You have to hold the paper farther and farther away in order to focus on the small print—this is the first sign of farsightedness. Perhaps you already need reading glasses.

Around age 45:

If you are a woman, you are probably entering menopause now. Your body produces fewer hormones. Bone density is decreasing rapidly. If you are a man, you may notice that the bald spots on your head are spreading, while body hair is noticeably thicker. Diminished testosterone is largely responsible for these changes.

For both sexes: Calorie requirements are much lower. You gain weight as muscles are replaced by fat.

Around age 50:

Your ability to process oxygen decreases. Circulation grows worse.

Ages 60 to 70:

Short-term memory function decreases. You can still recite the poems you learned in school, but sometimes don’t know where you put your car keys. In addition, your immune system is not as effective as it used to be, and colds last longer. Your sense of balance decreases. Approximately one in three women and one in five men suffer from osteoporosis, or decreased bone density. One in three people has clogged arteries. Since the age of 20, your muscle mass has decreased by 11 to 20 lbs (5 to 9 kg).

How Your Organs Tell Your Age

¹

You Must Do Nothing in Order to Stay

Healthy and Fit

Every organism ages over the course of its life. That cannot be changed. You can, however, influence the speed at which your aging progresses. What do you have to do in order to put the brakes on aging? You may be surprised to learn that we are not recommending an extreme fitness program, sending you to a plastic surgeon, or prescribing hormone treatments. Until now, you have undoubtedly received quite different answers to these questions. You may have been of the opinion that getting through a triathlon was the key to good health and resilience, and that a ten-hour workday was the only way to achieve professional success and societal recognition.

We, on the other hand, are advising composure, contentedness, moderation, and even occasional indolence if you want to be healthy, productive, and successful. Contentedness and moderation do not mean that you have to be contented with mediocre things and unsatisfactory situations. What we mean is that you should avoid extremes in all areas of your life. Extreme sports, excessive eating, and false ambition are factors that can steal our energy, cause us to age faster, and shorten our lives.

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think, advised the playwright Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965). Do not be afraid of peace and quiet, of doing nothing, of laziness or indolence—for during this seemingly unproductive time you are doing something wonderful for

Reviews for The Joy of Laziness

[noblechicken · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting story, or more a clarification of the 1806 "murder" of the 1st Professor of law in the US, George Wythe. Wythe was an elderly man, 80, when he was purportedly poisoned by his nephew. The case was a shocker for the time; a signer of the Declaration of Independence, educator of men like Thomas Jefferson, poisoned by his blood relative for money. To only tell the story of this case, which is interesting, would fill only about 100 pages, so there is a lot of padding in the book, to bring it just under 250 pages. The padding is not bad; Richmond, VA at the time of the late 1700/ early 1800s, history of various people poisoned, law in the the U.S. regarding African Americans in "White" trials, history of various doctors who did Wythe's autopsy (botched), and a slight biography of Wythe himself. Sometimes it is relevant, interesting and then sometimes it feels like just a listing of things that happened, paragraph by paragraph. Take the history of various people poisoned in history section; it goes paragraph after paragraph, from Pharaohs to Kings, being poisoned for power. It borders on silly when Chadwick, I guess in an effort to add ONE MORE paragraph, adds the plays of Shakespeare as an example of poisoning. Okay...why and how is this relevant to an 1806 murder? So yes, you do realize it is padding to make a book at time, but overall I would say worth a check out at the library if the subject interests you.